This September, I had a chance to visit Ireland for the first time. As an American with Irish ancestry, I can tell you there’s one thing we love and that’s being Irish(ish). Us Irish-Americans are really proud of our history. 🙂 Truth be told, I don’t know much about my Irish heritage. So I was very excited to visit the motherland and learn more about where my family came from.

My aunt and uncle had visited Ireland extensively in the past and were able to give us a lot of travel tips. She was also able to give me a lot of history about my family. Along with learning more about the families I’m descended from, I also learned that I might be related to my business partner. It’s probably a long shot, but would that be wild?

We arrived in Dublin late in the evening. Naturally the first thing we did was hit the pubs. We stayed in Temple Bar which put us right in the middle of the action. Temple Bar is also a known tourist trap – the locals warned us often of buying pints after 10PM, when many bars start to quietly jack up the prices. But seeing how it was our first time in Ireland, and we are in fact tourist, we didn’t mind so much – in fact, we loved it! But perhaps next time we visit we’ll stay in local neighborhood for a more authentic experience. Either way, it was a great first evening in a city we’ve always dreamed of visiting.