When Irish eyes are smiling

Top o’ the mornin’ to yah!

Well the great plan of doing 2 blogs from Dublin to cut down on the amount of rambling per blog pretty much flew out the window due to laziness.  I really like Ireland and have learned a ton about the place I never knew before probably due to that laziness we were just talking about.  It really made it difficult to try to find the right line to walk writing this one because I could easily turn this into a ginormous history of Ireland thing with a few “oh and look at this pretty place” pictures and I don’t think I want to do that.  So instead I am going to try to throw out a few things I never knew before without going into details about things like the 1916 rebellion they are celebrating the 100^th anniversary of or try to remember all the dates that things happened throughout Ireland’s history.  I am going to try to self-censor, but I will probably go down some side paths along the way so if I start to bore you, let me know (or not…too late, it’s already written).  One thing to note, most of what I will be writing is based off the various tour guides stories and as all of them have admitted: they don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.  So caveat emptor on any of these “facts”.

I started out Sunday feeling better after the flights and the food poisoning so after a good, super overpriced breakfast at the hotel, I figured I would do the hop on hop off bus and start with checking out Kilmainham Gaol (it’s a jail).  Not only is it the #1 “thing to do” according to tripadvisor, Pam Moore gave it her seal of approval!  The bus costs 22 Euro (1.2E to 1USD exchange rate if you wanted to know) for all day and while you can pay the driver, I only had 50E bills and he didn’t have change.  He let me on anyway.  We passed quite a few cool places including St Patrick’s Cathedral (yes THAT Patrick…the one with the day) that is built next to the well where Pat supposedly converted the heathens to Christianity.  One thing I didn’t know: Jonathan Swift, of Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal fame, was the Dean at St. Patrick’s back in the day.  Heck, I didn’t even know he was Irish!

When we got to the gaol, I got off without paying since he still didn’t have change with the thought I would pay the next bus dude who hopefully would have that change.  What I didn’t know, until I read the note on the door, the gaol was closed until 1 (it was 9:30ish at the time) and for that afternoon, special dignitaries and invitees only were allowed in.  Crap.

The gaol is about the farthest thing from me on that tour and the tour busses are 20 minutes apart so I decided screw the hop on hop off, I would just walk back and wander through Dublin sort of doing a walking version of the hop on bus…sort of.  I went up to Phoenix Park which is >1500 acres and the largest “within a city” park in Europe.  Heck, I need to stop fact checking via the internets…it’s “one of the largest” as compared to THE largest.  What really drew me up there was a huge obelisk that could be seen from the gaol which turned out to be a monument to the Duke of Wellington (the one who beat Napoleon at Waterloo) who was also Irish.  Another I didn’t know.  To be fair, he wasn’t all that down with being Irish according to the various guides throughout my stay, but yet again, the one quote attributed to him (just because you are born in a barn does not make you a horse) isn’t his according to Wikipedia…which admittedly also isn’t that reliable.  The park also houses the zoo (didn’t even go there) and a gardens which was really nice to walk through.

 

The Wellington monument.  You can see it from all over the city

Flowers (tulips, I believe) in the garden in the park.  Really a nice walk

After that, I headed around down to the quays (pronounced keys, btw) and started back towards city center.  I was keeping an eye on the time because on Sunday, alcohol sales are not allowed until 12 or 12:30 which includes tours like the Jameson distillery and I was going to be going right past it on the way back to my hotel.  I actually hit it around 11:20 but since the tour lasts around an hour, I figured I would be good to go once it was done.  I actually didn’t get into a tour until the noon one but it was good that I was that early because by the time my tour was done, there was a 2 hour wait for the next free tour. 

The Jameson distillery is on the site of the original, but they no longer make it there.  Instead they moved their operations to Limerick.  The tour goes through a bit of history and then tells how they make their whiskey.  They are one of the few distillers that triple distill their whiskey (I was going to “educate” on distilling, but I think you can look that up rather than me making this even longer).  Part of the tour had us tasting their 5 year old, the most popular scotch in the world (Johnny Walker, 2x distilled) and the most popular American whiskey in the world (JD, 1X distilled).  To be fair, Jack Daniels sort of sucks anyway, but you could definitely tell the difference the distillations make as far as smoothness goes.  I don’t think I have ever had Jameson before on its own and it was pretty good!  These were all thimble sized samples, but you get a full ounce (at least) at the end of the tour too.  It was a good tour, learned some stuff and the guide we had was pretty good.  Matter of fact, he was giving me crap about my KU pullover I was wearing before whipping out his badge and showing a KU sticker on it and throwing out “Rock Chalk”.  Some ESPN reporter I had never heard of was there about 5 years ago with some buddies and they were touring Europe with about 1000 KU stickers they planned on sticking everywhere they went including the back of this guy’s badge.  We’re everywhere!

 

The guide talking about the triple distilling they do at Jameson

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

After that I had lunch at the Dublin version of Chipotle (I didn’t know…just saw they had burritos…but it was the same assembly line).  Not the same name and they didn’t have the Tabasco Chipotle sauce but it was filling none the less.  Since I was close, I made my way past St Patrick’s Cathedral (again, pretty cool) over to St Steven’s Green which was funded with money from one of the Guinness boys.  The Jameson guide was laughing about the news talking about the heat wave hitting Dublin and how they had a segment called “what to do during the heat wave”.  It was maybe 70.  The heatwave did bring out tons of people to just sit on the grass in the sun.  It looked like Portland the first time the sun comes out in the spring. 

 

The park next to St Patricks.  It has the well where he converted people to Christianity (supposedly...that it's the well, that is)

St Steven's Green...tons of people enjoying the yellow thing in the sky

Didn’t do much that evening as I was still recovering.

Tuesday I did another Pam suggestion: go out to the Cliffs of Moher (pronounced “moe her” if you wanted to know).  I found a day trip company (Wild Rover) that did a trip there and then up to Galway before circling back to Dublin.  It was a pretty good tour even though at least 8 of the 13 hours was spent on a bus getting you to the places the tour was going.  Pretty scenery along the way so other than being cramped in a full bus, it wasn’t too bad.

 

Wind turbines along the drive.  They look larger than the ones I have seen in the US

Castles everywhere.  Most of them are looking pretty ragged.

We first stopped at a truck stop midway to the west coast dubbed the Barrack Obama Center.  Turns out one of Obama’s mother’s ancestors came from the town next to the truck stop and he visited here a few years ago looking for the missing apostrophe in his name according to a quote in the museum-like area on the second floor of the stop.  Obama -> O’Bama…get it?  I thought it was funny.  Anyway, the truck stop owner decided to cash in and changed the name and added that little museum section. 

 

Obama!

The cliffs were pretty cool and I wish I had more time to spend at them…pretty much a running theme on both day trips I made.  To be fair, I think the Oregon coast line with its cliffs is pretty special but these are no less so.  Luckily it was fairly nice weather with the sun peeking out from time to time so it made it that much better.  From there we went to the Burren which is this rocky area that is pretty desolate.  It covers some of the area between the cliffs and Galway.  Cool landscape even if it is barren. 

 

Pretty good caution signs.  Not as good as the ones in Israel (where the dude is already falling) but still pretty good

The cliffs.  Thankfully, while it was overcast a bit, it wasn't too bad and we could see for miles

There is a path along the cliffs that connects the towns out there.  Rule #1: Stay on the official path

Yeah...the official path is the lonely one on the left.  So much for rule #1.  I may or may not have been on the wrong side at times myself....guess we will never know for sure.

looking back the other direction on the cliffs.  Really beautiful

North Carolinians be warned!  Bathrooms at the Cliffs might have the wrong gender in them!!

Proof that there are shitty parkers all over the world.  Maybe that's their handicap: can't park worth a damn

What the burrens looks like.  Miles of this.  

Throughout the drive we passed a lot of fields that had the dividing walls made up of rocks that had been dug up and then stacked.  Watch any movie supposed to be set in Ireland and I am sure they have had these walls in them somewhere.  What I didn’t know (and here we go) was that during the potato famine that caused Ireland’s population to drop in half from 8M to 4M people due to death and emigration, they also built famine walls.  Turns out the Victorians didn’t believe in charity so rather than just feed the starving, they had them build more walls that would literally go over hills and have no purpose in dividing land for pasture just so they could then get paid for an honest day’s work and buy food to keep from starving.  The coast drive up to Galway had rocky hills crisscrossed with these famine walls.

They also had what the tour guide called long necked western Irish sheep…yep, some of the farmers are raising alpaca.

 

Not the long necked variety, but added for Tam.  Yes, these are Irish sheep, but mutton love should know no borders!

Galway was a nice little town.  Again, wish I could stay there longer.  For sure next time I am getting over my “I ain’t driving” thing, getting a car and then wandering all over the island.  We did a walking tour down through part of it before we broke and I got my first fish and chips…ever?  Cod, if you care.  It was good.  Crispy and the chips are fat French fries that are firm and delicious.  Although I tried the vinegar thing that I have seen (and saw a lot of people do) on the chips, I fell back to ketchup like the heretic I am.  The vinegar was good…it just wasn’t good enough to cause me to switch.  I also had my first beer in Ireland: a Galway Hooker…a pale ale they make there.  Sure I should have had Guinness and all that, but I was going to the brewery the next day and I knew part of the tour was a free pint so I figured my first Guinness in Ireland should be directly from the source, right?  The beer was good…both of them.

Tuesday I started off going to Christ Church Cathedral.  It’s on the highest point in Dublin and while the church itself started in 1100 the Vikings had used it as a place for their settlement long before.  It’s a nice church (as churches go) but I was even more excited when the girl collecting money mentioned the entrance to the crypt.  Crypt, you say?  Do tell.  Guess where I headed first.  While there were people buried there with monuments to them along the wall, there was also a display going on with various knickknacks that had been given to the church along the way.  A set of gold plates from King William, some candlesticks from King James.  Then there was this book laying there under glass opened up.  Turns out this contained the knight of the time’s copy of the Magna Carta!  Yep, this book just sitting out was created around 1200.  I have to admit I geeked out a little bit.  The Magna Carta!  Of course, there are probably thousands of copies lying around Europe and it isn’t that big a deal, but I don’t know that.

 

The Cathedral (on the right side of the bridge)

knickknacks from kings.  sure they are gold...but knickknacks just the same ;)

The book with the Magna Carta in it.  This thing is 8-900 years old.  Crazy

One of the burial markers in the crypt

The tomb of Stongbow who was the knight that got that copy of the Magna Carta.  The original tomb was lost a while ago, but this one is from the 1400's...still before Columbus did hit thing

Next up was the Guinness storehouse.  Normal, self-guided tours run about 20 Euro…$24-ish.  But they include a “learn how to pour a Guinness the right way” session where you keep and drink the one you pour as well as a free pint at the 7^th floor glass enclosed observation deck so it’s a good deal.  If you care, correctly pouring a Guinness is a 2 pour process to ensure it comes out properly.  I opted for the Connoisseur Experience which ran 40E not really knowing what was involved other than you go to a private bar area.  The tour itself is okay.  I mean it’s self-guided and while they do have some pretty good short films and what not, you still have to work for it rather than having someone spin tales to keep you entertained.  The Experience was pretty cool and worth the extra money, IMO.  They limit it to 16 people at a time and basically take you into a small bar area and have you taste 4 of their beers while talking about them and where they came from.  You do the pour your own thing there as well as take a bottle of one of the 4 beers you tried with you when it’s done.

 

One of the guides said this was THE St James Gate...not sure if that is true or not as there are a lot of gates around the property, but it is a fine gate.  Oh, caption tidbit: Arthur Guinness signed a 9000 year (yes, nine thousand)  lease back in 1759 for the property where the brewery is.  Now THAT is thinking ahead.

Various bottles of Guinness throughout the history

They had a section with some of the advertising that was used throughuot the years 

Ahh...the first Guinness of Ireland...straight from the source

The private bar where the Experience happened.  Those are my tasting glasses in front of me.  The 4th taster was Guinness drawn from the taps right there.  Mmmm

One tidbit I didn’t know was that Guinness draught, the most popular beer…the one you get at bars…the one you think has been around forever, was first introduced in 1959 as a 200^th anniversary special occasion beer and wasn’t intended to last more than a year.  It was so popular, they kept it and it became what you know today.  The big thing with it?  They took their already existing Guinness Extra Stout and added nitrogen.  Matter of fact, both beers are now brewed as the same beer right up until they nitrogenate (their word) the draught.  Two of the beers we sampled were these 2 and they taste completely different even though they are the same beer.  Now you know.

After that I walked over to the gaol.  I knew I was good to go this time because I had purchased my ticket online.  Might not have been the wisest idea heading to another tour after downing 4 pints of beer, but the walk over was about a mile and a half and I was pretty clear headed by the time I made it there.  The tour itself is really interesting.  It was one of the first prisons to have individual cells rather than a common area where everyone was kept.  It’s pretty gloomy in the east wing but the west wing is relatively open and bright mainly for the guards benefit.  It was mostly used as a short term jail for misdemeanors as apparently anything above petty theft resulted in death back then.  But they didn’t discriminate on sex or age (youngest prisoner on record was a 5 year old who stole food during the famine).  It’s also where they performed a lot of executions including the leaders of the failed 1916 rebellion.  All in all, it was a good tour and I totally recommend it.  It didn’t get to #1 by accident.

 

Hi, welcome, come on into the Gaol...don't worry

The gloomy wing

The not so gloomy wing

A look at one of the cells.  Now I am not saying I would have wanted to be in here but it didn't appear to be that bad...for only one person

That evening I had an awesome dinner of seared corned beef with veggies before hitting a few pubs since the Guinness door had been opened earlier at the tour.  Good night with some good Irish music.

 

Traditional Irish music at the Temple Bar Pub

Wednesday I did the other Pam Moore suggested day trip up through Belfast and to the Giant’s Causeway and the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge all up in Northern Ireland.  Again it was a lot of bus riding on a full bus but totally worth it and we were blessed with more great weather and sunshine.  In Belfast we had the choice of a Titanic Experience (the Titanic was made in Belfast, FYI) or doing what is called a Black Taxi Tour where they take you around and show you some key areas from what they call “the troubles”.  You know which one I picked, of course.  Sadly there was very little in the Experience about Jack and whatsername.  Kidding!  I did the Black Taxi Tour. 

And here I have to admit to some pre-Ireland ignorance.  I thought Ireland was totally a part of the United Kingdom along with Australia and others.  I learned (the first day here) that actually most of Ireland is a free state and a republic having gotten their freedom in Dec, 1921.  That 1916 rebellion failed miserably, but the fact they executed all the leaders and then treated their bodies to an unmarked grave made them the martyrs the English were trying to avoid.  After WW I was over, the Irish did a full on rebellion in 1918 and this time had the world at their back and peace was signed.  Part of that accord was 6 of the 32 counties of Ireland, the ones with Protestant majority, would remain British subjects and that’s where Northern Ireland came from.  Same Island, different rule (and money for that matter.  Ireland is on the Euro, N. Ireland is on the pound).

So in Northern Ireland, the Protestants ruled the day and the Catholics were treated like second class citizens both through law and through job discrimination.  Really the whole history of Ireland is the Protestants suppressing the Catholics so much so you almost feel sorry for them until you remember all the things Roman Catholics have done to other people throughout history…but I guess that isn’t the Irish’s fault.

Anyway, the “troubles” basically came about when the Catholics, following the civil rights movement in the good ol’ USofA, tried to get equal rights for themselves in Northern Ireland.  The Protestants basically said screw you and violently responded to a peaceful march, the Catholics pretty much all joined the IRA and then 3000 people were killed and more than 100k people were injured before Clinton, of all people, got the Good Friday peace agreement negotiated in 1988 or 89.  The tour took us through some of the neighborhoods and showed us the “peace wall” that divides the hard core Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods that are literally side by side and things like that.  It was very interesting.  Screw the Titanic…it sank.

 

Murals capturing what happened all over the place

These gates are between the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods and still close at 10PM every night

The peace wall.  They had us sign it so we could be a part of history.  Cool touch.  It's supposed to come down in 2023.

The Giants Causeway is pretty cool.  Way up in the northern portion of Northern Ireland, it’s these basalt columns that form hexagonal shapes and look like a giant put them there to create a causeway.  There is a legend about 2 giants, one on Ireland and one on Scotland that would yell at each other until one built the causeway to go beat up the other.  So maybe that’s where it came from instead.  Either way, lots of people there.  Lots. 

 

Dunluce Castle on the way to the Causeway.  Very quick stop, but this is included on the inner portion of Led Zepplin's Houses of the Holy.  Interestingly, the cover of that album is photos taken at the Causeway!

At the causeway, example of the pilards

Leading into the sea headed towards Scotland

Some of them had cool tidepools in them.  The safety nazis wouldn't let me get closer but still cool

The rope bridge rounded out the day and it’s a bridge out to a small island the fishermen used to get out to fish salmon back in the day before the world heritage people took it over.  Now it’s still a suspension bridge, but it’s steel cables and wood and fairly secure.  Don’t get me wrong, there is still some bounce to it, but it wasn’t nearly as “wow” as I thought it would be.  One interesting note to me is that I think the bridge climb and stuff has helped with the height thing because I didn’t have any twinges at all on this thing.  I even did a little bouncing to the utter terror of the women in front of me. 

 

The bridge now.  The lady pictured (and her friend in front of her) were not amused about my bouncnig a bit.  I took a selfie too but it's only of my head....it could have been anywhere.  

View of the bridge from on high  

This is gorse.  All over the island.  Really pretty flowers that smell like coconut!  Also super thorny so you don't want to mess with it.

Today has been a pretty relaxing day.  I went over to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells.  It’s an illuminated (illustrated) copy of the 4 gospels from around 8 or 900AD that the monks in Dublin created.  They have 2 sections out and on display but there are no pictures allowed and, I don’t know…I guess I was expecting more or something.  It was ok…not sure it was worth the 11E price of admission.  After that I walked down to the harbor to check it out and then came back for a little lunch.  Tonight I am meeting up with a friend from work (Intel has a factory here in Ireland), Phil Wade.  We are going to do dinner and some drinks but not get totally blotto because a) he has to work tomorrow, is married, and lives 40ish minutes away and b) I fly out of here tomorrow at 9:30AM for Kansas City!  Get ready KC, here I come!

 

This is called the Long Hall...it's above the Book of Kells.  Finally could take photos so I did.  It's a pretty cool hall with TONS of old books

The harp that the original Irish flag was based from (used to be green with a harp now it's orange (for Protestants), green (for Catholics) and white for the peace between them)

Famine memorial down near the docks.  Representing the emigrants leaving

Looking back at downtown Dublin.  Cool harp bridge.

And now, after 6 freaking pages, we are caught up!  I suppose I will do some bits from KC, but I anticipate a lot of “I ate BBQ” and “I sat around and relaxed while drinking a Boulevard Pale Ale” amid going to see a couple of Royals games so it might be sort of thin.  On the other hand, I have been winning at every casino I have gone to so far so a trip out to the riverboats might be in order.  We will see.

Until then remember: It’s our time, the people’s time

Love to all

Jim