Ireland - Day 18
September 7, 2025: Last day in Ireland! We left Kilkenny early in the morning on a train bound back to Dublin. We had one last day to visit places we didn’t get a chance to get to on the first part of the trip. One stop was the Kilmainham Gaol Museum. Gaol is a dated spelling for jail. For over 100 years this jail held thousands of men, women and even children for crimes ranging from petty theft to political rebellion. Over the centuries, it became infamous as the place where leaders of Ireland’s uprisings (most notably the 1916 Easter Rising) were imprisoned and executed. Closed in 1924, it was later restored and transformed into a museum, now serving as a powerful symbol of Ireland’s struggle for independence and a must-visit destination for history lovers. It is very difficult to get tickets. They go on sale 30 days in advance and sell out within hours of being posted on their website. We were lucky enough to get tickets. Our tour guide did a great job of giving us both the history and what it must have felt like to be imprisoned there.
After our final museum tour in Ireland, we took the Luas tram back to the area we stayed in at the beginning of the trip. We were at 47 pubs visited since arriving in Ireland, so we wanted to see 3 more to make it 50. We were on the hunt for pubs with music for our last night. We found a couple great places we stopped into. One was O’Riordan’s Bar where there were two musicians playing traditional Irish music, then it was on to The Palace Bar which we had tried to go into the last time we were in Dublin but it was too packed. This time we were able to get seating but there was no live music. Next up was The Old Storehouse where there was one musician playing and we was great. We also had our last traditional Irish meal there. I had bangers & mash and Jimm had shepherd’s pie. Our 50th and final pub was O’Neill’s, which was a three level pub on Church Lane. It was a very cool pub and we were able to find a little corner table by the window for our last few pints.
At this point is was time to make our way to the Dublin Airport to drop off our bags. Aer Lingus gave us the option to drop our bags in the evening so we could save time in the morning. We were staying at the Radisson Blu next door so it was perfect! We dropped our bags and took the shuttle to the hotel. Did some final packing and called it a night. I will write another post about my overall impressions of Ireland and tips for anyone looking to travel here, but this post is already going to be late. Sad to say goodbye to Ireland!