I always imagined my honeymoon would be in some tropical paradise where I’d lay on the beach all day drinking pina coladas and looking fabulous in a bikini, all while my new husband admired me….anyone else? lol I didn’t really think of any other options…it never crossed my mind. Everyone goes to a beach! But when I actually got engaged and we started thinking about our honeymoon, my soon-to-be husband suggested Ireland. At first I was like no, absolutely not. I love Ireland, but that’s not what I want to do for my honeymoon. What about the bikinis and tropical drinks!? … But then the more I let it sit, the more the idea grew on me. Trips to the Caribbean aren’t too expensive. We can find all-inclusive deals for a pretty reasonable price and go when we want (see post about our trip to the DR). But a trip to Ireland? That’s way more expensive and special. That’s a once in life time trip (unless you’re rolling in dough and can just travel at the drop of the hat…that’s not me). I started to day dream about driving through the Irish country side, laughing together as we sat at the pub, and exploring quaint little towns. Suddenly the bikini and pina colada dreams started to be replaced by cozy sweaters and Jameson and gingers at the pub. This was absolutely the honeymoon that I wanted!
I’m not the kind of person that loves to plan out vacations and do tons a research. I’d rather someone else plan it…someone that knows the area and knows good places to stay. I ended up finding out that Aer Lingus does vacation packages. They have several different kinds, but the one that struck us was the Emerald Isle package. Basically over 9 days you go to 4 different locations staying at 4 different hotels in various parts of the country–Killenard, Kinsale, Galway, and Dublin. It sounded perfect! I like the idea of bed and breakfasts…when I had gone in high school (pre-Celiac), the bed and breakfast we went to was adorable. The little old lady that ran it was so friendly and welcoming. She made us tea and pastries every morning and in the afternoon for snack. Exactly what you picture when you think of Ireland! But when I pictured this now with Celiac in the mix, I thought about how bad I would feel saying “Sorry, lady. I can’t eat those pastries you made from scratch…I can’t eat any of the stuff you cooked. And by the way, what’s in this sauce? What butter did you use?..etc.” I figured it’d be much easier to go to a hotel. They were probably used to dealing with this kind of thing, as I had heard that Celiac was incredibly common in Ireland.
So we booked it and a few months later, off we went! As a tip, call the airline ahead of time to reserve yourself a gluten free meal! The people that answer the phones always have Irish accents and are totally lovely, so it’s actually great lol The gluten free meal on the plane there and back was great! It was also nice because they bring out the allergy meals first…while everyone around you waits 🙂 It’s nice to see gluten-eaters eyeing your plate in jealousy for once!!
Once in Ireland, our first stop was at a GORGEOUS hotel in Killenard. It was by far the nicest hotel we stayed at for the whole trip and it was absolutely magical. It was tucked away in what felt like the middle of no where. It’s like this vacation was perfectly planned for honeymooners because this hotel was a welcome relief from the craziness of the wedding and reception. It was quiet, peaceful, tucked away in a little world of its own, and had very few people around! I was so relaxed!! When we first arrived, it was too early to check in, so we wandered over to a little cafe across from the hotel. It was so homey. In the back corner by a fireplace, a group of 3 old ladies were having tea and knitting together…how perfect is that? haha The menu said they had gluten free bread…so like I do in the states, I said “If you make a sandwich with that, is it safe for me? Like does it get cooked in the same toaster?” The waitress looked at me with confusion. My initial thought was, “Oh my god…no one knows about Celiac here! All the article were wrong! My honeymoon is going to be awful!” HA was I wrong. Her look of confusion was because she couldn’t imagine why anyone would serve gluten free bread if they weren’t going to take all those extra steps to prevent cross contamination….DID WE JUST BECOME BEST FRIENDS. Hallelujah! So I ordered a giant club sandwich and a cappuccino 🙂
Once the food came out, the club looked SO GOOD that I didn’t even take a picture. I hadn’t had a club in forever and I forgot how delicious they are! I ordered so many more on this trip after that lol
I think I remember the first 2 days we spent here the most fondly. It was just so peaceful and we got to really spend some quality time together. There was a lovely trail that went around the whole property and we strolled down that. We went to a quiet little pub that was connected to the above mentioned cafe. We had a fancy 5 course meal and shared a bottle of red wine in our claw-foot tub….it was truly magical. We also ventured out and explored a castle (that no one else was at) and we went on a long trail through the woods which was STUNNING. Absolutely perfect.
Eating here was a breeze! I used Yelp to look up gluten free restaurants and the two that came up were all in the hotel complex! The one was the hotel restaurant and lounge, where I had everything from a burger and fries to a fabulous risotto. Breakfast was also phenomenal! The full sit-down breakfast was included in your stay…so I got gluten-free pancakes, an omelet, bacon, eggs, potatoes, mushrooms…the full classic Irish breakfast! We also tried out the restaurant next to the hotel and it was phenomenal. They could make literally everything gluten free. So what did this girl get for dinner in Ireland? A quesadilla lol It just sounded so good!! And it was. The server was lovely as well! He brought me 3 samples of Irish cider that I had never tried so that I could see what I liked best! My absolute favorite was the Orchard Thieves cider. I ended up ordering that at several bars on our trip because nearly all of them have it available! 
After 2 days of this lovely escape, it was time for us to head to our next stop, Kinsale. Kinsale is a little fishing village that could be right out of a movie. At times when we were walking through it, it didn’t even seem real. It seemed like a movie set!
We did lots of wandering around town and exploring all the local shops/book stores/cafes. It was lovely! As far as eating went, I just did a Yelp search while in our hotel room. I didn’t pay for international data, so I only used my phone on wifi. I’d find a few places on Yelp that sounded good for gluten free options, screen shot them, screen shot the location, and then we went on our merry way. We were always able to find the places I had looked up and we were never disappointed! The meals were phenomenal. One night, we decided to try a place for dinner that had no gluten free Yelp reviews…and it ended up being the best dinner! They had gorgeous gluten free rolls and even dessert! 
The pub scene in this town was adorable. I swear, this trip was planned to slowly amp up your social life haha The pubs here were a little less quiet than in Killenard, but not crazy. We did go on the off season though and apparently it’s become a huge summer town (kinda like Cape Cod or Newport, RI). So many of the local people could NOT fathom why we’d go there on vacation lol It never gets too warm and sunny in Ireland, so they all dream of going to Florida or the Caribbean…so the fact that we wanted to go to Ireland for our vacation was incomprehensible to them haha One bartender said to us, “Why would you come here?!” and Adam said, “Well, it was either some place warm and sunny or cold and rainy, so we went with cold and rainy.” lol I died laughing. But we really did have a blast! The fact that it wasn’t tourist season kind of made it more magical. It was like we had this little fairy tale town all to ourselves. Plus we found lots of live music and friendly people.
This bar with the music was so much fun! The band really engaged the crowd and we got to learn about a lot of other visitors! Such a classic Irish night 🙂 I mostly drank Orchard Thieves cider and Jameson and gingers. The AWESOME thing about Jameson and gingers in Ireland is that they use dry ginger ale. In the US, all the ginger ale they use is SO SWEET. So after 1 or 2 Jameson and gingers, I can’t handle anymore sugar. But because they use dry ginger ale in Ireland, it ends up being so much more drinkable and not so cloyingly sweet!
We also did lots of exploring at this point too! We went to Cork for one day where there were tons of gluten free options! We found a place that had amazing burgers and fries for lunch and then we hit their big market to explore. Before going, I just did my Yelp search so I had an idea of where to go. Usually once you’re in a city though, it’s not hard to find a place that has Wifi. So if you end up somewhere different than you intended, you can still get online and find some gluten free restaurants pretty easily!
We also did some of the traditional Irish site seeing. So we went to the Rock of Cashel one day. I think over the course of the whole trip, Cashel was the only place I kinda struggled with food. And that is ONLY because I had already gotten spoiled rotten haha There were several restaurants that would do salad or burgers without buns or steak and what not…but I had gotten used to more options and felt I could do better lol So we ended up waiting until the next town to eat. But this is where I say, bring snacks!! I had car snacks on the ready just in case something like this happened.
We ended up heading over to Blarney to kiss the Blarney stone 🙂 Fun fact, it was the same man running the kissing stone as when I went when I was 16! I thought that was pretty cool!
After spending a while at Blarney castle, we decided to venture into town for food! At this point, we were both really hungry! We ended up finding this large cafeteria style cafe. It looked like an open air market….there were lots of adorable things for sale on one side and then all the food options on the other! I ended up getting a big bowl of the most AMAZING seafood chowder I’ve ever had. The chunks of seafood in it were huge! It came with a warm gluten free roll and a huge gluten free cookie….I tell ya, it was worth holding out for!!
Our next stop on our trip was Galway, which was so much fun!! The night life totally ramped up here. I think I had the most fun going out here! The bars and streets were just so lively.
But the daytime was almost as fun lol It was also easy to find gluten free restaurants here as well! I did my usual Yelp maneuver and found some great places! But oh my LAWD did the hotel do a PHENOMENAL job with breakfast. It was so freaking good…I can still taste it.
We spent some time exploring the town and explored this gorgeous church, where I happened to see this and laughed out loud!
Over the next couple of days, we spent more time driving around the country side and hitting some more site seeing spots. This was a bit harder, food wise, because we were moving through towns so I couldn’t use Yelp and we didn’t want to stop, park, and then look at restaurant’s menus. So what we ended up doing on days when we were driving all over the place is have a “gas station lunch.” Adam couldn’t get enough jokes in about how lucky I was that he took me on a honeymoon and fed me luxurious gas station meals lol But honestly, it was convenient and worked great! I’d just get a block of cheese, some gluten free crackers, chips, a piece of fruit, and I was good to go! Sometimes I’d find some lunch meat that was gluten free or other random things…so it worked out just fine!
Our last stop was Dublin and eating here was fantastic as well! We found this tiny little restaurant (from Yelp) that was tucked away in downtown Dublin. Here they did ALL the gluten free carbs…garlic bread, pasta, burgers, you name it. IT was fabulous! I kinda wanted to come back for dinner, since we ate their for lunch, but there were so many other options that I felt like I needed to branch out! haha
The nightlife here was fun as well! But I couldn’t help but feel a little sad in Dublin because I knew our awesome honeymoon was coming to an end. Overall, I’d HIGHLY recommend honeymooning in Ireland. Especially if you’re gluten free! I know I was scared that it would be hard navigating a bunch of different cities trying to find places I could eat…but it really wasn’t! It was actually kinda fun to find all these gems! Plus people in Ireland really are familiar with Celiac disease, so if the restaurant you walk into doesn’t do gluten free, they probably know somewhere that does!
I truly think this honeymoon was so much more memorable and special than your run of the mill Caribbean vacation. It all felt so magical and romantic. It was so unique and we made memories that will last a life time.
As this wall in Dublin said, “We lived and laughed and loved and left.”