Our brief stop in Fishguard was en route to the ferry to Ireland, for we planned a few days in Wexford at the Opera Festival there.

It was an overcast day to drive from Gloucestershire, over the Severn Bridge and into Wales.

Though most of the way was along the M4 motorway, on the other side of Carmarthen our Satnav decided on an alternative - quicker - route. Hmm. We saved two minutes by taking the less-travelled road!

After our visit to the Last Invasion Tapestry, we headed straight for the port and joined the queue just as the ferry arrived. We were booked on the 2pm crossing to Rosslare.

The sun came out as we were leaving and we enjoyed fine views of the Welsh coastline, feeling thankful for calm seas, for the Irish Sea can be “lively”.

Three and a half hours later, it was dark when we arrived in Rosslare. The traditional Irish greeting Céad míle fáilte a reminder that we’re “abroad”, too because although we’re still in the British Isles, we are no longer in Great Britain nor are we in the United Kingdom! (It can be confusing) We are now in the Republic of Ireland/Éire.

A couple of hours later, we’d checked into our hotel, met our friends Volker and Sabine from Stuttgart and were sitting in the pub next door with a pint of Guinness each!

That evening, the John Barry was full of people, mostly locals, it seemed, and there was a great atmosphere. Though it was a bit of a squeeze in there, in true Irish fashion, a couple made space for us at their table and with a smile and “Hullo” , we were made welcome.

Now, not only was there a festival of Opera in the town this week but the Wexford Singing and Swinging Pub Competition had also just taken place as part of the Festival Fringe and there was live music in the John Barry that night too. So, we sat and listened for a while, chatted to our new friends Sally and John and immediately felt at home! Sally told us of her career as a prop designer for the film industry and John about his fantasy costumed role play work. We’d been here just a couple of hours and were already remembering why we love being in Ireland!

During the coming days, we pottered about the town quite a bit, on our way to and from the National Opera House, getting a feel for the place and appreciating the personality and gentle humour.

There are plenty of places in which to find the craic , this particular pub recommended by Sally and John for another place to hear live music.

There’s a long Main Street along which there are a huge number of independent shops and cafes, making it a pleasant place to stroll - if a little busy most of the day.

Here and there, there are small passages - in Yorkshire, we’d call them snickets or ginnels - and the clue to where this one leads is there above the pathway: The National Opera House is just up here.

It would be easy to miss, the entrance being on this street in a row of what appear to be houses.

But step back and there it is; a modern opera house built on the site of an old theatre.

More about the Opera in another post, but for now, I’ll focus on Wexford itself, a waterfront town on the River Slaney. Though our hotel overlooked the estuary, I saw only one boat out there the whole time we were there.

I did, however, enjoy lunch of “local seafood”, though how local, I have no idea!

During the Festival, there’s a competition for decorative shop windows and a walk through the Main Street is a series of tempting fashions,

amusing designs, some of which are festival-related

including the winner, here, in the window of a gallery near to our hotel.

The other window of the gallery had an intriguing montage of famous Irish faces, of which I tried to identify a different one each time we passed.

On Saturday morning, we stopped to listen to this excellent street musician, singing a fabulous performance of James Taylor’s Fire and Rain.

The street would soon fill with people - more about that later.

For now, I’ll take a little look around inside. See you in the next post for the Opera!