Our bus arrived in Swords. We may have gotten off the bus a stop too early, but it worked. We walked down a busy street (though there were sidewalks) and turned left to the hotel, pretty close.
We stayed at the Premier Inn with a shuttle for 3 Euro each to the airport, 7 minute trip, that was on the :15's of each hour (except maybe on the door on our room mentioned two hours that it did not run or did not run four times in those two hours). Luckily, our hours were covered. We were going to leave at 7:00 am, but were ready early, so caught the 6:45 am bus instead. On the bus, we were on with a couple moving from Ireland to Oslo, Norway. They had about 8 bags/duffles to do this and that's all.
But to jump back, we checked in; they pushed their restaurant. We asked about the bus, and he suggested that we may not have time for restaurant breakfast after all since we had an early departure.
Our hotel room was nice; it was more business-traveler geared, very similar to our hotel in LHR. It had a good shower though only half wall, so it did splash out. Since we were only there one night, I was finished with my towel and used it to dry the floor after showering. I kept the rug at far enough distance to keep it dry. Both the room and bathroom were roomy. We had the right number of pillows.
After settling in, we walked to Swords Tower and then to the Castle. The Tower was at a church with a cemetery.
We then headed to find the Swords Castle.
They were setup for food vendors, but none were operating...bummer, that could have been interesting and tasty. Travis in the guillotine. Rooms up in a corner tower.
The chapel with a few levels above it that looked down into it.
At the end of our visit, we rested a little bit and then decided to visit the information booth. We were just looking at the displays outside, but a lady came out with a pamphlet, told us what to see, and that they were closed soon. We were mostly finished but stop by the chapel again from her recommendation.
We then found cheap drinks at Wetherspoons. One that was 2.05 Euro where we could use up some Euros. It sounded like pubs do not like Wetherspoons undercutting their prices, but these were a much better deal. It was also a hotel.
I did not notice honking in Dublin or Galway, but I noticed a lot of honking in Drogheda and Swords. Weird. Maybe rules against it in the bigger cities?
We stop at Circle K and Tesco for pastries (they were half price this late in the day), dinner, and plane snacks.
We were told that Ireland has US Passport and Customs, so that we needed to allow time before our flight. However, this seems very strange; we have always gone through US Passport/Immigration and Customs after landing in the US. We did not even land in the DFW international terminal D where all this is setup. What special international agreement exist with Ireland to allow this?
I always like a 40,000 feet picture from the plane if I have a window. Not a great one, but ice near Greenland. Our flight home was great -- we had an empty seat in our row and were in row 12.
Our Ireland trip was wonderful. It was so beautiful, green as promised, and everyone was so friendly and polite.