Irish Presidential election week!

We decided to go over to Dublin for a few days and were very happy with our choice of hotel, the Fitzwilliam. It had the advantage of being on St.Stephen's Green, so there was a beautiful park just across the street. And it is at the top of Grafton Street with its great department store Brown Thomas
(think Harrods  in Dublin!) and the trendy boutiques, cafes and restaurants in the Powerscourt Center.

The lobby of the hotel with its fire was a great place to meet with people....

 there is a great reading nook to enjoy the newspapers...

 and we enjoyed the quirky photos in the rooms!

 The Citron restaurant within the hotel was fantastic, and the staff were very patient with young children at the table!! And as it was raining so much we were very thankful to be able to stay indoors for the evening!
In fact we can thoroughly recommend the hotel in terms of location, comfort of rooms, extremely helpful staff and the food!
We also tried 2 new restaurants.... there seems to have been a chef swap which has taken place!
Conrad Gallagher is now installed at the Art Deco SLH La Stampa hotel...........and one of its prior chefs  has moved into the premises Conrad occupied  on Aungier Street and opened his own restaurant!
We tried both! The Whitefriar definitely wins in terms of ambience! The Dining Room/Tasting Room at La Stampa was a tad formal and subdued!  But we were there for the pre-theatre priced dinner... so a little on the early side!  But as we had flown in from France we were operating as though it was one hour later!!  But we definitely preferred the food at the Whitefriar Grill!

Weather was, as it often is in Ireland, well, RAINING!!

But everyone was out shopping anyhow. This is one of the few places we have found in Europe with all shops open on Sundays!  They have embraced the American 24/7... almost!!
The following day had more rain in one day than it usually has in one month!!

And after 21 years of having a female President at the helm the Irish have finally got a male one!