Merrian Square on Friday of St. Pats Weekend

It is really difficult to figure out what is happening and where when you really don't know a culture...

I had read up on the St. Patrick's Day festival information (about one hundred times) and we decided that since Liz and the kids were only staying until Sunday morning, that we should pull our kids out of school on Friday and head in to Dublin to get an early start on the festivities and avoid the crowds... Then Saturday we could head down to Brey to get a different sort of small-town festival feel.

It was (sort of) a bust.

Turns out that the Irish don't really kick it into gear until Saturday and they party well on into Monday.

So we made the most of it once we headed into Merrion Square and found nothing "on" and the rides weren't to open until 5 p.m.

Of course, we had to head to Nandos* to show Julia the restaurant-of-choice for One Direction, and we picked up a few St. Patrick's Day tchotchkes along the way.

Then we headed back and followed up Grafton. It was awash with St. Patricks Day festivities!

 And more greening of Dublin!

*My review of Nandos to follow in an upcoming post.