Travelogue Ireland, July 2011 – Day Two: Drogheda

Or… Part Two: When in Rome Eire…

The ferry crossing from Holyhead to Dun Loghaire was uneventful, even pleasant; it’s nice to be able to just sit and read for a couple of hours without worrying about all the other stuff you should be doing. On arrival we disembarked and drove on down to the Dun Loghaire promenade to soak up what was forecast to be the last of the sunshine (it was, too) and then made tracks up the N1, via Dublin’s East Link bypass, onwards to our next port-of-call at Drogheda.

We’d picked the town because it’s close to the Newgrange and Knowth stone age sites, which we’d planned to visit the following morning. Arriving in Drogheda in mid-afternoon, we checked in and then wandered down into town to see what there was to see (answer: not a lot…) and see if we could find one or two pubs that I’d seen mentioned on an old forum discussion (I’d already searched the directory on Beoir.org and drawn a blank) as being decent places to stop for a pint.

The first of these was Clarke’s Bar, a properly old-school Irish boozer divided into snugs and with shelves and shelves of junk on the walls. Nice place, but the only beers on offer were the usual suspects: Guinness plus assorted brand lagers. There were three vintage hand pumps on the bar, but they clearly hadn’t connected to anything (except a charity collection tin) in a good long while. Jo and I decided that when in Ireland, etc. and opted for a Guinness. It was… okay. Cold, not particularly flavourful, slightly overly-gassy. But drinkable, so we drank. But just the one.

It was still a little early for food, so we wandered up and down the high street, then having completely run out of distractions we shrugged and headed for a restaurant that I’d also pre-researched. The Salthouse turned out to be a hidden gem of a place; mainly Mediterranean cuisine, plus a couple of exotic extras: Jo and I shared a starter of kangaroo and ostrich fillet, which was very tasty indeed, and then I had a main of pork belly, which was delicious, with a bottle of Czech lager (some sort of ‘premium’ brand from the Pivovar brewery, if I remember right), which was… lagery.

After that we wandered around to McHugh’s Bar and Venue (which can be found next to the town’s one historical monument of note – the C15th gatehouse) which turned out to be a decent-sized pub with a music venue round the back, where the likes of Damien Dempsey, Duke Special and the Horslips have all played in the last couple of years. Again though, nowt but Guinness, Smithwick’s Smooth or lagers to choose from, so again, Jo and I both braved the Guinness. This one was better: not so chilled-to-death, more coffee-malt notes, denser mouth-feel. That was quite enough of that though – Drogheda is another cask desert it seems – so once again we returned to base to get some kip in advance of an early(ish) start the next day.

Previously on Travelogue Ireland, July 2011: Day One: North Wales.
Next up: Good Times with Good Friends.