A Summer to Remember

Dublin

The Homeland, best weekend of the trip, and my favorite city we’ve been to!

Travel and the Stadiums:

I was so exciting to go to Ireland. I am very Irish and it has always been a dream of mine to go to Ireland. Being of Scottish, French and Irish ancestry, I have had the chance to visit Scotland and France but never Ireland. Needless to say, I was very excited to visit Dublin. We left Coventry at 5:30 am and arrived in Dublin around 9 am that morning. Upon our arrival, we rode straight over to the famous Aviva stadium, which is home to the Irish national football team and the Irish Rugby national team. The stadium we saw was the new stadium, which was recently opened in May of 2010, after they demolished the old stadium in 2007. The new stadium at its max capacity manages to fill 51,700 fans in the stadium on a game day and 65,000 for concerts. The arena itself is beautiful. We have seen many arenas on this trip and from my own experience; I say confidently that it was definitely one of the top 2 stadiums we have seen. From the facilities to the tour guides, everyone was friendly and accommodating. We got to listen to the stadium manager, Martin Murphy, discuss the progression of the stadium and the operations of the grounds. It was very interesting sitting there in the press conference/media room listening to the manager discuss the ins and outs of the stadium’s day to day projects as well as the operations on game day. He described the rebuilding of the stadium and it costs them $410 million euros to build the new, beautiful stadium. It turned into a government-sponsored project quickly once they realized the communities demand for a new stadium in the same great location. With the new and improved stadium, they now hold anywhere from 19.5 events annually between concerts and game events. Mr. Murphy explained how customer driven the arena was with their new entrance and exit ways, the number of police and staff on game days and have over 70 people working in the stadium daily (compared to the 3 before). Their biggest objective in driving a stadium completely customer based was that they wanted to make sure that the benefit of seeing the game live outweighed watching the game at a pub or at home. With this mantra as their drive, they have created a friendly environment and a stadium more successful than ever before. They had an amazing presentation for us, which was confidently delivered and was very persuasive in the stadium’s capabilities. They were very accommodating to our group, letting us see their conference rooms, media rooms and live studio sound stages. I think this was best stadium we have visited yet.

On our second day in Dublin, we walked from our hotel over to Croke Park. Croke Park is the famous stadium in Dublin, known for being home to the Dublin Gaelic Football team and the Dublin hurling team. We came to find quickly that the stadium is very proud of hold these historic Irish traditional games. When we arrived, we first went on the stadium’s Skyline Tour. The Skyline Tour was beautiful and exceeded all of my expectations. The breath taking views of the city, the Irish Sea near by and the rolling green hills in the distance, made for a picturesque tour of Dublin from atop the stadium. Although the harsh wind and cold made for a freezing hour or so, it was worth every moment to see the views we saw that day. Once our tour came to an end, we returned our harnesses and returned to the stadium tour. Our tour guy, filled with attitude, gave us great descriptions of the history that was laid in the historical grounds of Croke Park. The stadium was built back in 1884 and has since been the home to the Gaelic games and is the headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). We were taken in to the locker rooms of the grounds and got to see a bunch of the Gaelic team jerseys that are involved in Gaelic football and hurling. Along with the museum and exciting games, he went into depth about the history of the stadiums building and story. I had heard of Bloody Sunday but I did not know that Croke Stadium was where the sad event took place. It was shocking to hear that we were sitting in the very same seats that were attacked that day back in 1920. One of the things I also found to be interesting was that standing area of the arena seating. In America, I do not think you would ever find a big time stadium with designated standing seats where people would stand for hours to watch a game, if they could go watch the game sitting down for free at a local pub. But apparently in Europe this is a common accommodation to have in stadiums. The “seats” are cheaper but you do have to stand for the duration of the game. The standing zone itself looked big, but rather small in comparison to the stadium as a whole. I would stunned to hear him say that it held about 15,000 people! I thought it held at most 3,000 and that was a lot in my mind. Ultimately, the stadium of Croke Park may not have proven to be as extravagant as the others we have seen such as Arsenal, Aviva or Wembley, but the story behind the stadium was far more interesting than most of these modern, decade old stadiums we have had a chance to tour.

Dublin Night Life and Free time:
Aside from Stadium Touring, we stayed at the Gresham Hotel right in Dublin which was the best location. It was central to great shopping, the river that ran through town and Temple Bar Street. We had the most amazing food in Ireland. My first night there a few of us when to Quay’s Restaurant and I had Irish Guinness Beef stew which was AMAZING. I ordered a Smethwick’s beer to go with it and it was superb. After the restaurant we went downstairs to the Quay’s pub and hear some live music, which was honestly some of the most amazing acoustic live guitar I’ve ever heard. I was very impressed by their skills and it was great to hear. The rest of the night we checked out some of the famous pubs on Temple Bar street. We were in Dublin during Temple Bar’s Beatles Festival so all of the bars had live bands blaring the Beatles. It was a great time just traveling up and down the cobble stone streets listening to music and seeing the nightlife. Our whole group actually met up at this pub called The Brazen Head, which is the oldest pub in Dublin. It was built back in 1198 and was a fun atmosphere. We actually ran into some Alpha Delta Pi sisters from Georgia Tech there and talked with them for a bit. Fun running into sisters in another country!

The next day we went to the Guinness factory for a tour, which was an experience unlike any other. We traveled through the whole Guinness making process and made our way up through the tasting to the 5^th floor which was a gravity bar with amazing 360 degree views of Dublin. We also learned how to pour Guinness at the Guinness Academy, which was so cool because I never knew there was an “Art” to pouring Guinness and perfecting it. Very weird but it was a great experience. Before we went to Ireland we all decided to try a Guinness in London and compare it to Ireland. We heard they were extremely different tasting and believe me, I do not like Guinness but it tastes SO MUCH BETTER in Ireland than anywhere else. They explained to us that it is the “Shannon River water” or that it doesn’t travel well. It is also manufactured in the states by Budweiser and tastes 100% different than it does in Dublin. Go to the factory if you can – it was very fun. I already miss Dublin so much it was my favorite city so far and I wish we could have stayed longer! I’d love to go back for longer very soon if I can! It’s an amazing and beautiful city with the nicest people!