04/26/2026
Ireland!! 🇮🇪 Until now all I’ve known about you is that I’ve never met an Irish person I didn’t like or an accent I liked better 😍
Dublin, I underestimated you! I didn’t see the fancy, high-tech feel coming. I traveled from Silicon Valley not knowing I was arriving at the Silicon Docks.
Like a true tourist I started at Temple Bar (confusingly both a bar and the neighborhood it sits in), lively, fascinating, and I suspect frequented almost entirely by tourists 😆
I saw Trinity College’s library, which owns every book published in Ireland and the UK. It’s where the term ‘copyright’ came from, originally about granting the right to copy every book that exists, not limiting it.
I also learned to pour a perfect Guinness pint! And slightly less interesting (😉) is that in 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease on the brewery at £45 a year. Still in effect, until 10,759.
I also learned about the EU’s allergen labeling law, requiring every food business to label 14 allergens (many list 20+) on their menus. For people with serious allergies this is genuinely life-saving, offering freedom and safety to folks who often navigate meals with real fear. As a neuroplasticity and mind-body educator, I also see how constant labeling could feed fear-based persistent symptoms to harmless foods, worth holding alongside the real good it does.
Also crazy to learn that more people of Irish descent live abroad than in Ireland. About 5.4 million live here, while ~70 million worldwide claim Irish ancestry. (I suspect no fewer than 70 million tourists were here the week I visited 😅)
I visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral (~800 years old!). Then our guide Kate recommended a dinner spot that turned out to be an old church converted into a bar/restaurant 🤯 St. Mary’s, built in 1702 and converted in 2007, still has the original pipe organ above the bar! Real public unease at the time, but the alternative was abandonment.
Thank you, Ireland, for the warmth and the unforgettable welcome! I loved every second 💚🇮🇪
