Dublin, Ireland 2

Dublin ! And all the Guiness you can drink !

Well, not only Guiness, there is plenty more to drink as we found during our 2 days here.

And if you haven’t realised already – we’re not in Scotland anymore !

We are in “LAND” number 4 now, IreLAND

Boarding our flight to Dublin

We had an early start for our 9am flight to Ireland. And last night proved a bit of a challenge as we tried to squeeze our 2 carry on / 10kg allowances into the 1 carry on / 7 kg allowances for this flight – although an Air Lingus flight, it was run by a regional airline, Stobart Air, which was a small propeller driven plane. So despite the warm weather, we were wearing multiple jackets with pockets stuffed with various items – camera lenses, Ipad, extra batteries etc. Thankfully, our odd appearance compared to most of the other passengers didn’t arouse any concern with the authorities ! 😂

Dublin certainly put on a show for our arrival !

Firstly, summer had returned with the maximum temperature reaching about 24 degrees. Then, in the taxi from the airport to our hotel, there seemed to be a lot of traffic around. “That’s all the visitors from the north in town for the game” advised the cabbie. Turns out we had the All Ireland Football Championship Final in town at Croke Park – just a few blocks from our hotel. And home team Dublin were up against Tyrone “from the north” and looking for their 4th title in a row ! The town was decked out in the locals “2 blues” as well as a fair share of the red of Tyrone.

We checked in about 11am and luckily our room was ready. After discarding our extra clothing layers and bulk, we set off for a walk around town. Now you may or may not be aware of the family rivalry – my Scottish ancestry and Adrienne’s Irish ancestry ! So having had our Scottish “whisky” tour at Strathisla, we were headed for our Irish “whiskey” tour – Dublin’s Jamesons Distillery.

The original distillery on this site was called the Bow Street Distillery and was established in 1780. John Jameson took full ownership (he was previously the general manager) and expanded the distillery in 1805. By 1810, the operation was officially renamed to John Jameson & Son’s Bow Street Distillery. The distillery grew to an upwards of 5 acres by 1886. With its size, it was described as a “city within a city”. The distillery also housed a Smithy, Cooperage, saw mills, engineers, carpenters, painters and coppersmiths’ shops. Water for the distillery came from two deep wells dug underneath the site. Cellars were also dug underneath nearby streets to store maturing whiskey, while four stills and two wash stills, each holding 24,000 gallons, were heated by both fire and steam coils above. Following a difficult period that included American Prohibition, Ireland’s trade war with Great Britain, and the introduction of Scotch blended whiskey, the Jameson distillery fell on hard times and decided to form the Irish Distillers Group with their previous rivals, the Cork Distilleries Company and John Power & Son in 1966. Eventually, it became one of the last distilleries in Ireland to close in 1971. The operation was then moved out of Dublin and the current location is purely a tourist attraction – a pretty good one at that !

The tour was very entertaining and the guide quite a character. After our samples, we headed for the “pub” end of town – the Temple Bar area – at this stage only to get an idea of where we had to be for another tour later in the day.

The original, and colourful, Temple Bar

From here we went looking for some lunch. We ended up at the Church – no not a Church, but a restaurant in an old church, called The Church. It is located on a pedestrian mall through town and combines casual dining downstairs and outside together with more formal dining upstairs. We had a nice meal as the excitement grew around us with the start of the All Ireland final on the big screen ! Also a bit weird lunching next to a headstone on the wall ! A certain Arthur Guinness was actually married in the Church – before it was a restaurant though.

Enjoying a 5 Lamps Pale ale – with accompanying headstone ?

After our late lunch, we decided to head back to the hotel to catch up with a bit of blogging – and a snooze – as we were heading out on a “musical pub crawl” later in the evening. I watched the end of the All Ireland final – Dublin had clinched their “4 in a row” – and almost immediately we could hear the singing and celebrating as the fans left Croke Park and headed for the various pubs around town to celebrate – or drown their sorrows for the Tyrone supporters.

Around 7pm we walked back to a pub near Temple Bar called Oliver St John Gogarty’s which was the starting point of our Musical Pub Crawl tour. It is not quite as it sounds. The tour provides an experience of Dublin’s traditional Irish music scene. Two friendly musicians provide a fun and educational tour through town and do a bit of Irish storytelling and play the more traditional Irish music. The tour is described as a “moving concert”. The first pub is really just a place to meet and whilst they played a bit here, it was really just part of the rest of the pub crowd and somewhat loud with all the mingled football crowds celebrating !

The musicians get started at Oliver St John Gogarty’s

We moved on to 2 other pubs during our “crawl”, The Ha’penny Bridge Inn and Bannisters, where the tour group – probably about 30 or so – had their own room and bar and the musicians performed for about 45 minutes or so in each, whilst everyone enjoyed a beer or two. The musicians were very good – one with a fiddle whilst the other played guitar, irish banjo and drum – and had the group involved with their stories and a bit of a singalong now and then. They explained at the beginning that this was about traditional Irish music and how it was played and enjoyed. If we wanted to hear “Danny Boy” or “Galway Bay” or the like, this wasn’t the place to be. Unfortunately a group of drunk American women in the group didn’t take the hint and spoiled it a bit however the 2 musicians put them in their place whenever they opened their mouths or got too loud ! It was a very enjoyable evening – despite the fact that as we left the 2nd pub it had started raining and we all got drenched getting from one pub to the other ! Luckily for us the last pub was near our hotel so we didn’t have far to head back to our hotel.

Enjoying a beer and the music at the Ha’penny Bridge Inn

The last pub on our musical tour – Brannigan’s

DAY 2 –

We had a slow start this morning then started off on Adrienne’s walking tour of the Dublin sights.  Down the nearby main street is a monument called “The Spire”. It’s been called “the tallest waste of 5 million Euro in Europe” and has nicknames like “The Stiletto in the Ghetto” and “the Stiffy on the Liffey” . It had replaced an earlier monument to Horatio Nelson which was blown up by the IRA in 1966, on the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Uprising.

The Spire – it’s tall and thin and that’s about it !

The Spire is near the GPO, where the proclamation of Irish Independence was read in 1916 kicking off the Easter Uprising. The GPO was the rebel headquarters and the scene of a 5 day siege. The pillars of the building are still pockmarked with bullet holes.

The GPO

Next we walked to Trinity College. It is officially the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I and is also more mundanely called Dublin University. The university houses The Book of Kells, a 1200 year old version of the 4 gospels, elaborately inked and illustrated by monks and arguably the finest art from the Dark Ages.  The library of Trinity College – the Long Room – contains over 6.2 million printed volumes and significant quantities of manuscripts. It is a spectacular sight.

Intricate artwork on the Book of Kells

One or two books in the Trinity College library !

We then walked on through the college grounds to Merrion Square to see  the Oscar Wilde statue which is across the road from Oscar Wilde’s restored childhood home.  We then headed back towards the west to the  Molly Malone statue . The statue commemorates the subject of a well known Irish song — an attractive fishmonger who sold cockles and mussels from her barrow which she wheeled through the streets of Dublin city and how she died of a fever and now her ghost haunts the city streets.

Statue of Molly Malone – a bit “touched up” – for luck I’m sure 😇

Next was Dublin Castle which, from 1204 until 1922, was the seat of English/ British rule in Ireland. It served principally as a residence for the monarch’s Irish representative, the Viceroy of Ireland, and as a ceremonial and administrative centre. The Castle was originally developed as a medieval fortress under the orders of King John. As usual, parts were covered in scaffold ! Just behind the palace is Dubhlinn Garden which is on, or near, the site of the original dubh linn or ‘black pool’, where the Vikings harboured their ships and set up a trading base. It gave its name to the city –  Dublin.

Dubhlinn Garden with part of Dublin Castle in the background

Further on we visited Christ Church Cathedral (founded approx.1028) which is the spiritual heart of Dublin. The cathedral is the largest in Ireland, and the earliest surviving structure in the city. The crypt houses priceless silver, plate and other relics – and a mummified cat and mouse !

Inside the Cathedral

A couple of the relics !

It had been such a long time since our last drink 😂😂 it was time to switch from whiskey to beer – and a visit to the Guinness Storehouse ! It’s the original Old Grain Storehouse of the Guinness brewery however no longer part of the brewing itself. It now just provides the show ! You proceed up through 5 floors of exhibits and fancy displays explaining everything Guiness, when you reach the Tasting room you’re given a small glass and are taught the correct way to drink it and finally on the top floor, called the Gravity Bar, you get a 360 degree view over the city from a rounded room with bar in the centre and surrounded by glass windows – a great way to sample a free pint ! 🍺

What more can I say ?

After taking in the view – and our pint – we went back down to one of the cafe/restaurant options for a bite of lunch before heading back to the hotel via the city’s rail system. The light rail system is called the “Luas” which is Irish gaelic for “speed” – though it’s not particularly fast !

After a lot of walking during the day, we decided to eat in the hotel restaurant for dinner. I can assure you the potato famine is over – the veges served with dinner included a huge quantity of both mashed and boiled potatoes !

After our 2 days in Dublin, we are back on the road tomorrow, heading south west – more then !

Today’s Tour Trivia – must be the luck of the Irish – 2 for this post !

Dublin’s O’Connell Bridge is believed to be the only bridge in Europe that has the same width as its length. Prior to 1801, the original rope bridge could only carry one man and a donkey at a time.

The more superstitious students of Trinity College, Dublin (during their undergraduate studies) never walk underneath the Campanile, (the college bell tower) as the tradition suggests that should the bell ring whilst they pass under it, they will fail their annual examinations