Follow our journey on this map.

Day 31 started out a bit cloudy and cold but quickly resolved to a clear day with just a few clouds.

After breakfast at the hotel our group (26 people in a 50-person comfortable bus) went to visit EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum. It’s a fully immersive experience. There are no artifacts, just a high use of engaging digital technology.

The exhibition is made up of twenty galleries which are each individually themed, and fall under the headings of Migration, Motivation, Influence and Diaspora Today. The "Migration" galleries, for example, deal with migration patterns from Ireland since 500AD. These galleries cover religious missionary work, the Irish famine, religious and social persecution, criminal transportation, and the effects of Irish involvement in foreign conflicts. Displays include a series of video testimonies from six Irish emigrants.

With more people of Irish lineage living outside Ireland, it’s no wonder people want to trace their history. Mae’s maternal great grandparents immigrated from Ireland to New Orleans in the 1830s. The museum had a tool that allowed Mae to enter her name, the name of her grandparents, and the date of immigration to the US. At the completion of that data, a digital wall showed how many people have also identified that family and remained visible to take a selfie. There are two of those included below.

Among the displays was a very forceful national marketing campaign aimed at negative stereotypes of Irish men. The description said that they fed “Irish Man” into a number of AI-ptio search tools and came up with very unflattering images of an Irish Man. I’ve included 2 shots below to show what they’re doing. It is a very interesting, in your face, campaign.

The next stop was also interesting and enjoyable: the Guinness Storehouse. This was a very well-designed immersive experience into how Guinness makes their products. One of the options was to get “certified” to pour a glass of Guinness. Of course, I had to do it! One thing I never knew is that on a Guinness tap, there are two directions for the handle. Pull the handle down to fill a glass with the nozzle touching the glass held at 45 degrees until the liquid hits the top of the harp. At that point place the glass on the counter until the nitrogen agitation stops. Then return the glass to the tap, push the handle away from you, and fill until the foam just barely comes over the top of the glass. That was a lot of fun!

After that education we went to the gravity bar on the top of the building to get a 360-degree view of Dublin and another glass of Guinness of course. One of the surprising discoveries from up there is just how much construction is going on in Dublin. You’ll see the cranes in one of the shots below.

From there we headed to Kinnitty Castle which is a 19th-century gothic revival castle and hotel in Kinnitty, County Offaly. It is located north of the Slieve Bloom Mountains between the villages of Kinnitty and Cadamstown. The first castle on the property was destroyed in 1209 and rebuilt by the Normans in 1231. There were a number of sieges, demolitions, remodelings, fires and reconstructions over the next 600+ years resulting in a very cool hotel.

The structure is largely untouched to allow a real “castle” experience. There are halls, hidden rooms, staircases going up, down and to nowhere. The rooms feel very authentic. I just had to take a photo of the toilet, which indeed looks like a “throne.” There’s also a shot of Mae hanging out with vintage cannons; that shot never gets old to me. She’s not always so thrilled.

The grounds are awesome although we’ve been told that the proper Irish adjectives are “lovely” and “grand;” “awesome” is not allowed!

Dinner was served in the grand dining room followed by a drink (Kinnetty Castle 10 year Irish whiskey) in the drawing room.