Good Friday was a Great Friday!

For the first time in 91 years alcohol can be sold in Ireland on Good Friday. Back in 1927, legislation was brought in to ban the sale but after years of discussion it was changed and the ban is no longer.

It means that there will be no rushes to the Off Licences on the Thursday before Good Friday with huge queues to buy alcohol for fear of "running out" on the day!!  I'm sure the pub owners are happy but the Off Licence owners probably aren't.

So given that I have always partaken in a drink on Good Friday, I continued as always.

Dillingers was open for brunch (for the first time on Good Friday again due to the law change) so we headed there for a bite to eat late in the day nearing the end of their brunch which is on 12pm to 4pm.

Food was great as usual and my vodka & diet coke was served in my usual glass so it certainly made for a GREAT Friday!

 

Can you tell how hungry I was?! I ordered this steak and eggs - I hadn't eaten all day til 3pm

 

Above is chilli fries and below are wings and vegetarian tacos.  All so so good!!

Dog Friendly Ireland - Isle of Dogs preview

We were spotted in the Herald by a friend.

Check us out in the top right corner at the Isle of Dogs preview in the Lighthouse Cinema.

The Lighthouse Cinema has now added lots of Dog Friendly screenings of Isle of Dogs over the Easter weekend due to popular demand. 

The #DogFriendlyIreland movement is starting!!!

A Whole World at your Local Library

Do you know about all of these services that are offered in your local library?!

Isle of Dogs - Dog Friendly Screening at the Lighthouse Cinema

What a fun morning at the cinema! We were up early (after losing an hour due to the clocks going forward) to take Bones for a long walk to calm him down before a special event.

The Lighthouse Cinema were holding a dog friendly screening of the new Wes Anderson movie the Isle of Dogs which we were really excited to have got tickets to.

Bones got his own ticket and it was really exciting to walk up to the cinema and see lots of people with dogs heading on in.
Bones was a little nervous at first because there were so many other dogs and big crowds but before long he was making friends with other doggies.

 When we took our he seats he just chilled out and then proceeded to sleep through the whole film.......which is no reflection on the movie as we thought it was brilliant!!

Before the screening there was coffee and pastries with dog biscuits and water provided for the VIP guests.

Here's the obligatory selfie in the cinema

It was a lovely visit to the cinema and if dog friendly screenings become more common it is something that we definitely would do again.

There were a lot of dogs at the screening so I was expecting some bad behaviour but amazingly there was none! Just one big bark from a large dog when the film started and then a little howling when the dogs in the movie howled!!
But the best thing was there was nobody checking their phone or chatting through the film! The dogs were definitely better behaved than humans at the cinema ;-)

And after the cinema we went and had a very tasty full Irish breakfast in The Third Space in Smithfield

You can read more about this dog friendly movie screening on the Daily Edge here

St Patrick's Day Parade RTE - Mna na hEireann

Des and Blanaid introduce the Suffragette cyclists from Dublin Cycling Campaign in the St Patricks Day parade 2018.  Look out for me at about 1.30!

Happy St Patrick's Day 2018

St Patrick's Day 2018 was wonderful!

I set my alarm to give myself an early start and get the dog walked and get myself organised and on my way to my sisters place.
I then had a tasty full Irish with my twin sister in her apartment. Thanks for the great hospitality Amy!

Afterwards we cycled (rather quickly as we were a little late) in costume over to Constitution Hill to meet up with the Dublin Cycling Campaign who we were parading with with.

Our group was made up of 100 women on bikes dressed as Suffragettes to celebrate 100 years of the vote for women or "Votáil 100" as it is known as gaeilge.

Our cycle was led by Senator Ivan Bacik and Meterologist Joanna Donnelly. Unfortunately even though we had a weather woman among us we were not favoured with the weather - it was cold, cold, cold. Luckily Amy and I wore layers upon layers so were not too bad and we warmed up quickly once we got cycling.

There were lots of different costumes but we all wore homemade sashes - some in the purple and green of suffragettism and some in the Irish colours as Irish suffragettes were very much aligned with the Independence movement.

Here's the pair of us ready to get going. As you can see we started without hat scarves but it was so windy that they were badly needed so we whipped them out and tied them around our hats.

  

Artist Laragh Pittman created the phenomental signage along with Freedom Machine coordinator and creator Donna Cooney.

You can check out more pictures by looking up #FreedomMachine on Twitter.

Here is meterologist Joanna Donnelly up the front and leading the way. Joanna is a regular cyclist and often cycles in to RTE to present the weather forecast. 

Here is Amy in old fashioned clothes in front of the classic Gate Theatre carrying out a very modern day activity - going live on Facebook!!

It was so much fun cycling through the main streets of Dublin from Northside to Southside.

Here we are at the end of a marvellous parade with the brilliant Senator Ivana Bacik. What a pleasure to have our photo taken with her.

From the end of the parade, we rushed to McGrattans to watch Ireland beat England and win the Grand Slam and the Six Nations. This made our St Patrick's Day!
Bones even got in the spirit :-)

Later that evening we went for Tapas and a glass of wine in La Bodega which was a really nice atmosphere and very tasty.

Amy then stayed the night with me and today we got up and took the dog for a walk in the snow and then made another full Irish for brekkie.

Afterwards we chilled out in the hot tub and then had coffees and watched retro TV of Highway to Heaven starring the very watchable Michael Landon. What a blissful Sunday!

Quite a lot of snow fell all night but it thawed today and seems to be all clear for the bank holiday Monday tomorrow.  With the snow gone we can have a nice day tomorrow to finish out the holiday weekend!

2018 St Patrick's Day Message from President Michael D. Higgins

Happy St Patrick's Day from the President of the Best Little Country in the World!!