Follow Our Ireland Road Trip - Day 2

Churches, Cafes, Carlingford and Castlereagh!

Nov 3, 2025

12 Days in August 2024

Day 2

Hey, y’all! We are reliving the memories from our trip just over a year ago. If you’re finding this article, I highly recommend you read Follow Our Ireland Road Trip blog and Day 1 first to get a solid overview.

Let’s get real. Most of us FEEL that overseas flight! However, we gathered our things and easily navigated Dublin Airport. Yay! 
The next step was to get.the.car. The highly debated car. The car that would hold 4 bags…

Then, the driving experience began! Different side of the car and different side of the road-but, Alex was up for the challenge.

Day 2 overview:

•  Breakfast at Ebb & Flow Cafe

•  Explore St. Kevin’s Church

•  Drive to Carlingford

•  Drive to 1st Air B&B in Lisburn/Castlereagh

OK, let’s dive in!

Ebb & Flow Cafe

Lovely. Delicious. This café is quaint, has ample indoor seating and a few tables streetside. We tried mushroom bread, bacon French toast (voted the winner by all of us) and a specialty berry compote pancake. It was a great place to land following the long flight and refuel.

They are located at 71 Camden Street Lower.

St. Kevin’s Church

The good news is we were able to walk from the café to the church.

The church was the first reminder of many throughout the trip of the history and beauty that is very present in Ireland.

A quick bit of history: St. Kevin’s is one of Dublin’s finest gothic-revival buildings. It was designed by E.W. Pugin & G. Ashlin and built between 1869 and 1872. It took several more years to complete the interior and we can attest to the intricate details! It is located on Harrington Street.



Carlingford

The drive to Carlingford (north of Dublin) took roughly an hour and 15 minutes and was uneventful-which is a good thing! MO originally had bullet points of the things to see:

o  King John’s Caste aka Carlingford Castle
o  Taafe’s Castle (middle of town)
o  The Thosel
o  The vibrant doors 😊
o  St. Michael’s Church
o  Kilwarra Church Ruins

What we did do was walk Carlingford Castle ruins, take in many vibrant doors, walk the graveyard of the Holy Trinity Church (13th-20th century), walk the coast, view beautiful flowers, explore the center of the town, and dine with the locals.

And, the dining with the locals is a key standout. Mikey really wanted fish and chips, so we found a place and discovered beautiful alleyways that had picnic tables. We were able to score a table and once we chilled, we realized we heard “oldie” American music playing and enjoyed watching all the locals enjoying a pub. It was just a great time to unwind and feel like we were really THERE.

As a side note, we were debating if Carlingford was Ireland or Northern Ireland (NI). We landed with Ireland; it is 7 miles south of NI.

Yes, Carlsberg Pint in a Carlsberg Glass. That's the way they do it there!

Lisburn/Castlereagh

We stayed at a farmhouse for the first 2 nights of our road trip in NI. The drive was a bit scary with the tight roads, but we did arrive safely :) The front yard was full of cows, so you know the first thing Joy did was go to the fence to chat with them!

The home was cozy and had been decorated for MO and Joy’s birthday. In addition, there were so many thoughtful items that had been left for us-brown bread, fresh butter, local jam, cookies, potato chips, a block of cheese and the tiniest (but cutest) jug of milk we had ever seen. It was here that we were introduced to the amazing Irish brown bread and delicious butter. These items became staples for the remainder of the trip and are highly recommended.

Side note: we had a surprise and a bit of a learning curve trying to use electric showers. Ha! It took all of us to gather and figure it out. We wound up staying up until 10:52pm NI time, so it was a full day for sure.


Listen to our podcast series about Ireland on Apple Podcasts or YouTube
Follow us on Instagram @hittheroadwithmo