Dublin Back

We left County Down in the rain, and I can tell you exactly where we started, because a hand-painted sign for a boarding kennels gave the townland away: Blackskull, which is a lot of name for a place whose defining feature is a dog hotel.

Then out, west and south, wipers going, back toward Dublin.

We ate breakfast in the car, counted out the last of our change, and tried to stop at a couple of malls to shop — except it was Sunday, and nothing opened until the afternoon, the whole country apparently at church.

We came into Dublin wet, out along the bay at Sandymount and Irishtown, the water flat and gray.

We spent our last night at Clontarf Castle, which is rather more boutique hotel than crumbling ruin, and I will not pretend I minded, because it had the biggest, most comfortable bed we'd found in two weeks, and for the first time since we landed I could lie down and fully extend a leg. Ireland, I had by now firmly established, was not built to my specifications.

Tomorrow, one last hill, and then home.