Ireland (Part 2): Breakfast and Day 2 in Dromoland

Irish Breakfast
Each day in Ireland began with a traditional Irish breakfast at the hotel buffet.  I liked the eggs with sauteed mushrooms and tomatoes best.

His plate (front) & mine

 Every morning of our trip, the traditional breakfast buffet at every hotel looked almost identical, though some were tastier than others.  Buffet items included:

• Sausage
• Canadian style bacon
• Eggs
• Sauteed tomatoes
• Sauteed mushrooms
• Black pudding
• White pudding
• Potatoes
• Irish beans (baked beans)
• Assortment of white breads and rolls
• Dark soda bread
• Fresh fruit
• Boiled or fried potatoes
• Various soft cheese
• Occasionally pancakes

At the next to the last hotel, the eggs looked green, and none of my usual selections tasted very good, so I decided to try out the Irish pudding.  It looked more like a dense muffin than what I would consider to be pudding.  It wasn't sweet and tasted more like bread, but it wasn't all that bad.  It looked like it had bits of barley and salmon inside.  I was curious to know the ingredients, so I looked up a recipe on-line after breakfast.  My stomach turned into nauseating knots when I read this recipe.  The first ingredient was 4 cups of fresh pig's blood. Gag!  Other ingredients included:

• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 cups steel-cut (pinhead) oatmeal
• 2 cups finely diced pork fat (or beef suet), finely chopped
• 1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 cup milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice

Dromoland
We spent the next two days in Dromoland County.  The golf resort there which provided our accommodations was also supposed to be a 5-star hotel, but the entrance and grounds paled in comparison to our first night's lodging.

Touring Bunratty Castle and Folk Park in Dromoland County took up most of our second day in Ireland.  The 15th century castle has been fully restored in great detail.  It is Ireland's "most complete and authentic medieval fortress".  Historic homes have been moved and/or reconstructed and farms established to give visitors a real-life experience of Irish life in the 19th century. The village includes homes of the poor and the wealthy, a church and a school, a post office, and a mill.