Dec 2, 2011

The National Craft and Design Fair

As I said on Wednesdaty, my wife and I went out to the National Craft and Design Fair in the RDS. I thought I'd share some pictures from our day out to start the Christmas season.


This fair is on every year and really does have some great selections from Irish businesses. There's very little in the way of chains present, and if you look around you'll find things to suit most budgets.


It's great seeing the place decked out with Christmas lights. People were also generally polite and helpful. Great Christmassy atmosphere.


This stall was selling a new type of syrup they've invented, made from apples. It's like a kind of apple honey, called Highbank Orchard Syrup. We tasted some and just had to buy a couple of bottles.


There was a craft section dominating the center of the main hall, with people working a pottery display right there at a stall.


Almost everything you see there is some form of biscuit. Yum.


This is another stall that drew us in. Banshee Legend is a new whiskey-based liquer with a hint of ginger. Very nice, and I'm not normally a whiskey drinker. We picked up a bottle, but it's also available in the Celtic Whiskey Shop on Dawson Street in Dublin.


A close-up of Banshee Legend. I love the design of the bottles.


Lots of the stalls have some really great and unique gift ideas for kids as well as adults.


Everything here is hand made and beautifully glazed. Unlike a lot of the pottery on sale at the fair, this stall had some really reasonable prices, too.

If any of you ever get the chance, I can only recommend going to the fair. Tickets are €10 and if you get a return pass before leaving, you can come back any day during the fair for no charge. It's a great way to get into the swing of things for Christmas, though it can be tiring to walk around all the stalls, so small children are likely to get bored easily.

6 comments:

  1. That looks so lovely and fun. I love holiday fairs, and this was a real smorgasbord of delights! I think I want some of that apple syrup.

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  2. Sounds like you and your wife had an enjoyable outing.
    Over here, we have several Christmas Craft Fairs but a recent addition to the roster, which had its first appearance last year was The German Christmas Market, here on the West Coast of Canada.

    It was a big success - so I'm heading back for seconds, thirds and fourths - happens that friends and family want me to tag along with them - so I'll definitely have my share of Glüwein (mulled wine) this year!

    Thanks for sharing your outing, I always enjoy reading about what goes on in other parts of the world during this time of year!

    Jenny
    PEARSON REPORT

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  3. Melissa: It's really good. Though as far as I know it's only made by the people who were selling it at the fair. We'll definitely be finding where to get it once we run out.

    Pearson: I love German Christmas markets. Some of the winter markets here will have Gluwein. Wonderful stuff.

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  4. You had a lovely time by the sound of it, sadly our town doesn't much do this type of fairs!

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  5. I tasted the Banshee whisky at the Christmas festival. They did a shot with the whisky, orange juice, vanilla, and the thing is i cant remember what else was in there. It was lovely, and i am not a whisky drinker usually. Do you know the exact recipe for this?

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