Ireland: Dublin

Trip Date: August 8, 2011

Finally, the culmination of a week of beautiful sites and weather in Ireland! We woke up early in the morning, ate our complimentary and traditional Irish Breakfast at the hotel, packed the van, and off we went! I was the unlucky one who got stuck riding in the fold-up seat in the very back of the van next to all of the luggage. It actually wasn't as uncomfortable as I thought, but still, it's cruel and unusual punishment to have a 6'2"-tall person scrunched up in such a small space. The drive across Ireland was pretty, but we were on a big highway and there wasn't much to look at, so I spent most of the drive reading The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson on my iPad. It really didn't take long and before we knew it we were on the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland's largest city and its capital, and then BOOM - we were downtown at our hotel.

We were too early to check in so the clerk behind the desk let us put our luggage in a side storage room for the time being and then Dad, Britta, and Carl left to take the van back to the rental agency at the airport while Lizzie and Rob showed me around Dublin. The rest of my family was here on their first day in Ireland and it seemed like they already knew exactly where to go. Rob confessed that Dublin was his favorite city and that he wanted to move here, so that explained why he was so enthusiastic to be my guide! We walked along the River Liffey, stopping to take photos with statues, until we got to the Temple Bar neighborhood, which has a convoluted history on how it got its moniker: Temple was the name of a family that owned a pub in that neighborhood early in Dublin's shipping days. The Pub was positioned very near a natural sandy shallow spot in the river called a bar. So for its early history, the pub was near this bar and it became known as Temple's Bar - a name that soon became the generic name for the whole neighborhood. Lizzie, Rob, and I snagged a midday meal at a really good restaurant where I sampled Bangers and Mash and my favorite, MUSHY PEAS!!!!

I decided to help this poor dock worker

Rob did too, but he wasn't really putting his back into it...

Looking east down the River Liffey

Rob and Lizzie in front of Temple Bar

More of the Temple Bar neighborhood

Bangers and Mash!!! The sausages are the bangers and the potatoes are the mash

Mmmmmmm....mushy peas......mmmm

This sign was in the restaurant and I felt it was very true

Quays Irish Restaurant. Good food stop!

Lizzie and Rob had to do a little bit of shopping so I split from them and walked through Temple Bar to get to Trinity College. The school is one of Ireland's oldest and most elite, but because it was set up by the English it did not allow Catholics to attend, even as late as the 1970s!! The school is frequently referenced in movies such as the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman flick, "Far and Away." Trinity College is most notable, however, for two things: it houses The Book of Kells and the Long Room of the Old Library. I was on a tight time-budget so my interpretation of the history of both is not too detailed. Sorry!

The Book of Kells was a sacred manuscript illuminated - or incredibly intricately depicted and illustrated - by monks on the Scottish island of Iona. It was then moved to Kells Abbey in northeast Ireland. Cromwellian forces sought the book as they had heard that it was the most valuable item in Ireland. It was protected and eventually was sent to Trinity College for protection where it now remains under very tight security and protection from cameras and physical touch. You pay about 10 euros to get in to the exhibit and there are fantastic displays showing the history of these types of books, how they were made, who made them, and what materials were used. Some of the minerals and plants used as dyes for the ink used in illuminating the Book of Kells would only have been found at the time as far away as the Middle East, so the finished book truly was a marvel! You can see two pages from the actual Book of Kells, and I believe the museum there switches the pages every so often.

Central campus area for Trinity College

Poorly representative photo of one of the pages from the Book of Kells (photo courtesy of independent.co.uk), but you get a very good idea of the amount of detail that went into just one of the pages of this huge tome!

The Long Room of the Old Library at Trinity College is a masterpiece in and of itself! Frequently seen on posters or in textbooks or even in a few movies, the Long Room is well...a long room full of research books - mostly old medical books - but it is still used by students at the College and you have to be very quiet as you gaze up and around you at the numerous stacks of books, marvelous carved wood, and busts of Irish literary notables. If you're lucky you can tour both the Book of Kells and the Long Room in peace and quiet, but during the middle of the day, expect to wait in a long line and not have the place to yourself. Regardless of how many people are there, it is worth the wait!

The Long Room at the Trinity College Library in Dublin (photo courtesy of teachertravelsblog.com)

Looking west, up the River Liffey to the famous Ha' Penny Bridge

Statue of Daniel O'Connell, an Irish independence advocate from the 1800s who served in the British Parliament at a time when Catholics were not allowed to hold public office

Close-up of one of the statues at a memorial to those who died in the Great Potato Famine given to Ireland by the Government of Canada

Here is the whole haunting memorial

Though not in use anymore, this was a couter-weight system used to raise a section of the road over a canal to a small backwater marina and shipyard!

It was nearing 3:00pm, a rendezvous time the family set up to meet back at the hotel, check in, and decide what to do for the rest of the day. Lizzie and Rob once again went off to check out the east part of the River Liffey, Britta and Carl went to Temple Bar where Britta got coerced to play the fiddle and dance with the musicians at the pub they went to, and my Dad and I  went of on our own.

We first went back to O'Connell Street, one of the main shopping thoroughfares in Dublin. Along the street is the Dublin Post Office where some of the major events of the Easter Uprising of 1916 took place. Along with the rest of major historical and cultural sites of Ireland, the Post Office is a nondescript place, offering interpretations of the history that happened there, but nothing showy or flashy. Just outside the Post Office is the Dublin Spire, the world's tallest sculpture (398 feet), built in the early 2000s as a centerpiece for the newly refashioned downtown shopping district and on the site of the much older Nelson's Pillar (a monument to Lord Nelson that was bombed in 1966).

Façade of the Dublin Post Office

 

Dublin Spire

Looking up the Spire. It is 3 meters at its base and 15 centimeters at the tip

My Dad and I headed back toward Trinity College and to Merrion Square Park where there is a memorial to the Irish writer and poet. We then passed the Irish government building and stopped in at O'Donoghue's Pub for a pint where I met a couple, both professors at the University of Michigan. The pub was really cool - your typical Irish hole-in-the-wall pub with fancy but worn wooden furniture and posters, photos, and international currencies stuck up haphazardly on the walls. Our walking tour then brought us through St. Stephen's Green and over to Dublin Castle, the old seat of Irish Government, where you can walk around the grounds and go in to some of the buildings free of charge. But our real destination was St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is neither a Catholic church nor was it the seat of a Bishop, so it really does not deserve the title even though it is a magnificent building! It was too late in the day for us to go in and even though I made a little scene in front of the security guard, he was stubborn and didn't let us in. We then passed Christ Church - another beautiful church in Dublin - and made our way to the actual Temple Bar for another pint before having to meet up with everyone else for dinner.

Oscar Wilde statue in Merrion Square Park

Irish Parliament Building

Dad standing outside O'Donoghue's Pub

Center square of St. Stephen's Green

Inner courtyard of Dublin Castle. Throughout the summer they have numerous sand sculptures on display

Central courtyard of Dublin Castle

Gatehouse of Dublin Castle

Central tower and chapel of Dublin Castle

Façade of St. Patrick's Cathedral

Christ Church

We met everyone back near the hotel for dinner and then went back to the hotel where we started packing our suitcases one more time. Liz, Rob, and I played some cards, but then went to bed. My flight left Dublin early the next morning and so I needed some sleep, whereas Rob and Liz didn't need to get up for a while.

I absolutely wanted to spend more time in Dublin because it is such a historical city and so many places to explore and get lost and parks to take naps in! I was not disappointed when I left because I just put Dublin on my list of "Things to do Next Time" and will check them off in time. What a fantastic end to such a history and site-filled vacation. I started off these sets of blog posts by mentioning that this was the first family trip in 10 years and while I missed being able to share the time and experiences with my mom and grandparents, I know they were looking down and happy that we were able to do and see everything we did!

But my travels are not quite over yet! I scheduled my return flight to take me through Paris for nearly 24 hours before coming back to the US, so I have one more post from this whole travel excursion! Wait for it. I promise you won't be disappointed...well...you be the judge :)

Ireland: Back to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren

Trip Date: August 7, 2011

For as small of a country as Ireland is - it's just a little bigger than West Virginia - it takes a long time to get anywhere! Mostly this is due to the narrow, winding roads, but it's also due in large part to the fact that the transportation infrastructure is dictated by the topography and Ireland is a very mountainous country! For these reasons, we got up early, finished packing, took showers, ate a quick breakfast, and prepared Agma for our departure. With suitcases packed as orderly as possible and everyone tight on space, we left Bantry shortly after 9am.

It took us a while to get back on to any major sort of highway, but we joined the big one just near Killarney and kept driving until the little town of Adare, just southwest of Limerick. It was a cute town with some neat ruins and churches and thatched roofs, but all in all, the few restaurants that were open were ex-pen-sive and I immediately got the feeling that this was the town where wealthy people from Limerick come to play golf... We stopped in Limerick, too, albeit very briefly for a late morning meal which we got in a restaurant beneath a parking garage after getting lost a little bit. I don't think anyone else was too psyched about stopping there but we didn't see much else open. The restaurant was big, however, and had a lot of large TV screens showing an Irish Hurling match.

Hurling is a game that goes back almost 4,000 years! It's central to Gaelic culture and each county in Ireland has a team. The players are all amateurs in the sense that none of them get paid, but being on a team is highly respected, and there is no way I would want to go toe to toe with any hurler. Hurling is a hybrid of soccer, rugby, lacross, and...well...quidditch (yup, I went there). Players on each team use their hands and a hurley (a type of stick) to hit the sliotar (ball) between uprights at the opponent's end of the field for a point or into the goalie-guarded net below the uprights for a goal (worth three points). There's a lot of smashing and grabbing and throwing and bouncing, but we caught on pretty quickly. The national championships are all played in Croke Park, a stadium in Dublin. Croke Park is interesting because it was here on Bloody Sunday in 1920 that English officers entered the stadium during a football match and started shooting into the crowds in retaliation for the murder of other English officers earlier in the day by Michael Collins. While the stadium is the third largest in Europe, only traditional Irish games administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association can be played in the stadium. All other sports that appear to have a direct competition with Irish sports, including rugby and association football, must now obtain special permission to use the facilities after a total ban was recently lifted.

Back on the highway after getting our fill of food and hurling (the sport), we were one our way back up to where I first came with Ryan and Sarah, to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. Britta and Carl, while having been to Ireland before, never got up to this part so this was especially exciting for them! We once again parked in the over-crowded, touristy parking lot at the cliffs and walked over. It was much better weather today than it was when I was here with Ryan and Sarah. Lizzie and Rob wanted to take photos like Sarah, Ryan, and I had done out on the adjoining private property, so we went off and let Dad, Britta, and Carl do their own thing. Dad watched Britta and Carl go up on another trail close to the cliff edge and while he enjoyed the views, he couldn't take the heights and went back to the car.

Beautiful Cliffs of Moher

Lookout castle at the cliffs

Clear view out to the Aryn Islands

Lizzie and Rob 400 feet up!

Me 400 feet up! (ocean for scale)

We found Dad back at the car and soon we were all packed in again, ready to head to the Burren, but not before taking a nice country road into the town of Doolin, famous all over the world for its traditional Irish pub music. A lot of people now say that Doolin is too overrun by tourists and non-traditional, non-Irish musicians that it's lost its charm. Just don't tell that to the people a Gus O'Connor's Pub because they seemed to be having quite a good time!

Neat castle on the road to Doolin

Irish group playing their tunes for no one in particular except themselves!

But this little guy was enjoying the music, too!

And another group in the room next to ours. Fantastic music!

Dad outside of Gus O'Connor's Pub

The last time that my family was in the Burren it was rainy and everyone was wet so the windows were fogged up and it was dark out, so we never really got a good chance to experience the Burren. That was in 2001 and I had the pleasure of already being here on this trip, so I brought them back to through the Burren by way of the Poulnabrone Portal Tomb. It started spitting a little bit so we didn't linger long and while one the road through the Burren we came across some good luck. We found the END of the rainbow!!

Back at the Poulnabrone Portal Tomb

Rob, Lizzie, and me

The rainbow ended right in that field!! If only we stopped to see if there was really a pot of gold there..

While you can see a lot of grass in the photo above, the Burren is much more rocky with extremely little vegetation of any sort, especially as you get closer to the shore and the town of Ballyvaughn. We drove the coastal route and pulled in to the town of Oranmore right around 9pm, found a cheap hotel, and then brought fish 'n' chips back to the room while playing a round of cards. And the next thing we knew, we only had one day left in Ireland.

Ireland: Beara Peninsula and more of the Sheep's Head Peninsula and Bantry

Trip Date: August 6, 2011

Ryan and Sarah left early this morning to head back to Dublin for the day before their flight left which left Lizzie, Rob, Carl, Britta, my Dad, and me to continue exploring Ireland on our own. In southwest Ireland there are five major peninsulas that stick out into the Atlantic Ocean: the Dingle, Iveraugh, Beara, Sheep's Head, and Mizen Head Peninsulas. Already on this trip we explored four of the five (click the links) and today was the day we'd explore the fifth and final one - the Beara Peninsula. And it was about time, too since we'd been waking up looking at it every day of the trip!

But first, Dad wanted to see more of the Sheep's Head Peninsula and so while Carl slept in, the rest of us got in the van and drove up and over the ridge above Agma to the little town of Kilcrohane, stopping along the way to see a neat castle ruins in the morning sun. We walked around Kilcrohane in about five minutes and there isn't much there other than a neat old church, two small cafes, a hostel or two, and a tiny town store where we each got a little snack of sorts. The road out of Kilcrohane goes back up to the ridge of the Sheep's Head Peninsula where there are great views of the landscape and a ring fort in ruins.

Castle ruins on the Sheep's Head Peninsula

View from above Kilcrohane with a ring fort ruins on top of the hill and the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse way in the distance

Fastnet Rock Lighthouse

Ring fort ruins

Looking up to the ridge of the Sheep's Head Peninsula

We didn't leave for the Beara Peninsula until early afternoon as we didn't think it was going to take us that long to get out to the end of it. After all, it's only 30 miles long! With everyone packed into a mini-van and with our Ordnance Survey Ireland maps in had, we hit the road. The neat thing about the OSI maps is that they are incredibly detailed and mark each neolithic standing stone, ring fort, or burial tomb as well as any castles or abbeys or ruins of both, and only when you use those maps do you realize that these types of ruins are literally all over Ireland!

The first little stop we made was in the little town of Castletownbere, about two-thirds of the way out the Beara Peninsula. I think it's the biggest town on the peninsula and they have their own medical center there, but I was told by a girl in a shop in Bantry that any medical emergencies have to be brought back to Bantry! It's a neat town with the typical Irish one main road lined with pubs and shops and a church. We stopped in the McCarthy's Pub for a half-pint before going on our way and learned from the bartenders that the town and pub have been featured before in films. Now, whether you've seen or even heard of the films is a different story. My dad wrote down the names of the films and I've seen one of them so far called, Ondine, starring Colin Farrell. There was also a poster for a book by the same name as the pub, McCarthy's Pub, written by Pete McCarthy and has been reviewed to be, "...like Bryson without all the boring parts," so I couldn't not buy it, which was worth it because the bartender pulled out a huge notarizing stamp to make the purchase official! I haven't read it yet, but I'm excited to dive into it soon!

Church in Castletownbere

Pints, book, and notarizing stamp

Recreating the cover of the book

Just to the west of Castletownbere are some property gates that clearly mark the entrance to some grand estate. Turns out that this is the entrance to Dunboy Castle and the Puxley Mansion. Dunboy Castle is the site of the seat of the O'Sullivan Beare Clan who owned and ruled over the Beara Peninsula until it came under attack in 1601 from Cromwellian forces and finally fell in 1602. You can't really see much of the Dunboy Castle, though because the a land agent from Galway came into posession of the land in the late 1600s and added on the more formidable front of the Puxley Mansion. Down the road from the Puxley Mansion are the ruins of the Dunboy Monastery, built by a Spanish bishop in the early 1500s and later dismantled by pirates! It is unclear whether this Monastery was already in ruins by the time the English took over in 1602 or if those details belong to a Monastery built at the end of the Beara Peninsula. Nevertheless, buried in the ruins of the monastic chapel are the descendents of the O'Sullivan Beare clan, placed there in the late 1700s.

Ruins of the Dunboy Monastery

Group shot on the ruins

Though pretty simple and small, the ruins of the Monastery are pretty neat to explore

Old shipping quay used for the Dunboy Castle and/or the Puxley Mansion

The Dunboy Castle is attached to this building, but it is behind it so you can't see it from here. The Mansion was burned out by fire in the early 1900s and has since been restored and is going to open up as a modern hotel.

We kept driving for a while before making the turn onto the little single-lane road that brings you out to the very end of the Beara Peninsula, passing a neolithic portal tomb that is now in the middle of a cow field. A few settlements of B&Bs and tiny cafes are out here, but there's really not much else other than farmland. But what it must be like to live out here all year round! At the end of the Beara Peninsula is Ireland's only cable-car which brings farmers, hikers, visitors, and cows (yes, cows) back and forth from the mainland to Dursey Island, which has an old and varied history as well.

Vikings arrived in Ireland in 800 AD and found Dursey Island to be a good place to export Irish slaves back to Scandinavia. The island held this purpose until the Vikings left in 1150 AD, not long after they decided that Greenland would be a suitable place to explore and settle. The monastery on Dursey Island may be the one I referred to above that was built in the early 1500s and destroyed by pirates before 1600. Ireland should clarify this because now I'm confused! A castle, Oileán Beag, was also built on a small island near the larger Dursey Island, connected by a drawbridge. In the early 1600s the chieftan, Donal Cam, leading Irish resistant forces against English Royalist rule lost a battle at Kinsale down near Cork and fled to Dunboy Castle until that castle was taken by the English. The O'Sullivan Beare clan aided the English in attacking the castle built out on Dursey Island because Donal Cam had kidnapped the O'Sullivan clan's leader's wife, who was being held at Oileán Beag. The seige on Oileán Beag resulted in the razing of the castle, the rescue of Owen O'Sullivan's wife, and the massacre and pillaging of over 300 people. Today, Dursey Island is very peaceful and home to fishermen and farmers and is a fantastic place for hiking, wildlife viewing, and exploring, but the only way out to the island is by the cable car, which I've been told smells like cows...

We stayed out at the end of the Beara Peninsula for a little while reading all of the information signs before getting in the car and beginning the drive back to Bantry. Along the way, though, we stopped a few times for a quick snack and photos. 

Cow lying by a portal tomb

Sheep bouncing along at the end of the Beara Peninsula

 

Tír na nÓg is an Irish mytical land with no sickness or evil found at the ends of the world. If you remember in the movie, "Titanic" as the boat is sinking one of the third-class mothers is tucking her kids into bed while the water is rising and telling of the legendary land of Tír na nÓg. That's this place, but I guarantee that if you swim 25 km out that direction, you won't find anything but very deep water!

Me with the Skellig Islands off in the background

Irish farms on the Beara Peninsula

More farms

Ruins of a castle or signal tower on the Beara Peninsula

 

Standing stone off the road. These things are all over this part of Ireland!

The sun was setting by the time we got back into Bantry. Some of our group had not yet been to the Bantry House, the nice old hotel in town, so we quickly pulled up to the house and climbed the huge stairway to a hill overlooking the house and the bay for a few quick photos. We had one more sight to see before the sun set and that was the Kilnaurane Pillar Stone. A relict of the earliest Christian settlements in Ireland, the Kilnaurane is the oldest Christian symbol erected on the island - at least it is the oldest preserved Christian monument. It takes a little while to find as the roadside sign is covered by tree branches but it's worth the quick walk through fresh cow fields. I wish I had more information on it, but it's kind of hard to find any info on the internet so I'm not sure exactly how old it is or its whole story, unfortunately.

Lizzie and Rob on top of the hill behind the Bantry House

The beautifully overgrown Bantry House

Sunset over the Bantry House grounds

 

Me with the Kilnaurane Pillar Stone.

With another full day of sightseeing, we had one thing left to do on our last night in Bantry: hit up some of the pubs downtown! Dad wanted us to get a pint (half-pint for him) at the Anchor Tavern and the Denis Lucey pubs and Rob had seen another Bantry pub, Ma Murphy, featured in a calendar of Irish Pubs. So while the old guy had his half-pints, I taught Rob a thing or two about drinking pints! It was a very fun night ending with a late-night spaghetti dinner back at Agma before we all went to bed.