Dublin Day 1 (11/6)

Well, it's been 2 months here, and we finally went to Dublin proper.  You  may recall from a previous post that we have to return our car to the Dublin airport every 3 weeks.  But the airport isn't in Dublin - it is 45 minutes north of the city, and we have always used those days to do things "near Dublin."

So we got up early and drove into Dublin.  Since it is a 2.5 hour drive each way, we decided to make a 2 day trip of it to get the most time in the city. Sam found an amazing hotel to stay in at the edge of the city, and used an app to rent parking from people (individuals rent out their own parking spaces for about $12/day, compared to the citywide parking rate of $40-60/day.  So on the two days we rented parking in different parts of town, and then focused our exploration in those areas.

Our first stop was Kilmainham Gaol, where gaol is the old word for jail (and is pronounced that way - but I'm not sure if gaol is actually pronounced jail, or if everyone just says Kilmainham Jail.  And Kilmainham is unrelated to Kilmanahan, which is where we are living).  You may ask, why visit an old jail, but this jail has a lot of historical significance.  Recall that Irish independence was only 100 years ago (and statehood was only 75 years ago).  So a lot of these stories are still pretty fresh, historically speaking.  And in the hands of the right tour guide, these stories are very powerful.  

The four sentence version is that there was a run-of-the-mill small Easter uprising in 1916, which was put down in a couple days.  Irish commonfolk were ambivalent about the rebels, who were probably causing more trouble than progress.  But, in one of the all-time blunders in history, the British decided to send a message and executed the rebels, one of whom was so injured he had to be pulled unconscious from a nearby hospital, tied to a chair, and shot.  Well, that enraged the nation, and a couple years later Ireland went full military revolution and became independent.  All of this happened at the jail.  Since we had heard this story several times over the past months, it was powerful to see it in person.  This is captured in the first 15 minutes of the excellent Liam Neeson film Michael Collins (1996) about the leader of said events.  And the jail is used extensively for the filming of the also excellent but unrelated Daniel Day Lewis historical film In the Name of the Father (1993), even though that film takes place in London in the 70's.  The jail, closed in 1930, is very picturesque as you can see in photos below.

Our next top was Royal Hospital Kilmainham.  Now you may be thinking, a jail and hospital?  What kind of tourists are you? And that's fair.  But we like tours, especially historical ones.  Our first weekend in Ireland we bought the historical society family pass, which has saved us a lot of money!

Our tour guide was pretty funny and informal on this one (the kind who introduces himself as the best looking tour guide in Ireland).  He knew his stuff, but he may have had a couple Guinnesses before the tour.  He was quite entertaining and would always need help coming back to his original point after multiple tangents.  We learned the "hospital" is not really a hospital in its current embodiment c. 1680, but rather a veteran's home, although it was a hospital long ago in its past.  It was commissioned by Lord Butler on behalf of Charles II, inspired by a similar facility in Paris, and then inspired a similar facility in London.  It is notable as being the first large secular building in Ireland as well as being the first large classical building in Ireland.  And not to give the entire history of Ireland again, but the site was first built as a monastery by Strongbow back in 1174 (just remember him as the guy who first brought the Brits to Ireland, where they stayed for 750 years).  Everything seems to come back to Strongbow and/or the Butlers!

It also has a lovely garden, and currently also hosts the Museum of Modern Art, which we quickly toured on our own.

From there we went to our hotel, and then the airport to exchange our car, and then drove back downtown to experience the nightlife in Temple Bar and grab something to eat.  I wanted the girls to try calamari, which they really liked "once you stop thinking about what it is."  The hotel which was somehow only 5 miles but 40 minutes across town, was very classy, had ample parking and a great view, and an amazing breakfast that will be part of Day 2.

One thing we didn't realize at the time was how spoiled for weather we were on Day 1!  Stay tuned for Trinity College, the Book of Kells, and Dublin Castle.

KILMAINHAM GAOL 

Another amazing tour guide, this guy was all business (although when I was chatting with him on the side, he mentioned he was a crowd extra in Michael Collins).  This is the chapel where one of the prisoners was married on the eve of his execution (but they were only allowed 10 minutes together supervised).  His wife was imprisoned here a couple years later for other reasons.

The courtroom (it's hard to tell, but the chair is on a table/platform).  You can see the national harp emblem on the wall.

The old wing of the jail.  Very bleak, dark, damp (and this was the nice view).

Not a lot of space, usually one person to a cell.  You never left your cell.

The "new" wing of the jail.  Very beautiful.  I think this was one of the first jails to test out the theory that everybody wins when prisoners have some common space and can interact with other prisoners and see the sun and breathe fresh air, which is how all jails are built now.

Another stairway between floors.

An astute student of Irish history would recognize de Valera as another leader of the Easter Rising, as well as the creator of Ireland's constitution, Ireland's first prime minister (3x, most of 1931-1959) and then president (2x, 1959-1973).  He was spared execution likely because he was American.  Also, he is played by Snape in the movie.

Stonebreakers' Yard, the site of the 14 executions.  200 were on the list, but by the 14th Britain knew it had messed up.  The movie used this exact spot.

The onsite museum has letters from the executed to their mothers the night before.  Powerful.

On a lighter note the prisoners were apparently able to sneak a camera in, and even film-developing equipment, and there was a museum exhibit of the secret photos, including one prisoner who took everyone's photo and had them sign his "yearbook."

 ROYAL HOSPITAL KILMAINHAM

Beautiful entrance.

Family 0.5 selfie!

The stunning gardens.  The conical bushes are actually manicured yews, which is amazing because there are also tall yew trees on the estate, which look totally different.  And the wall of trees in the back are called lime trees (not the citrus kind).  The are trained onto large cubes so that they form a perfectly boxy canopy.  I just learned that these trees are the national tree of several eastern European countries.

What do you do with statues of the monarchy when it is overthrown?  You remove the cherubs and display those in gardens.  Then you hide the statues in a basement somewhere.  Then when Australia is looking for a statue of Queen Victoria 100 years later you ship it over, which is a delicious irony since she shipped all the Irish prisoners over to Australia.  It's on "indefinite" loan though Ireland made it clear they never wanted to see her again. 

This (small) military horse was so legendary in its battles for Britain around the world that the Queen gave it a royal medal.  It is buried in the gardens.

EVENING

The view of Dublin from the hotel was beautiful

The famous Guinness Storehouse (we did not do the tour, although Alex and Melissa and Andrew did on their visit)

A spooky building downtown

Mmmm... calimari

Mmmm...burgers

 

Temple Bar, which is confusingly both a bar and a neighborhood, is the most touristy part of Dublin nightlife.  So of course we walked around for a while!

 23,000 steps later, we slept well.

Halloween/Samhain (10/31)

This wasn't a big trip, but Halloween is special enough that I thought it warranted its own post.

As I may have alluded to previously, in our various explorations in Ireland we hear a lot of impressive historical claims.  Some of which turn out to be true, or perhaps a little embellished.   But upon further research, it does seem likely that Halloween originated in Ireland.

There was a millennia-old harvest festival called Samhain which started at sunset on October 31, and continued through November 1 (Samhain doubles as the Gaelic word for November).  Samhain included costumes, the remembrance of the dead, and treats. 

As they were wont to do, Christians in Europe then assimilated the pagan festivities, renaming the celebration All Hallows' (or Saints') Eve to remember the dead, and starting the tradition of trick or treating (poor children went door to door collecting free "soul cakes" if they promised to pray for the souls of the giving family).  Costumes were perhaps a way of hiding from any vengeful souls/spirits that were active that final night before ascending (descending?), or they may have been a way to dress up as the saints for poorer parishes that couldn't afford ornate iconography.

The modern version of Halloween didn't show up in the US until the mid 1800s.  Which I assume is connected to the large Irish migration during the Great Famine.

Fun fact: with no national Thanksgiving event, all the local decorations and celebrations pivot straight to Christmas after Halloween (which is admittedly becoming more common in the US too). 

We had hoped to travel to some of the larger festivals (there is understandably a lot of national pride over Halloween), but we just got too busy and instead buzzed over to nearby Tipperary Town (which is another town in our County Tipperary) for a couple hours.  It was rainy but fun.  We rode some rides, made some crafts, did a "spooky walk" and saw fireworks.  The girls created their own costumes from thrift stores here. 

Animals were popular

Since we didn't really get to trick or treat, I found some candy at the local grocery store and hid it around the house (this is a plastic skull container, but here it looks like a mix of Voldemort and Terminator and Jack Sparrow).

I also hid some candy in the car.  Note that Kate's cat ears are actually her braids.  Very clever and skilled.

At the town festivities

The girls rode the Terminator ride, which involved rotating in a big circle.  Not clear in the photo is all the kitschy Miami Vicey airbrushed artwork (cars, girls, trucks, guns, DJs, ...).  

I just want the record to show that I was entrapped by Sam into giving an impromptu lecture on counterweights after the ride, all for this "gotcha" photo.  I'm innocent!

The girls made buttons featuring their costume animals.

It's not clear what was haunted on the Haunted Trail.  It seemed just to be a walk along a dark sidewalk.

By now it was raining pretty hard (and we actually waited out the stormiest hour in our car), so the ladies donned ponchos

At the end of the walk we were surprised by industrial fireworks that started about 20 feet from us.  Maybe they don't have CPSC or ATF here?  But it was very cool and we all still have our eyesight.

 

Over the next few days, inspired by a variety of influences, I showed the girls both Terminator movies.

 

Local: Watching kayaking, Gaelic football, and the Holy Year Cross

KAYAKING

On a recent Saturday morning we heard there was a kayaking competition on our river (Suir, pronounced sure).  We went down to check it out.  It turns out our landlord family is big into kayaking and several of their children compete (and win medals at international competitions).  It was a fun morning.

There are two separate but similar sports: kayaking where you sit in the boat with a double-bladed paddle, and canoeing where you kneel in the boat with a single-bladed paddle.  And then kayaking can be racing "slalom" through gates against the clock (which is what we saw), or it can be more acrobatic "freestyle", where you sit in the rapids and do a variety of rolls and spins and maneuvers for the judges.  And recently the Olympics added "kayak cross" where four kayakers compete against each other down the river rather than against the clock. 

We ended up talking with one of the coaches who was super friendly.  Apparently Ireland has a pretty good kayaking/canoeing program, but it is dependent on natural water ways.  If you get good enough you go elsewhere on the continent to train where they have custom-made training facilities. 

Rules: there are 20 numbered gates, each gate has a direction given (the red-striped gates are against the current), your helmet has to pass inside the gate in the proper direction, if any part of you or your equipment touch the gate there is a time penalty.  The river was really moving. 

GAELIC FOOTBALL

Soon thereafter we went to see a local Gaelic football match featuring the hometown Clonmel Commercials.  The weather was pretty dreary, but it did not dampen our spirits (see what I did there?).  The origin of the team name is ambiguous.  One idea is that it was formed by a group of business men (recall it is amateur, so everyone on the team has a "real" job).  Another theory is that it was named after The Commercial hotel.  A third explanation is that the team used to play on the pitch during the halftime break in larger matches, and thus they were the "commercial break" when people could go buy more alcohol.  There are a few "Commercials" teams in Ireland.

What I found fascinating was that Gaelic hurling and Gaelic football are essentially the same sport with the same rules and same field and same scoring and same penalties and same strategy, except that hurling is played with a stick and small ball, whereas football is played with your foot and a large ball.  Imagine if MLB looked like an NFL game on an NFL field, but every player wears a baseball glove and the QB throws a baseball instead, and the rest of the game (touchdowns, field goals, first downs, interceptions, tackles) is otherwise identical.  That's the relationship between Gaelic hurling and Gaelic football. 

The Gaelic football seemed more "intense" than hurling, but it might have been because we were right on the sidelines, and it was raining, so it was probably louder with more collisions.  

If it looks or sounds similar to Australian rules football, there is some question which came first (well, Gaelic football came first thousands of years ago, but the modern incarnation of both are about 150 years old).  And if it seems odd that two countries on opposite sides of the world would develop something so similar, remember that many Irish convicts were sent to Australia by Queen Victoria around the same time, plus a lot of voluntary emigrants during the Great Famine - Australia is actually the most Irish country outside of Ireland.

HOLY YEAR CROSS 

Soon thereafter we went to a local hill/mountain that had our most precarious drive so far, but at the top we were able to hike to a religious site where there is one active mass each August.   It has the 14 stations of the cross, and a beautiful view of Clonmel. 

The cross was set up for the pope's Holy Year (Jubilee) of 1950, as were many across Ireland. They all seem to be at great heights, almost like the Beacons of Gondor.   From a local website:  

"What is a Holy Year? It’s a year of special devotion and penance, and a year in which, through following certain prescriptions, you can gain a Plenary Indulgence. The concept of a Plenary Indulgence isn’t quite the same as the Cash-For-Forgiveness schemes that brought about the Reformation – you earn it, rather than buy it, and it gives you a Time Off For Good Behavior Card to shorten your sojourn in Purgatory. As you can imagine, this is an attractive proposition for an ardent believer, steeped in all the ritual and dogma of Catholicism – and that described almost all of us in 1950s Ireland.  At the time, there were fund-raising drives and committees and huge ceremonials attached to the actual situating of the crosses."

 

 

 

UPDATE:  Here is the reverse view, a picture of the cross as seen from town:

BONUS

The girls were studying late one night, so I got pictures of Lily's room lit up, and Kate outside reading To Kill a Mockingbird by sun and moon light.