We got into Dublin early - too early to check in - so we hung out on St. Stephen's Green on this cold, partly rainy morning. Such a lovely Central Park in Dublin, and right down the street from our hotel.
Awesome bird! It walked really funny on its big yellow feet.
Beautiful churches everywhere.
View from our room in Dublin. The Hairy Lemon pub on the right, sneakers hanging from the wires. We LOVED it here. Perfect location, lovely staff, GREAT room with an amazing bathtub. If anyone is going to Dublin, I'd highly recommend The Drury Court Hotel.
Maloney.
Hanrahan.
From Dubhlinn Garden in front of Dublin Castle.
Peacock weathervane.
It almost immediately rained, and Aaron's umbrella almost immediately broke. It was WINDY!
Gutter.
Our first Dublin dinner at the Hairy Lemon across from the hotel. Aaron got the Irish breakfast (mushrooms, bacon, chips, bread, black pudding, tomato, beans, sausages and an egg). Later that week we saw an Irish folk trio play and it was magical. Just three folks playing amazing Irish songs at a pub. They're everywhere. There was a Japanese couple behind us and I heard the man remark to the waiter that they had never had anything like this in Japan. I noticed they left with plates nearly full. HAHAHAHA!
All over the city manhole covers are marked "Pit" in an old celtic typeface. Loved that.
St. Patrick's Cathedral
Everywhere we went in Ireland, kegs stacked outside was one of the most common sites.
The Guinness compound is gigantic and heavily fortified. Takes up a huge area of the city, near Kilmainham Gaol.
We learned so much at the Kilmainham Gaol (jail). Savage Britain. This is the courtroom where people were sentenced.
The conditions were beyond deplorable for men, women and children. The weather here is TRULY miserable. Always a cold that sinks deep into your bones and teeth, and rainy every 15 minutes. I cannot imagine a more wretched place to be than in this open-air windowed hallway sleeping without a blanket in the over crowed jail. Many people died here.
Original graffiti.
He was one of the Irish rebels executed for being involved in the 1916 Easter Rising. So interesting that we happened to come here in the 100th commemoration year. Glad it worked out that way - I learned so much.
This is where the top leaders were executed..
In the museum they had this letter written by an 18 year old to his mother just before he was executed. SO SAD.
Mural at a veterinarian.
EVERYTHING is translated in Irish. Some things are only in Irish. One of their 5 TV channels is completely in Irish. I loved hearing a few people speaking it while we were out and about!
Oscar Wilde #manspreading in Merrion Square.
Creepy-as-fuck playground right next to the weird Oscar Wilde statue.
After our mediocre Boxty Pancake dinner :( ... a stroll around the Temple Bar neighborhood, just south of the River Liffey.
Next day we went to The National Museum of Ireland - Archaeology. WONDERFUL! They had these dead people preserved in the peat bogs for centuries. SO COOL.
Maloney was listed in the "Top 100 most common names in Ireland." Hanrahan didn't even make the top 400. We didn't find anything Hanrahan on our trip, not even souvenir key chains, except Michael O'Hanrahan who was executed. Boo. Still, being there and seeing every conceivable Irish name you can think of on absolutely everything made me realize how many people in the US of Irish heritage I know.
Old Jameson Distillery
Scotch egg at a fabulous restaurant - L. Mulligans Grocer.
For you, daddy.
From the bus on the way to Glendalough!
This is the spectacular view of the mountains from our hotel room. It was a wonderfully charming hotel right on the grounds of the ancient monastery ruins called the Glendalough Hotel. We saw a live band at the restaurant that night and it was so nice to be able to walk the trails and then get into a warm bed. Loved it.
Super weird bathroom. Those shutters around the shower are supposed to keep the water out. They did not :)
This is right outside our hotel. Ancient ruins in the background, trails to the lake to the left. A happy 10 year anniversary was had by all!
Blackbirds are everywhere. Listening to their songs constantly reminded me of the song Blackbird by the Beatles :)
This monastic site dates back to the 6th century.
Every. Single. Time.
Goth Grrrl.
Trail to the Upper lake. It almost reminded me of the Pacific Northwest, except for as rainy as it was up in Washington it was super warm. It was bone-chillingly cold in Glendalough. It was also really weird to be hiking on a trail without the proper hiking gear. We planned to take the 5:30 PM bus back to Dublin the next day because we were going to go hiking on the trails, but that was absurd. Most of the time it was pouring rain and it even hailed a few times. We were dressed for the city. We opted for the other bus at 9:45AM. Excellent decision :)
At least we hiked one trail!
Bus ride back to Dublin...
100 year commemoration banner. Commemorations were EVERYWHERE.
Across from the Leprechaun museum. Seriously.
Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square.
This was definitely one of the highlights for me. The Dublin City Gallery painstakingly deconstructed Francis Bacon's studio in London and then reconstructed it here. It was breathtaking. They also played a film of him being interviewed and it brought me to tears. So inspirational.
Nutmegger.
Ireland isn't as much like Britain as I thought. It's quite different in many respects, one being that there isn't a chip shop on every corner. In Ireland I think I saw two the entire time. Couldn't resist getting my old English favorite, though - chips and curry. Delicious.
The train on the way to Kilkenny. Such an enjoyable ride! Sheep and ponies and churches, oh my!
As soon as we got off the train in Kilkenny, I wanted to take a picture of everything. It was a perfect medieval city. Fantastic history, old cathedrals, castles, ancient streets, beautiful river to walk by... LOVED IT. Also the first and only place we saw cats!
A very small town with a maze of narrow medieval alley streets surrounded by farmland. You can see St. Canice's cathedral in the distance. So much fun and delight walking this historic town.
When I walked past this canal (on the left) I was struck by how much it reminded me of the canals in Kyoto. As a larf, I looked up a picture from our Kyoto trip (on the right), and WOW! They look just the same! :D Fascinating ancient cultures!
Graveyard at St. Canice's. I didn't alter the color - it really looks greener in Ireland! Such a vivid green I have not seen elsewhere.
Utterly charming Ireland. I love it so.
800th Jubilee.
This guy came running right up to us for a cuddle. He was adorable.
Went for a walk around Kilkenny castle after our dinner. So much fun!
Church ruins.
The foggy view from our hotel room the next morning.
We went through the Kilkenny castle the next morning. Reconstructed over the years, obviously, but still super interesting.
Then we went through St. Canice's cathedral - loved it. It was a self-guided tour and you get a map of all the points of interest - dig #4. Ha!
There were medieval graves under the pews! It was a great self-tour and a wonderful and COLD place to put yourself back in time.
God is always watching...
Loved the way the sun colored everything through the stained glass. A pope wanted to buy the original glass in the 1600's and St. Canice's wouldn't sell it. Then Oliver Cromwell came along later and destroyed it. The British are suck dicks. They were the ones who sacked the stone churches at Glendalough too. Assholes :(
I was way too much of a pussy to climb the huge tower next to the cathedral, but Aaron was all over it. It's 175 steps, sometimes ladders, to the top. I would have been crying in the fetal position after 10. He loved it.
Views from the top.
We're trying to find out more about these monastery ruins. My guess is that the factory had to build around it. Aaron's researching it.
I took this from below, terrified just looking at him up there.
We had lunch at the most charming pub ever. Lovely fire in the fireplace, all locals. So cozy.
Back to Dublin and the National Museum of Ireland - Natural History. It was a sad place that looked like it was still in Victorian times (which was kind of interesting in and of itself.) Utterly crowded with terrible taxidermy. It was so telling how many "trophy" heads without bodies were on display. Ugh.
They actually removed the horn to prevent theft.
In our steak house dinner finery for our last night in Dublin.
Looks fake, but isn't.
Our steak dinner at FX Buckley. Huge hunks of meat aging behind our table. Aaron got deviled lamb kidneys for an appetizer (ew.) I LOVED my meal - medallions on onion mash. Scrumptious! Perfect meal to end the trip!
Some old Irish bag lady photo bombed my nigh time Dublin scene.
Our last sight - the oldest pub in Ireland!