Dublin

The Scholarly Professor and the Raunchy Truck Driver left Scotland and ventured to Ireland. Our first stop, Dublin. We stayed in the Spire Hostel, located off the main drag (O’Connell Street) in downtown. It was a pretty convenient location for those planning to walk most places.

Our first day out in the city was started with an early morning walk to the Dublin Castle (which wasn’t opened yet, but had an exhibition on the city’s history that you could view that was open) and killed sometime waiting for the free walking tour to begin. When I was traveling in Spain a few years ago I got addicted to the free walking tours that are offered because they tend to show you many different parts of the city and convey the history of a place at the same time. I would get on a tour and use it as a way to figure out what areas I wanted to come back to, to explore later. This tour was as good as many of the others I’ve been on, but due to its 3.5 hour length and a surprise that Em had planned, we had to ditch out early.

A few things that I learned on the tour though are that the name for the city of Dublin comes from the Gaelic word Dubhlinn which translates into “Black Pool”. When the Vikings were conquering the area they named it after the “black pool” of sewage that collected in what is now the gardens or the castle. Our walking tour took us past some of the old Viking ruins, remnants of the old city walls (used to keep the slums from being seen by the aristocrats) and to famous movie/television show set locations.

The surprise that Em was keeping from me for three weeks turned out to be concert tickets to Mumford and Sons (as well as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, the Vaccines, Ham Sandwich, and Ben Howard). The concert was held in Phoenix Park, which happens to be the biggest public city park in all of Europe. We took the tram to the front of the park and then walked two miles through the center just to get to the venue. The concert was outdoors and I managed to acquire a sunburn (seven months living in the desert and no sunburn, a trip to the rainy lands of the UK and a sunburn…who would’ve thunk it?) enjoying it. The afternoon started out great with good music, bad beer (they only had Heineken), and some breathing space to relax and enjoy. As the night progressed and more people flooded the park for the main attractions, people got drunker, trash started filling up the grass lawn, and space was at a premium, but through it all, I got to have a wonderful early birthday present and see a great concert. It was a good first day in Dublin.

Due to the concert on our first real day in Ireland, we were down to only one day to visit the city. We decided to walk to the Kilmainham Gaol. Kilmainham is a prison that was built in 1796 to replace the older, darker prison that was nearly next door. It was used until the 1920s to house both criminals and political prisoners.

During the first Irish rebellion for independence from England, there were a series of 14 men (believed to the instigators of the rebellion) that were executed at the prison over the course of 10 days. The English hoped that the executions would deter future rebellions but this actually spurred those that previously were ambivalent to the cause into picking a side (mostly for a free Ireland).

On our way to the Gaol, we first stopped at Dublinia, which is a living history type museum. The museum has three levels:  one focusing on Viking history in the city, one level on the medieval history of the city, and one on archaeology and how they uncovered the past of the city. The museum is very well done with a lots of interactive exhibits (we took some nerdy pictures with period costumes and tried an old ring toss game…Em was rubbish) and story panels.

Our walk also lead us through the “liberties” (an area that used to be outside the city walls and thus not subjected to the taxes of being a city resident), past the Guinness Storehouse (which it will offend most of the drinking crowd to know we only took a photo of but didn’t go in) and to the outskirts of the city. It was a lovely walk and the prison at the end was worth it. Unfortunately, due to the distance and to everything closing by 5-6pm, we were unable to visit the crypts that we had wanted to see as well.

Since we missed the crypts, we consoled ourselves with what we were informed was the best Fish and Chips in the Templar Bar region. The Fish and Chips were from Leo Burdock’s, a small hole in the wall place that has a huge framed case denoting all the famous people that have eaten there in the past. Not sure if it was the best, but it was pretty damn tasty. Temple Bar is a touristy cute series of roads filled with bars and restaurants. Somewhere to see, but not to get a feel for real Ireland or Dublin.

I think that sometime I’ll need to come back and spend another day or two in the city as there are many things that I didn’t have a chance to really see.