The Emerald Isle was looking a little brown around the edges when we arrived in Dublin a day before our bus tour of Ireland began.

For the past six weeks, the normally rainy Irish weather had been drier than normal, leaving the lawns and highway median strips around the Irish Republic’s capital more tan than green.

My wife, Mary Ann, and I had taken advantage of Aer Lingus’ new direct flights between Pittsburgh and Dublin to arrive a day early hoping to shake off jet lag before our tour began.

A word about Irish weather, it’s extremely erratic. Days can start sunny, cloud up and then rain, not hard but steady, and then go on to repeat the sequence. It’s important for visitors to have an umbrella, hat and waterproof gear. The temperatures usually range in the mid-60s to low 50s, so it’s also a good idea to dress in layers for any visit.

Dublin is a great city to explore on foot. It’s generally flat, making it easy to walk about to the shops, pubs, monuments and museums. Along O’Connell Street, the city’s main thoroughfare, it’s a short walk to attractions such as the Dublin Spire, a 390-foot-high stainless steel monument that replaced Nelson’s Pillar, destroyed in a 1966 bombing. At the southern end is a statue of Daniel O’Connell, the Irish nationalist leader.

Just off O’Connell Street is a statue of James Joyce, the writer who immortalized Dublin with his 1922 novel, “Ulysses,” which chronicles the wanderings of three characters throughout the city on a single day in 1904. Dublin is proud of its writers, which include Joyce, Oscar Wilde and Jonathan Swift.

Near the Joyce statue is the Dublin Portal, a giant round two-way video screen that connects Dublin to other cities such as New York; Philadelphia; Vilnus, Lithuania; and Lublin, Poland. There is no sound but passersby can wave to people in the other cities.

Across from the Spire is the historic General Post Office, which was seized by Irish Republicans during the Easter Rising of 1916.

Just steps off O'Connell Street is Henry Street, a large pedestrian shopping area.

One unexpected gem we found was the Little Museum of Dublin in a converted 18th century Georgian townhouse at 15 Stephen’s Green. Its rooms hold artifacts and displays illustrating the art, history and daily lives of the Irish. Rooms are dedicated to Dublin’s famous writers, famous artists, journalism and even a room celebrating the band U2.

One must-see Dublin attraction is the Guinness Storehouse, a seven-story monument to Ireland’s favorite drink. A self-guided tour begins on the first floor, where the deed granting Arthur Guinness a 9,000-year lease to the site is embedded in the floor. Each of the seven floors contain interactive exhibits. The top floor contains the Gravity Bar with its views of the Dublin cityscape. Here, you can exchange your admission ticket for a pint and savor its taste as you take in the view.

Another stop was St. Patrick’s Cathedral, dating back to 1220. It was built near a well used by St. Patrick to baptize converts to Christianity in the fifth century. The cathedral holds many artifacts of Irish history, including the reconciliation door.

The Cathedral contains the blue ribbons and ceremonial swords and helmets of the members of the Order of St. Patrick, a now dormant British order of chivalry created in 1783 by Britain’s King George III.

The cathedral also holds the grave of its most famous member, Jonathan Swift, the Irish satirist and author of “Gulliver’s Travels” and “A Modest Proposal,” who served as dean of the cathedral beginning in 1713. He’s buried next to Esther Johnson, better known as Stella, who was called his closest friend. Some historians believe the two were secretly married.

The next day we traveled from Dublin to Kilkenny, site of Kilkenny Castle, built in 1260 to control the River Norde. The Butler family bought it in 1391 and lived it in for 600 years — becoming wealthy from a royal wine-import tax.

Today, the castle is run by the Irish state and contains a restored library, drawing room, bedrooms and a stunning picture gallery that shows off the Butler family’s extensive collection of paintings.

Forty-five miles south from Kilkenny is Waterford, the oldest city in Ireland, begun as a Viking settlement. One of its attractions, Reginald’s Tower, was erected by the Anglo-Norman invaders on the site of an earlier Viking fortification.

Waterford was known for its Waterford Crystal factory which operated in the city from 1783 to 2009. The Waterford Crystal visitors’ center is still open and offers fine Waterford glassware for sale.

Waterford also is home to its Medieval Museum, housing many relics of the city’s past, including 15th century cloth of gold church vestments hidden under the floor of the nearby Christ Church Cathedral during Oliver Cromwell’s 1649-50 campaign on the island to stamp out Royalist and Catholic opposition to the Lord Protector’s rule.

Waterford was also the birthplace of Thomas Francis Meagher, an Irish nationalist credited with first flying the green, white and orange Irish tricolor flag in Waterford on March 7, 1848.

The next stop 80 miles to the south was Blarney Castle built in 1446 on the site of two earlier fortifications. The castle was the tower home for the powerful MacCarthy clan. It contains the famous Blarney Stone in its top battlement.

The Blarney Stone legend has many variations. Some say it was a piece of the Scottish Stone of Scone gifted to Cormac MacCarthy by the Scottish Robert the Bruce in gratitude for MacCarthy sending 4,000 men to aid in Robert the Bruce’s defeat of the English at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.

Another legend states MacCarthy clan members saved a witch from drowning, and she revealed the stone’s power to her rescuer. All legends agree anyone kissing the stone will receive the gift of eloquence and be able to talk his way out of any sticky situation.

However, kissing the stone is not for the faint of heart. It requires climbing 128 narrow, corkscrewing steps so steep in places a rope handrail is needed to help the climber pull himself up.

At the top, you would have to lie flat on your back, grasp two iron rails and lean your head and shoulders out over open space and crane your head and neck upward to get lips to the stone. I didn’t feel any more eloquent, but I was glad to get back to the bottom of the tower where I could buy a picture of my stone smooching for 10 euros.

The Blarney Stone is just one of many legends in Irish folklore. They include the banshee whose howling foretells death, the shape-shifting pooka and fairy trees. If there is a lone hawthorn tree in a farm field or hillside, at one time it was believed to be a gateway between this world and the fairy realm. Cutting down, damaging or even disturbing a fairy tree is considered terribly unlucky.

We also visited the seaside town of Youghal. It was here that Sir Walter Raleigh introduced the potato to Ireland.

Next was Killarney, a bustling town packed with restaurants, pubs and shops adjacent to Killarney National Park, Ireland’s first and home to the scenic Lakes of Killarney, ancient oak woods and native red deer.

The next day we toured the Ring of Kerry, a famous 111-mile scenic driving route looping around the rugged Iveragh Peninsula. It features MacGillycuddy’s Reeks mountain range that includes Carrauntoohil, the highest peak in Ireland at 3,406 feet.

We also viewed the Skellig Islands in Dingle Bay, one of which was Skellig Michael, whose beehive huts of a sixth century monastery was featured as Luke Skywalker’s refuge in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”

The next day we traveled to the Cliffs of Moher, whose 700-foot heights along five coastal miles give a great view of the swirling Atlantic Ocean. The cliffs are also home to nesting colonies of seabirds and have appeared in “The Princess Bride” as the Cliffs of Insanity and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

After a stay in Limerick, we drove through the Burren, a wind-swept landscape of limestone with few trees, less dirt and where all its rivers are underground. The Burren was formed as the bottom of a long-vanished sea millions of years ago.

We passed the ruins of Leamaneh House, where the ghost of Maire Rua O’Brien — the infamous Red Mar — is said to appear in an upstairs window. A thrice-married Irish aristocrat, she supposedly died strangled by her own hair when a riding accident threw her into a tree.

We stopped by the city of Galway on Ireland’s west coast. Galway traded heavily with Spain and Portugal during its mercantile heyday under direction of 14 leading Norman families known as the 14 tribes.

Unfortunately, the 14 families ran afoul of Oliver Cromwell during his conquest of Galway, which began their long road to ruin.

Cromwell remains a hated figure in Irish history almost as much as Sir Charles Trevelyan, who was in charge of devising the English government’s response to the Irish potato famine or the Great Hunger as the Irish call it.

Our last stop before returning to the United States was Cabra Castle. We passed through the small village of Birr which claims the honor of having the first recorded auto fatality in history. On Aug. 31, 1869, a woman named Mary Ward was thrown from the steam-powered carriage in which she was riding as it went around a corner. She was crushed by its heavy iron wheels.

Cabra Castle was built in the first decade of the 19th Century and has since been converted into a wedding venue and luxury hotel. It provided a great venue for our last dinner in Ireland.