Ireland 2015: Dublin Homeswap and Touring Downtown

The plan for our visit of Ireland revolved around a home swap stay in Ranelagh, a lovely suburb a short distance away from downtown Dublin.  Since we were just bringing carry-on, our thought was to stagger the days in Dublin with tours of Southern and Northern Ireland so that we would be able to do laundry after returning from each road trip.  We were staying in a lovely row house on a quiet residential street that was just a couple of blocks away from downtown Ranelagh, a quaint area with plenty of restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores and shops.  We made sure to schedule in the occasional rest day where we could just stay home and enjoy our beautiful accommodations, garden and surrounding neighbourhood.

Getting to downtown Dublin was a pleasant 30 minute stroll, passing a small canal that made us miss Amsterdam.  Most days we tried to get an early start, in order to arrive at popular destinations as soon as they opened, in hopes of beating the crowds.  As a result, we passed by many shops and eateries that were still closed and I was attracted to the ones with shutters displaying colourfully painted images reflecting what the store sold.  This is a great way to protect your establishment while making it stand out at the same time.

We arrived at Trinity College in time for their first tour of the day, just to find out that this was actually the busiest time, since all the tourists read the same guide book advising you to visit early to avoid the crowds.  Our tour guide wore a brown undergraduate robe that was part of the mandatory dress code until the 1970s.  Formed in the late 1500s, Trinity College is the oldest Irish college, opened by Queen Elizabeth I.   It was also the first college to admit women, no thanks to Provost George Salmon, who prophetically vowed that it would happen over his dead body—which it did, eight months after his death.

The main attraction at Trinity College was their library which hosts over 5 million books, highlighted by the Book of Kells, an illustrated Latin manuscript from the 8th Century containing four gospels of the old testament.  While it was impressive to be in the presence such an old book, the huge lineup to get in to see it and the big crowd around it detracted from the experience.  And you were not even allowed to take a photo of the informational exhibit, let alone the book itself.  Much more impressive was the Long Room of the Trinity Library, which was 65 meters long and contains over 200,000 volumes of the oldest books in the collection.  A series of 48 marble busts lined the room, depicting famous figures including Aristotle,  Plato, Socrates,  Isaac Newton, Shakespeare and  Jonathan Swift.  A 15th Century harp made of oak and willow inspired the official emblem of Ireland.

We also got an early start to visit the usually popular Kilmainham Gaol, but we needn't have worried.  Unfortunately the highlight of the jail, the beautiful Victorian East Wing, was closed for renovations resulting in a drop in the volume of visitors.  Disappointingly, we had to settle for viewing archival photos of what this section looked like back in the day.  Luckily the tour of the rest of the complex was very informative and we gained insight into the history of the jail and its role in some major events in the history of Ireland.  Built in 1796 and active until the 1920s, Kilmainham Gaol was meant to not just to be a place for punishment, but also for rehabilitation and re-education.   Sanitary conditions were poor, especially during the potato famine of 1845-50 when overcrowding reached all time highs.  Desperate people were deliberately committing crimes so that they could be incarcerated and be guaranteed one meal per day.  Executions  were commonly performed during the jail's history, ranging from public hangings in the early days to death by firing squads later on.  The tour started in the chapel where prisoners were given their last rites and ended in the courtyard where many of the executions took place.  We looked up upon the walkway leading from the lockup area to the chapel.

Next we got a closer look at the cells, which were about 28 square meters in size, with only a chamber pot for a toilet and only one small candle provided every two weeks for light and heat.  A small hole in the doors allowed us to peek in to see the barren enclosures.  When the jail first opened, it housed debtors, drunks, thieves, ruffians and prostitutes.  Men, women and even children as young as age eight were kept in this jail.  Eventually the cells were used to hold political prisoners from Ireland's numerous rebellions and wars, prior to their executions.  Name plaques on top of the doors denoted the names of the famous rebels and revolution leaders including Robert Emmet (1808) and Charles Parnell (1881).  We were told stories about political prisoners from the 1916 Easter Uprising, including Joseph Plunkett who was allowed to marry his fiancée in the prison chapel just hours before his execution by firing squad, and the Countess Markievicz ,  the only woman who was placed into solitary confinement, but spared from execution because of her gender.  We stood on the spot where James Connolly, leader of the Easter Uprising was executed, and learned that because he had been critically injured during the rebellion, he was held in the prison hospital at Dublin Castle as opposed to Kilmainham Gaol and had to be carried out in a stretcher and tied to a chair to be shot.

When we finally visited Dublin Castle, we saw the room where James Connolly was tended to, in an effort to keep him alive prior to his execution.  While he was considered a traitor by the British, today Connolly is an Irish hero and this room was named in his honour.  A plaque and photos commemorated Connolly and his compatriots, who drafted and signed  the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.   A framed copy of the proclamation was hanging on a wall with the Irish and European Union flags on either side of it, as if standing in salute.

Dublin Castle was originally built in the 13th century by King John of England as a defensive fortress with four circular corner towers surrounded by a moat and a stone wall that encompassed the city.  One of towers from that time still remains.  An underground chamber revealed part of the Medieval walls and even older 10th Century Viking walls that predated the castle.   By the 19th Century, the castle had been transformed into a "viceregal" palace that acted as residence for the dignitary assigned from England to represent the King or Queen.   Our tour led us through the palatial State Apartments starting with the Battleaxe Landing, named after the viceroyal's bodyguards.  We then visited the Portrait Gallery which was previously the dining room with seating for over  100 people, and St. Patrick's Room which is the principal function room where presidential inaugurations and other ceremonial events such as state dinners still take place.

We saw the Throne Room with the current throne that was designed for King George IV, who was a big man.  Later when the throne was to be used for the much more petite Queen Victoria, she had part of the chair legs sawed off and added a footstool to help her access the throne more easily.  The beautiful chapel featured vaulted ceilings, pointed arches, stained glass windows and oak galleries that displayed the coat of arms of past Lord Lieutenants of Ireland.  Some of the former bedrooms in the State Apartments had been converted into exhibition spaces for art shows.  The current exhibit was called "Playing With Tradition" where various artists took traditional furniture, clothing and accessories and gave them a modern spin.

One of our favourite locations in Dublin was Grafton Street, a popular pedestrian-only shopping area lined with shops, bars, cafés, restaurants and flower stands on both sides.  Grafton starts at the north-east corner of the large city park St. Stephen's Green and runs north for several blocks to Trinity College.  We found our data SIM card here at one of the two Vodafone stores strategically situated at both ends of the street.  At the high-end watch store Boodles, Rich found his "white whale"—a Patek Philippe Nautilus Annual Calendar watch that is so rare that he never expected to see it in a store-front.  At 30,000 Euros, the watch not only tells the time, but also the date, month, day of week, moon phase, and automatically adjusts itself for the correct number of days per month.  For a few blissful minutes, Rich sat in the shop and had this beauty on his wrist.  We visited Grafton Street several times en route to different venues and each time, we had to stop once again at Boodles to see if the watch was still there.  My go-to store was the Marks & Spencers Food Hall where we would buy prepared foods that we could carry home for dinner, and specialty snacks like their house-brand of hand-cooked potato chips (or crisps as they call them) that came in marvelous flavours such as Lamb & Mint, Pork with Sage & Cider,  Scottish Langoustine with Lemon & Dill and our favourite Roast Chicken with Mustard & Worchester sauce.  Unlike many other brands, these ones actually tasted like the flavours that they advertised and were so good that I had to go back for more to bring on our upcoming road trips.  We wanted to have lunch and catch a show at the Café Theatre in the Bewley's Oriental Café but unfortunately it was closed for renovations and we had to settle for admiring its lovely Art Nouveau façade.

There was a fun vibe as we walked along Grafton Street and watched the numerous buskers that parked themselves on the wide boulevard.  We were amused by the busker who offered to transform you into a leprechaun for a mere donation.  He had quite the clever setup where you don a fake beard and stick your face and hands through some holes of a board that had a leprechaun hat and little body stuck to it.  The result was quite effective as you were handed a tin mug and a stick to hold in your hands, as your loved ones laughed at you and took your photo.  Somehow, I was unable to convince Rich what a great opportunity this would be for him.  There also were musicians, sand sculptors, bubble blowers, and the typical immobile characters dressed in wild get-ups.    Particularly eye-catching was the group of seven men dressed and painted in black, accompanied by their stuffed Dalmatian.  As we passed them, I wondered how much money they would need to collect to make it worth splitting between so many people.

We heard that Ireland was renowned for its numerous pubs but we did not realize how beautifully decorated many of them were. This was especially true in the area known as Temple Bar where many of the establishments dated back to the 18th and 19th centuries, including the Temple Bar Pub and O'Neill's Bar and Restaurant.  Temple Bar may have been named after a similar area in London, but may also be a tribute to Sir William Temple, provost of Trinity College from 1609-1627.  Today, it is known for its cultural institutions as well as its nightlife.

Wandering around the streets of downtown Dublin, we came across several famous sculptures that reflected Ireland's cultural past. There was a bronze rendering of the fictional Molly Malone from the old Irish folksong "In Dublin's Fair City", which has become Dublin's unofficial anthem—"In Dublin's fair city where the girls are so pretty, I once met a girl named sweet Molly Malone.  And she wheeled her wheel barrow through the streets...".  Erected in 1988 to celebrate Dublin's millennium, the sculpture depicted a buxom 17th Century woman in a low cut-dress, pushing a wheelbarrow full of baskets", earning it and her the colloquial nickname of the "Tart With the Cart".  In Merrion Square, we found a suavely attired Oscar Wilde sculpture lounging on a big rock.  The image of Irish musician Phil Lynott, lead singer and bassist of the group Thin Lizzy (singers of The Boys Are Back in Town), can be found on a side street just off of Grafton Street.  While we did all of our sightseeing on foot, we were intrigued by the Viking Splash Tour that carted tourists around in a big yellow amphibian bus/boat, with all the passengers decked out in Viking horns and cheering heartily as they passed by.