Dublin and Ireland Tour Day 1

Thut 15th Oct

The tour doesnt officially start till 2pm so Es and i had time to kill this morning.
So got a bus day pass again and explored Dublin a bit. Wanted to see some of the church/cathedral area.

Firstly we visited Trinity College. The library holds the Book of Kells which is a major tourist attraction... The Book of Kells originally comes from the Abbey of Kells (just north of Dublin). It's a collection of parchments with the Latin four New Testament gospels that are elaborately illustrated.
The Trinity College tour and Book of Kells admission price was a bit hefty and we werent that interested so didnt end up viewing it.

Es was actually quite fascinated by the solar powered garbage compactors they have at Trinity College. You put your rubbish in and the lights go on and you know it's working somehow... she got so excited putting rubbish in the bin...

Next we jumped onto any bus and ended up arouond St. Patrick's cathedral. It was built in 1191 and is the cathedral of the Church of Ireland (Anglican). St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland as it is said he came across to pagan Ireland and tirelessly worked to bring Christendom to the people. Again the admission was really expensive and we were a little short of time so didnt go inside.

The funniest thing to note about Ireland is that the religion is actually beer. Next to the big Guinness storage tanks is a church... and this is the sign outside St. Patrick's cathedral. I thought it was hilarious!!

St.Patrick's Cathedral is proudly brought to you by... Baileys - fine Irish cream!!

Started to head back but stopped on the way to see Dublina and Christchurch cathedral. Dublina is an exhibition about the history of Ireland. From it's founding by the vikings and the viking age, through the medieval ages and the driving out of the vikings and then touching on Ireland's religious history and then present day Ireland.

Dublina was actually really interesting. So Ireland was invaded by Scandanavian vikings around 820-830 and they settled there.  The exhibition focused on what life was like, what their settlements looked like and their expertise at trade.

I got all excited looking at old artefacts... they wrote in runes.
When i was in yr 5, we read 'The Hobbit' at school... Helgy and I loved it so much that we learnt how to write in runes. We ended up passing notes in class written in runes because if the teacher found them then she probably wouldnt be able to read them easily. All my old diaries were written in runes... dont ask me why... i might have been a paranoid little girl thinking that then nobody could read them... or it might have been cos it was fun!

So the Vikings that came by boat to Ireland were all men who eventually married and had families with Irish natives. A new hiberno-norse (mixed) people were born. But the Vikings were still at war with the Irish so in the end they were defeated and driven out in the early 1000's. The end of Viking ireland marked the beginning of medieval ireland. Catholicism flourished and England had ruling power over Ireland. But under Henry VIII, all the religious relics in the churches were destroyed. Henry VIII made himself head of the Church of England instead of the Pope. The exhibition ended with southern Ireland becoming independant and then being included in the EU.

Adjoining Dublina is Christchurch Cathedral. It had a lot of religious relics that were destroyed by the orders of Henry VIII. The thing i found cool was that 'The Tudors' the BBC series was filmed at Christchurch Cathedral. I think it's season 2 with Peter O'Toole.

Made it back to the hotel to meet up with the tour group for the introduction. We took a bit of a tour around Dublin. The funny thing was... I had read the itinery and Es assumed we were going to City Hall by the description given of our first day... We ended up back at Dublina. But we had a personal guide and so it ended up being better. The admissions guy laughed when we told him we had no idea we would be visiting and kindly refunded the entry fee we had paid that morning.

After a brief tour of Dublin that mostly consisted of driving around the streets and a guide pointing out various things, we had welcome drinks back at the hotel to meet everybody. With the exception of a boy who is 12 and is here with his grandma, Es and I are the youngest in the group. We have heaps of American retirees on tour with us... a couple of 70-80 yr old ladies...

Ended up going out to dinner with a mother and daughter from Washington and Long Island and a couple of older sisters from Boston. The oldest sister is an absolute hoot!
Because Es and I had gone to Temple Bar the night before we knew a little about what we could do. So we ended up picking a place to meet and going for Irish Tapas. Was a great dinner... the best dishes were Gaelic pheasant and steak and guinness pie.

beer on tap at your table...

It just seems to be Irish tradition to drink a lot of beer or alcohol in general. This pub we were at had beer on tap at the tables. You put a bar tab on and then just pour your own beer... Anyway our oldest granny is hilarous cos we were leaving and turned around to find her gone... we found her chatting up some young blokes and looking at the beer taps on the table... i think she really wanted a beer...

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