Dublin City

March 18 - Touring Dublin

After going to sleep rather early on the 17th (it had been a 30+ hour day) we awoke ready to take on Dublin on Monday.  We had a voucher for a Dublin City Bus Tour that you can get on and off as you choose at the various 24 stops, with commentary on the city and its history between the stops.  We started by walking down to the closest station (several blocks away) to catch the bus.  The first bus we tried to get on was "the Red bus", but were told we were on the red bus, we needed the green bus which promptly came around the corner.  Apparently the buses go to many of the same places, but "you don't get on the red bus, don't ever do that".  Once we straightened out what bus we needed we hopped on and went down a stop to a place that was recommended for a traditional Irish breakfast.  We had sausage, bacon (actually just ham but they call it bacon), eggs, black and white pudding, potato cakes, toast, mushroom, tomato, and beans.  Overall the black and white pudding weren't bad but they weren't great either, and the potato cake tasted like a spoonful of fried mashed potatoes.

From breakfast, we headed over to St. Patrick's Cathedral for pictures.  Actual entry into the cathedral is a little expensive so we wandered a bit outside taking photos before getting back on the bus to head to the next stop recommended to us.

After St. Pat's, we headed over to Kilmainham Gaol, a large jail that was where many Irish rebel leaders were held and executed.  The gaol was built in three stages, the old section of the jail was narrow limestone corridors with small cells to one side.  The prisoners in the early years of the jail were give a single candle for light and warmth to last them a week and give a crust of bread and a thin broth each day (unless the warden decided to sell the food instead).  The next section of the jail that housed many of the rebel leader executed in 1916 wasn't much different though there was more light.  This section still had the small stone cells with peep holes to see into the cells, but it also had grate floors in the corridor so you could see the halls on the floors above and below.  Many of the rebel leaders that were held here were executed in small courtyard on the grounds away from the public eye to prevent too much sympathy for the rebels by the locals.The newest section of the jail (still 100+ years old) was a large room with several floors of cells around the walls and a large skylight allowing them to see what was going on (picture below).  It was apparently not unusual for the jail to house women and children as young as 8, actually children were considered old enough to be executed at age 12 though it didn't happen often.  During the potato famine in the 1850s when so many Irish died or emigrated, there were more than 9,000 people in the jail during one year, largely due to theft of food or intentionally being caught so they would have a roof and food for a few days.  When the jail was closed a few former prisoners actually helped to restore it for tours and the small museum, and it has been used for movie sets and concerts.

After Kilmainham Gaol we got back on the city tour bus, the average time for the entire circuit was 1.5 hrs and we were more than half way around from our stop to get back to the hotel.  We had to meet our tour group at 2 and when we got on the bus it was 12:25, should have been plenty of time.  It wasn't.  We got to stop 1, had to get off the bus and get on another bus to go over to stop 7.  The second bus driver didn't really drive very quickly, unlike the previous drivers, and we ended up having to practically run from the bus stop to the hotel a few blocks away.  We made it to the bus by the skin of our teeth (about 1:58) very out of breath.  The plan for the afternoon was a tour of Dublin on the bus and a tour of Christ Cathedral.  Originally we were going to go to Dublin Castle (not actually a castle since it burned down and was rebuilt in the 1700s as a large manor house) but it is closed because of European Union meetings being held there.  Instead we went on a tour of Christ Church Cathedral.  This cathedral was originally Catholic but became a Protestant church during the reign of Henry VIII.  It has several beautiful stain glass windows and holds the tomb of Richard Strongbow (an English knight that was one of the first Englishman to go to Ireland, the beginning of the invasion in a way) as well as many others.

After the tour of Dublin, we had drinks with the rest of the tour group then went on to dinner at the Merry Poughboy Pub, owned by a group of musicians.  There we had an okay dinner with the entire tour group and were treated to live Irish music and dancing, not getting back to the hotel until nearly 11:00pm but the show was good, just didn't get enough sleep since we were out so late.