Our first international family trip with four boys, a four-month-old baby, two rental cars, nine people - me, Joe, Wells, Brooks, Finn, Rhodes, Kezia (our French au pair), Mimi (my mom), and TeeTaw (my sister, Katie) - and absolutely no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

This week’s Meg’s Tuesday Tips looks a little different.

Instead of talking about design, I’m taking you along on our first international family trip as a family of six. Looking back, I’m still not sure whether to call it a vacation or survival training. Either way, I’d do it all again.

Day One - The Flight

Tuesday, July 21, 2026

You can plan a trip for months, but no matter how prepared you think you are, something is going to go wrong along the way.

We made it to O’Hare with a solid two to three hours to spare for our first family adventure overseas. Plenty of time. What could possibly go wrong? Apparently, Rhodes.

When we checked in, Rhodes had a ticket...but for some reason he also didn’t have a ticket. We didn’t fully understand what was happening, especially since he was simply a lap child, but after about 30 minutes of furious keyboard punching by the ticket agent, Rhodes officially had a ticket.

Problem solved.

Until TSA.

Somehow Joe got rejected going through TSA, which meant I got to go through security by myself with four boys, including a four-month-old hanging from my chest in a front pack.

Joe disappeared to get his situation sorted out while I proceeded to basically get strip-searched by the literal bomb squad. Apparently, when you travel with an infant, everything needs to be tested for explosives. Even baby formula!

To their credit, Rhodes can definitely drop some bombs these days. Joe finally made it through security just as I was finishing putting myself and our belongings back together.

Surely the hard part was over. Nope.

We headed to the gate with what we thought was still plenty of time, until I got called up by the gate attendant, who let’s just say wasn’t particularly sympathetic to a mom traveling with four boys - one of whom was literally hanging from her chest crying.

Apparently, Rhodes once again wasn’t properly attached to our reservation. Remember, lap child, no seat needed.

Another 30 minutes of trying to add a four-month-old to the flight followed, and they eventually made me buy a second ticket for Rhodes despite me showing them that I had already paid for him and had a ticket. Even had email proof and it on my statement! United for the win!

The two to three hour cushion we had so responsibly given ourselves completely disappeared.

I finished dealing with the ticket situation literally as they started boarding the plane. Mama Bear had officially had enough, and any more pushing might have ended with me missing the trip entirely because I was behind bars. Thankfully, I stayed calm - although very sweaty.

But we made it...by the skin of our teeth!

The flight itself was thankfully uneventful, although traveling as a group of nine with a baby on an overnight international flight makes you understand exactly how a sardine feels inside a can.

Ireland, here we come.

Day Two - Welcome to Ireland

Wednesday, July 22, 2026

We landed in Dublin around 9:30 a.m. and, shockingly, getting through customs was completely uneventful.

With all nine people and all the bags finally accounted for, we began the three-hour drive across Ireland to Oughterard.

This was also our introduction to Irish roads.

Let’s just say their roads are...different.

They also drive on the wrong side of them, which comes with a fairly steep learning curve.

We had been told that the drive from Dublin across the country was pretty boring, which we can now confirm is accurate. But when you’ve never been to Ireland before, even a boring drive is entertaining because there are cows and sheep EVERYWHERE.

We finally arrived in Oughterard around 4:30 p.m.

At this point the lack of sleep from the overnight flight was absolutely brutal, but Ireland stays light until almost 10:00 p.m. in July and we knew we needed to force ourselves to acclimate.

So instead of going to sleep like every cell in our bodies was requesting, we took the kids for a walk through town and found a little stream where they could climb around and play.

We finished the night with dinner at a nearby pub called Powers, which was incredible - except Joe was told that adding black currant to his Guinness made it a girly drink. That was the last time Joe asked for black currant in his Guinness. Ha!

Day one in Ireland officially complete.

Day Three - Kylemore Abbey & The City That Doesn’t Exist

Thursday, July 23, 2026

We slept until 9:00 a.m.

I honestly don’t think that has happened in the last 15 years.

After finally waking up, we headed out to visit Kylemore Abbey.

Kylemore is absolutely beautiful - an incredible old estate basically sitting in the middle of nowhere surrounded by some of the prettiest scenery imaginable.

It is also probably best enjoyed by adults between the ages of approximately 55 and 85.

The highlight for our children?

Skipping rocks on the pond out front.

Thousands of people travel from around the world to see Kylemore Abbey.

Our kids found rocks.

Afterward, we decided to explore Connemara. The hills look exactly like the postcards of Ireland: green, rolling, and covered with sheep. We chose the green trail, and dear Lord, were we grateful we did because it was hot and, well, not flat.

Then, we typed “Connemara” into the GPS, assuming this would take us to some sort of town.

It did not. It took us to a locked gate overlooking a field full of cows.

We eventually discovered that Connemara is a region, not an actual city.

So Apple Maps essentially just picked somewhere in the middle of it and sent us there.

This led to us driving deeper and deeper into the Irish countryside on roads that somehow kept getting narrower.

I should probably mention that many “two-way streets” in Ireland appear to have been designed for approximately one-and-a-quarter cars.

Eventually, we accepted the loss and decided to head back to Oughterard.

Then Apple Maps informed us that we were only 20 minutes away.

To this day, we have absolutely no idea how that happened.

We finished the day with dinner at the hotel in town and some classic Irish pub food.

Which brings me to another observation:

I have not yet researched why every Irish pub seems to have some sort of curry dish on the menu...but they do.

Day Four - Doolin, the Cliffs & Ireland’s Definition of a Road

Friday, July 24, 2026

By this point we had established a morning ritual: head into town to our adorable little coffee shop for lattes, carrot cake and whatever else we could convince ourselves qualified as breakfast.

Then it was time for the two-hour drive to Doolin.

A two-hour drive in Ireland is roughly 50 to 60 miles.

Thankfully, Apple Maps automatically converted kilometers to miles for us because, after several days, we still had absolutely no idea what anything meant in kilometers or Celsius.

There are no straight-shot drives in western Ireland.

Getting from Point A to Point B consists of approximately 4,000 turns around ancient stone walls while trying to keep your car six inches from the center line.

Needless to say, after seven days of sitting in the passenger seat with bushes basically touching his window, Joe is probably going to need physical therapy for his neck.

I should also mention that I did approximately 98 percent of the driving.

Not because I particularly enjoyed driving on the opposite side of the road while buses came at me around blind corners, but because I get carsick.

There is zero chance I would have survived 20 minutes as a passenger.

The drive to Doolin was apparently some of the most beautiful scenery of the entire trip. I personally saw almost none of it because taking my eyes off the road for more than 0.3 seconds seemed like a terrible idea.

I took Joe’s word for it when he wasn’t doing neck exercises and preparing himself for our imminent death.

And then we remembered the sweet grandmother from Fort Worth we had met at Kylemore Abbey.

She had told us:

“If you think these roads are narrow, don’t go to Doolin. Those roads are even worse.”

She was correct.

When I say narrow, I mean if your car was perfectly centered in your lane, you might have six inches between your tires and the line.

Then occasionally you would encounter a tractor.

Or a semi.

Or, even better, a tour bus coming directly at you.

Eventually, we arrived in Doolin alive and had lunch at Gus O’Connors Pub, which was covered in police and fire department patches from all over America. We added our touch by writing our names on a dollar bill and pinning it to the wall!

This seems like the appropriate time to mention something we noticed everywhere we went:

The Irish LOVE America.

And if you tell them you’re from Chicago, they really love Chicago.

Almost everyone we talked to had either been there, had family there, or both.

After lunch, we set sail on a two-hour boat tour of the Cliffs of Moher.

Finn and the boys immediately made friends with some kids from Arkansas and spent most of the boat ride discussing extremely important topics like:

“What’s your favorite game?”

Eventually, we got the iconic family picture in front of the Cliffs of Moher.

Realistically, we’ll probably crop ourselves out, find the best picture we took of the cliffs, Photoshop our family into it and, several years from now, completely forget that we did it.

On the way home we chose the “less scenic” route, which gave us almost 12 inches on either side of the car.

It felt luxurious.

We were also racing against the clock because the local butcher shop closed at 6:00 p.m.

We did not make it by 6:00.

But in true Irish fashion, they stayed open for us anyway.

We grabbed steaks, chicken and potatoes and headed back to the Airbnb. It worked out well that the Airbnb owner also happened to own the butcher shop!

Side note: despite Ireland’s reputation, we never actually saw a potato field.

Yet potatoes are somehow on every menu.

Our Airbnb had chickens, a lamb, two cats and a bunny.

The chickens behaved less like chickens and more like dogs. They begged at the dinner table, followed everyone around and would literally stand still waiting for the kids to pick them up.

Joe cooked the steaks and we settled in for our final night on the west side of Ireland.

When the Piercys do trips, we don’t casually visit places.

We conquer them.

And today was no different.

We had squeezed about as much as humanly possible out of our little area of western Ireland.

Tomorrow: the other side of the island.

Day Five - Across Ireland to Malahide

Saturday, July 25, 2026

We woke up early, packed the house, loaded the cars, and said goodbye to Caitlin at our favorite coffee shop before beginning the three-hour drive across Ireland to Malahide.

We decided to break up the drive with lunch in Athlone, where we stopped at Sean’s Bar - the oldest pub in Ireland, with parts of it dating back 800 years. Whoa!

This is also where I need to give a huge shoutout to ChatGPT for basically acting as our on-call Irish travel agent for the entire trip.

We discovered Sean’s Bar doesn’t actually serve food.

So ChatGPT called an audible and sent us to Gertie Browne’s nearby.

It was incredible.

Well fed, we finished the drive to Malahide and arrived at our second Airbnb.

And this place had actual tennis courts.

The property had apparently once belonged to an heiress who was selling off portions of the estate. We were staying in what had essentially been the staff quarters - except “staff quarters” apparently meant four five-bedroom houses surrounding a courtyard with a private tennis court.

Not exactly Downton Abbey servant living.

After getting settled, we walked through this incredible forest/jungle path into downtown Malahide.

Malahide was wall-to-wall people.

We found dinner at Gibney’s of Malahide, which was fantastic, then headed home.

And that should have been the end of Day Five.

Except...

The Night of Day Five

Sometime in the middle of the night, we woke up and the power was completely out.

An alarm was beeping somewhere in the house.

Katie and Mimi were whispering for Joe to come out of our room.

So Joe and Mimi began tiptoeing downstairs in complete darkness.

At this point Joe was fully convinced there was an assassin inside the house.

He was apparently waiting to see either a green or red laser appear somewhere in the darkness.

Because obviously that is the most logical explanation for a power outage in suburban Ireland.

Eventually, we realized the neighbors had lost power too.

No assassin... or maybe the neighbors were the target and we were about to witness the whole thing while standing there completely helpless.

We called the owner.

Phone off.

We eventually reached Airbnb and figured out how to disengage the alarm.

Crisis over.

But an international vacation just wouldn’t be complete without standing in a pitch-black Irish estate at 2:00 a.m. wondering if someone is coming to kill you.

Par for the course when you’re a Piercy.

Day Six - Howth, Parking & Ronseal

Sunday, July 26, 2026

Another early start.

Today we headed to Howth to do the famous cliff walk.

Apparently, every person in Ireland had the exact same idea.

Howth was slammed.

And, for reasons we still don’t understand, seemingly half the people there were Italian.

This was very exciting for Joe because he constantly reminds everyone that he is basically fluent in Italian after spending five months there in college. Insert eye roll.

We eventually split up.

Finn, Katie, Mimi, and I decided not to conquer the four-mile mountainous cliff walk - where there are no rails and only rocks leading to imminent death if you fall - and instead explored Howth and found somewhere to eat.

Joe, Kezia, Wells, and Brooks took the other route and put their lives into their own hands.

About an hour later we reunited.

Joe looked exhausted.

We were exhausted.

But for very different reasons.

Joe had been hiking the cliffs.

We had spent the entire hour trying to find a parking spot.

There were probably a thousand spaces in Howth, and every single one was being fought over by people who had also decided that Sunday during peak Irish holiday season was the perfect time to visit.

Trying to navigate that chaos while sitting on the opposite side of the car and driving on the opposite side of the road added an entirely new level of difficulty.

Mission accomplished: we finally found parking and went to O’Connell’s for lunch. A group of older men was playing Irish music as we walked in, which was exactly what we needed after both of our stressful experiences.

Another fantastic Irish pub. And in fact, the whole group deemed it best restaurant on the trip!

Afterward, we took the kids to the park.

Howth also introduced us to the full range of Irish weather.

Within what felt like 30 minutes it went from:

Hot.

To hot and windy.

To cold and windy.

To colder and windier.

To rainy and windy.

And then somehow back to hot and windy.

Joe had read that harbor seals hang around the pier, so I dropped him and Brooks off to investigate.

And they actually found one.

Apparently, the locals have two seals named Lucille and Ronseal.

Lucille is named after a beautiful French woman.

Ronseal is named after a window cleaner.

I don’t understand it either, but I love it.

We headed back to Malahide and walked through the forest toward Malahide Castle.

We missed the window to actually tour the castle, but explored the gardens instead, where we saw tons of butterflies and a peacock. We also discovered our favorite Irish store, Avoca. It is so good!

Then we bought food for dinner, headed back to the Airbnb and did something we rarely do on a Piercy vacation:

Relaxed.

The kids played tennis in the backyard and we took the rest of the night easy.

Day Seven - Dublin

Monday, July 27, 2026

We started the morning at Starbucks, which we discovered is apparently the earliest breakfast/coffee establishment in Ireland.

Opening time?

8:00 a.m.

Europeans clearly do mornings differently.

We also discovered that European Starbucks is somehow less expensive, has less sugar, and offers bigger portions than American Starbucks.

Explain that one.

From there we walked to the Malahide train station and took the DART into Dublin.

We had a checklist.

But vacation checklists and vacation reality rarely match.

Dublin was slammed.

We got off the train and walked through Trinity College.

Joe had seen the Book of Kells when he studied abroad in college, but standing in line for one to two hours with four boys ranging from four months to 14 years old sounded like an absolutely terrible idea.

So we admired Trinity and kept moving.

We headed into the shopping district and bounced in and out of stores. The boys got soccer jerseys, Joe found a few new dress shirts, and eventually everyone was ready to eat.

We stopped at M.J. O’Neill’s, one of approximately 600,000 pubs in Dublin.

The food was phenomenal.

From there we headed to St. Stephen’s Green, basically Dublin’s version of Central Park.

The boys finally had room to run around and burn off some energy.

And then we met the pigeon man.

Picture the pigeon lady from Home Alone 2.

Except Irish.

He handed the boys birdseed.

Within seconds we were completely surrounded by pigeons.

At this point, the walking and touring portion of the vacation had officially run its course.

We headed back toward the train station and took the DART home to Malahide.

Later, Joe and I drove to the grocery store, where - of all places in the entire country of Ireland - Joe spotted a college kid wearing a University of Illinois shirt.

Naturally, this made his night.

We grabbed some premade meals and headed home for dinner.

Afterward, we played one final round of tennis.

In the middle of the game, the little girls staying next door started throwing fresh blackberries over the wall of our tennis court for us to eat. Let me remind you: those garden walls were about 15 feet tall!

It was such a simple little moment, but somehow the perfect ending to the trip.

We put the kids to bed, packed all the bags and got everything ready for the morning.

Eight days.

Four boys.

Two sides of Ireland.

Countless pubs.

Approximately 4,000 sheep.

Several roads that should not legally qualify as roads.

One possible assassin.

And somehow, we had done it.

Day Eight - Home

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

Katie (my sister) started the morning by making the Starbucks run while the rest of us finished packing.

We loaded the cars one final time and headed for Dublin Airport.

After everything we had experienced at O’Hare eight days earlier, airport security in Dublin was almost suspiciously easy.

Before long we were on the plane and beginning the long journey home.

Unlike the overnight flight to Ireland, this was a daytime flight, which meant there was no pretending everyone was going to sleep.

The adults watched about three movies each while collectively doing everything humanly possible to convince Rhodes to nap.

I can’t exactly say Rhodes was perfect on the flight home.

We probably spent half of it walking him up and down the aisles.

But for a four-month-old who had just spent eight days being dragged across another country by his parents and three older brothers, the kid was an absolute champ.

Eventually, we landed back in Chicago.

All six Piercys.

All the luggage.

Everyone safe.

Everyone exhausted.

And before we even made it home, we were already talking about the most important question:

Where are we going next?

One Last Thought

Was traveling internationally with four boys - including a four-month-old - relaxing? Absolutely not.

Was every moment picture-perfect? Also no.

But somewhere between the lost baby ticket, impossibly narrow roads, thousands of sheep, countless pubs, a possible assassin, and fresh blackberries flying over a 15-foot wall, we made memories we’ll talk about forever.

The boys explored a new country. We laughed a lot. We learned we could survive far more than we thought. And somehow, through all the chaos, Ireland gave us exactly the family adventure we had hoped for.

Until the next one.

Xoxo,

The Piercy's