"I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse in Camden Street with Boylan the billsticker."
James Joyce - Ulysses - 1922 - P.711

Out Standing in Front of the Bleeding Horse Pub

Word of the Day

Tch - An expression of disagreement.


BW Babe and I got up REALLY early so we could finish packing and haul all our bags down to the lobby. Our driver, Trevor, picked us up at around 8 AM. He drove us to the airport in Glasgow where we connected with our Aer Lingus-Aer Arann flight to Dublin. We flew through the check in process and didn't have to pay for the extra bag fee. I think it helped that we were able to print out our boarding passes at the hotel last night. Since we didn't have to pay the extra bag fee, BW Babe has agreed to reimburse me for half of the fee for our last flight. Security didn't seem to be an issue either this flight. I dutifully removed my belt and shoes, took off my coat and set my laptop case on to send through the X-ray machine. The attendant hadn't ever seen a laptop case like mine before and requested that I remove my laptop from the case. I questioned this but did what I was told but...after a quick look at my bag, she told me that I didn't need to remove the laptop after all...so I put it back. BW Babe got through without taking off her shoes.

Our plane (two props) arrived late but we weren't in a hurry. The flight only took a bit more than a half and hour. We stood in line to show our passports longer than the flight. All the luggage arrived safe and sound. Yes! Then it was off to get a taxi...two taxis. The taxis here can only carry four passengers and we had five. We split up. My cousin, BW Babe and I took one taxi and our cousin's husband (henceforth to be known as Lord Douglas) and Mr. D took the other. We arrived at the hotel at around the same time, hauled all the luggage to the hotel lobby, checked in, hauled all the luggage to our rooms, re-packed and re-organized and then rendezvoused back in the lobby to head out to The Bleeding Horse.

The Bleeding Horse is a pub that is right next door to the hotel. It's VERY nice and historic. The food was excellent...the Guinness was excellent....and it's historic.

At the time in which the events that we have undertaken to record took place, there stood at the southern extremity of the city, near the point at which Camden Street now terminates, a small, old-fashioned building, something between an ale-house and an inn. It occupied the roadside by no means unpicturesquely ; one gable jutted into the road, with a projecting window, which stood out from the building like a glass box held together by a massive frame of wood ; and commanded by this projecting gable, and a few yards in retreat, but facing the road, was the inn door, over which hung a painted panel, representing a white horse, out of whose neck there spouted a crimson cascade, and underneath, in large letters, the traveller was informed that this was the genuine old "Bleeding Horse."

- Cock and Anchor (1845), Sheridan Le Fanu

We're only staying at this hotel for one night. Tomorrow morning those of us who have arrived early for Irene Middleton Music Tour of Northern Ireland 2013, hosted by Irish Storyteller Batt Burns, will pile into our tour bus and pick up the remaining tour..ists at the airport. Our tour of Northern Ireland will last ten days. I'm not sure if I'll have internet for all of those ten days but I'll blog and post when possible.

Random Quote of the Day

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Hamlet, Act III, sc. 1