Ireland Days 7&8--Dublin

Early yesterday morning we left Adare and drove the 3 hours back to Dublin.  By the time we got there and found our way in to the city everyone was starving, so why not eat at the oldest pub in Ireland?  The Brazen Head has been in existence on this spot in Dublin since 1148!

 Scott tried Bangers and Mash...sausage and mashed potatoes.  The sausage is very different here than at home, but is excellent.

 Dublin is a very busy city.  It reminds us all of NYC.  Lots of walking, hard to drive, impossible to park.  However, parts of it have such a quaint European look that you feel like your on the backlot of a movie!

One of the major things I wanted to do here was see the Trinity College old library.  LOVED IT!!!  Just look!  Floor to ceiling ancient books!

 Also, here was the Book of Kells which I have no pictures of because security is extremely tight.  It's 4 books, one of each of the four gospels written in 800 AD and illustrated in the most beautiful Celtic artwork.

After Trinity College we walked around the old city center looking in shops and taking in Dublin.  We saw the Molly Malone statue....

There's evidently an Irish pub song about her.  She was a fish monger, a well-endowed fish monger from the looks of the statue!

The street lights are adorable with this shamrock scrollwork...

After all that walking we we decided to head back to our hotel.  We are staying in a castle!

It's very old world european.  I mean seriously I've never seen one of these bathroom faucets outside an old movie...

When we got back to the room the kids had a great time playing a game they had bought in a "confectionery" called "beanboozled."  It's jelly beans and they spin the dial and it tells them what color they have to eat.  The problem is that the color could be a good flavor, or it could be barf, dog food, or booger flavored.  Scott and I chose not to play.

Dublin Day 2

We started off with breakfast at the hotel.  Breakfast may be the best meal of the day here.

 Gigi and Papaw decided to hang at the hotel today and explore around the grounds. After breakfast the 5 of us headed back into Dublin to the Guinness Brewery.

 This was an awesome tour.  The brewery is 7 stories with a rotunda shaped like a giant pint glass!  In the center of the floor is a document from the 1700's and it's the 9000 year lease that Arthur Guinness signed on the property where Guinness is made! Frame of reference: It's about the same age as the Declaration of Independence.

 The tour takes you through the brewing process.  Only 4 ingredients used....barley, hops, yeast and water.  The yeast is evidently the magic potion and a portion of the yeast is carried from batch to batch and is so valuable and important that a bit is constantly kept in a safe in the head brewmasters office....just in case!           In case of what I have no idea.

The old safe that the yeast was kept in.

What I found interesting was the Guinness family.  Arthur and Olivia Guinness had 21 children!  However only 10 survived to adulthood.  Those 10 made Guinness into the global business that it is today.  A good portion of the tour included all the good works and charity organizations that the Guinness family gives back to.

The tour ends on the 7th floor in a round bar that is a 360 degree view of Dublin.  It's here you get your free pint, or soft drink if your under 18!

After Guinness we went to St. Patricks Cathedral.  I know...from a brewery to a church, but it IS Ireland!!

St. Patricks is beautiful.  We arrived about 30 minutes before the 3:00 mass and the choir was singing.  Goosebumps. 

Jonathon Swift the author of Gulliver's Travels is interred in the cathedral...

We will all be celebrating St. Patrick's Day a little differently this year now that we know the significance of him.  He came to Ireland because he said God sent him to share the story of the gospel.  Here on the grounds of St. Patrick's cathedral lies the well where the first Irish people were baptized.  He brought the shamrock to Ireland because that is what he used to explain the trinity and share the gospel.  As we were leaving the bells were ringing.  Awesome.

We did a bit more shopping and eating and then on our way back to the hotel we stopped by the Potato Famine memorial.  Thomas has studied this in his AP Human Geography course this year.  Due to the failed potato crops in Ireland in 1848ish over 1 million people died in Ireland in just one year.  This also led to one of the largest emigration flows out of Ireland and one of the largest immigration flows into the U.S.  Due to the Irish potato famine, today there are more people of Irish decent living in the US than in Ireland.  

 It may seem odd, but it was kind of a nice way to end our trip.  Remembering those who bravely made their way to the docks in Dublin and then across the Atlantic to come to America.

Tomorrow we will leave for the airport about noon.  Our flight leaves at 4:00 Dublin time and gets in at 6:30 pm. New York time.  We spend one night in NYC and then fly home at noon on Tuesday.  Then, it's back to school on Wednesday for some jet-lagged Milder kids!

Irish Blessings,
Leslie