After arriving in Dublin, we called our hotel and asked for their shuttle van to pick us up. It was too early to check-in so we asked them to take care of our bags while we went downtown. It wasn’t running so they told us to take a taxi and we would be reimbursed. We were, minus 40 cents. Then we caught a bus to downtown. The bus stopped many times and we finally arrived downtown in about an hour. We bought a tour bus pass for the next day and walked around. We were not impressed by the popular Temple Bar area. 
There is supposed to be a book sale on Saturday afternoon, but we found only a few sellers and a mediocre selection of books. My wife commented that it looked like a Chinatown for the Irish. We walked around some more, bought a sandwich, and headed back to the hotel on the bus. 
Friday we left for Ireland. Our plane took off a bit early, just before noon. We flew to Chicago and arrived a little before 5 p.m. We had just under two hours before the Aerlingus (Ireland’s national airline) took off. We rushed off to take the train from the domestic terminal, where U.S. flights fly into and out of, to the international terminal. We were in such a hurry that we didn’t think about what food might be available on the other side of the security checkpoint. There were only a few vending machines so we managed with the water bottle that we filled from the drinking fountain and the cookies, gorp, and bananas we’d brought with us.
Our flight to Dublin left at 6:45 p.m. Friday and arrived in Dublin on Saturday after 9 a.m. There’s 8 hours time difference between Ireland and the Pacific coast of California so it has taken a couple of days to get used to the time change. I enjoyed watching the display on the plane; it was on the seat back in front of me. You could watch videos, play games, but I liked following the progress of the plane. On the other plane, the one to Chicago, you could listen to the cockpit radio conversations with the ground.
I don’t enjoy the tight seats and the long flights. The flight crew does a good job of trying to make it pleasant, but it’s still a long time to sit still in a small space.