Guinness, Fiddles, and Books...oh my!

Dublin! A busy, large city with their colourful doors and charm, although not as immediately obvious as Edinburgh and not as bustling as London. Ireland is extremely proud of the literary giants from this land (eg. James Joyce, Yeats, Swift to name a few) and that there have been 4 Nobel Prizes for literature from this country. And the music! A definite highlight of the entire trip.

A recap:

- 3.5 days on this leg of the trip.
- 1 castle toured: Dublin castle, which serves as a government building, essentially. This castle was used as the seat of the UK government and the residence of the Viceroy until 1922 when the last Viceroy left and the building was ceremoniously handed over to the Irish government. Bonus: Turns out the castle sits atop one of the oldest Norman ruins in the country which one can visit via guided tour. What can we say? We like viewing ruins and crypt-like areas.

St. Patrick's Hall, Dublin Castle

- 1 day tour to Northern Ireland (separate country!) with Wild Rover tours: visited the Giant's Causeway, Carrick a redde rope bridge, and Belfast. We took a "black taxi tour" as part of the day trip package and it was amazing. We got a personal perspective of the Troubles from our guide who was a young man during this period. We had been told by our good friend, Mac, that this was a great experience but we were still gobsmacked by all that we learned and saw. We got to see many of the murals throughout the city, many of which directly depict/reference the Troubles, including the 10 who died during the H-block Hunger strike in 1981. Overall, the day was quite long, but we were extremely happy to have done it and it really got us thinking.

One of the many murals throughout the city of Blefast.

Carrick a rede rope bridge

- 1 Guinness Storehouse toured: the Guinness advert exhibit was funny and a highlight was the Gravity bar on the top floor where one can get a panoramic view of the city while enjoying a pint of the black stuff (which we learned is actually a dark ruby red). yep.

 






- 2 libraries visited: Old Library at Trinity College and the Chester Beatty Library. Chester Beatty was an American mining engineer and art collector who became the first honorary Irish citizen. We kind of fell totally in love with the Trinity College Library and tried to figure out how we could live there.

Old Library, Trinity College.

- 2 historic churches visited: St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral. Both beautiful and historic. Being from the West Coast, where cities and buildings are much younger, I'm always awestruck by the history connected to certain buildings (and in some cases, the evidence of rebuilding from invasions over time). Fun fact: Christ Church Cathedral was the church that was within the historic castle walls and St. Pat's was the slightly smaller church that was built outside of the castle walls. We did the tour at Christ Church Cathedral and got to visit the belfry where we got to ring a Cathedral bell! Apparently, there are no laws in Dublin that state that cathedral bells cannot be rung willy-nilly. Yay, for us!

St. Patrick's Cathedral

- Several illuminated/decorated religious books viewed: The Book of Kells, exhibited at Trinity College and a collection of gorgeous Qur'ans, exhibited at the Chester Beatty Library (part of the aforementioned Chester Beatty's art collection). No photography at these exhibits, unfortunately.
- more fun sightings of Art and stuff, Dublin edition.

- A few pubs visited where we listened to live music. Our very most favourite (and a definite highlight of the trip) was the Cobblestone Pub, a pub that only serves drinks (no food) and is a bit away from the main touristy areas. Many locals gather here nightly with their instruments (fiddles, accordions, pipes, flutes, drums, banjos, etc.) and just start playing together. It was essentially like watching a group of people (some buddies, some strangers) who just sit around drinking and playing traditional Irish music together. It appears it's well known enough that sometimes visitors (we overheard a trio of fiddlers from Cork) will also show up with their instruments and ask to join in. There was even some spontaneous dancing, despite the cramped space. We loved it so much we spent two nights in a row perched on bar stools and nursing pints of Guinness.

3 generations fiddling at the Cobblestone.

Slainte, Dublin!!