The purpose of my 5th Ireland trip was to knock off a lot of places that I had on my list. Mission accomplished. I learned a lot more about the 1916 Easter Rising and the main people involved. I came away with some new heroes and a better grasp of that event. Traveling solo was perfect for me: I was able to go at my own pace, see what I wanted to see, and relax when I wanted to relax.
My Dublin list mainly consisted of delving more into the Easter Rising of 1916. At the suggestion of a lady I met on a previous
Driftwood by Vagabond Tour, I did the
1916 Rebellion Walking Tour. Not only did the tour cover the actual rebellion, but it also provided a lot of background information. The tour wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be; I expected some mention of places around town pertaining directly to the Rebellion. When Robert & I were here, we discovered
The Confession Box, which is a couple of doors down from St. Mary Pro Cathedral. Since it was closed when we were there (it was too early in the day), I had it on my list.
I stepped inside, grabbed a pint, and walked around to look at the memorabilia on the wall. The history of the place was incredible. Definitely worth a pop in! They don't serve food, but I was told by 2 different barmen/women to go to Brannigan's Bar for food. I ended up going there 2 days in a row...it was that good!  |
| The Irish Lamb Stew was absolutely delicious. |
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| A pint was required, of course! |
I'm getting off course...typical! After the 1916 Rebellion Walking Tour, I went into
Christ Church. I had been by it several times, but had never actually stepped inside. It was absolutely stunning.
Christ Church
One of the highlights was seeing Strongbow's Tomb. Strongbow (Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke) led the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. His marriage to Aoife MacMurrough, daughter of the King of Leinster, is said to be a pivotal moment in the invasion.
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| Main altar |
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| Strongbow's tomb |
Kilmainham Gaol
It just seemed fitting that the next stop would be Glasnevin Cemetery. I booked a tour ahead of time; the tour was excellent, although the young man spoke a bit to quickly for me. And later, I discovered that a story he told about Eamon de Valera's escape from an English prison was a bit embellished. Glasnevin was founded by Daniel O'Connell, who was a political figure instrumental in procuring Catholic emancipation in 1829. The cemetery was founded as a non-denominational cemetery; the first burial was an 11-year-old boy who died of tuberculosis in 1832.
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| Glasnevin Cemetery |
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| Daniel O'Connell's Tomb & Tower |
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| Members of Daniel O'Connell's Family are placed in double-leaded coffins and stacked on top of each other |
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| Daniel O'Connell's Tomb |
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| Charles Parnell's Tomb is actually a mass grave of 11, 000 people who died during a cholera outbreak. His wish was to be buried among the people. His mother was an American; Charles served as leader of the Home Rule League for 2 years. |
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| Michael Collins' Grave. He was an integral leader of the fight for Irish Independence who died in an ambush in 1922 during the Civil War. He fought in the 1916 Easter Rising. |
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| My tour included O'Connell's Tower: 197 steps. There are places to stop along the way, with signs you can read to help you catch your breath. |
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| The Famine Memorial; an estimated 22,000 victims of the Famine are buried here. |
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| Grace Gifford Plunkett's Grave |
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| The Republican Plot holds graves from key figures for the Irish fight for independence. |
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| Margaret Skinnider is less known than Countess Markievicz. She is known as the "teacher turned sniper" and was the only woman wounded during the 1916 Easter Rising. |
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| Watch Tower in the corner of the cemetery grounds. Night watchmen would be on guard for "Resurrectionists" who would steal bodies, then sell them to medical schools for anatomy students. |
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| "Gravediggers Pub" is just outside of the cemetery. Instead of walking around the cemetery to get there (like I did), walk through the grounds (which I did on the way back). |
Remembrance Garden
This wasn't on my list to begin with, but I ended my day at the cemetery with a stroll through this little garden honoring those who lost their lives in the fight for Irish Independence. It was a warm, beautiful day; there were a lot of people sitting about.
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| Based on the legend of the Children of Lir, this sculpture shows 4 children transformed into swans. Legend says that they stayed this way for 900 years before becoming human again. |
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| Pool with the sculpture in the back |
Newgrange and Hill of Tara
The last time I was in Dublin, the cab driver asked me if I had been to different places, and I said yes to all of them...except Newgrange. I took a day tour from
Newgrange Tours by Mary Gibbons. After a few miscommunications (she had me down for March AND April), everything went according to plan. The pickup spot was easily located (there are 2 different pickups); she checked us off as we got on the bus and then handed us over to Martin. We drove out of Dublin to the Visitors' Centre where we were able to spend some time learning about the history of
Brú na Bóinne (the 3 passageways of the Boyne Valley: Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth). This is definitely something not to be skipped, no matter how excited you are to see the passageways. We spent most of our outside time at Knowth with a very knowledgeable tour guide. While we weren't able to enter any of the passageways, seeing all of them in the beautiful Boyne Valley was enough. |
| The Knowth main burial ground covers 1.5 acres with 19 smaller tombs around it. The top of the mound was lived on; evidence of houses and a Cistercian monastery have been discovered. |
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The mouth of the River Boyne has 2 of these rocks; they may have been markers to the river.
Art work on the rocks: On the left is a calendar stone that may have been made to mark the sun and phases of the moon. |
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| The entry to the passageway. The sun would hit the stone and cast a shadow. The white quartz is just as it was found during the excavation of the passageway |
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| The beautiful Boyne Valley with the River Boyne in the background |
And then, Newgrange. We didn't spend a lot of time here, just long enough to go into the passageway and get a simulation of what the light looks like on the Winter Solstice. The simulation was very cool; I can't imagine how incredible it would be to be in the passageway when the sun starts creeping in. No pictures were allowed inside. Also, a word of warning: it does get a little tight in the "hallway"; we were warned that if we're claustrophobic it might be better to not go in.
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| Newgrange from the Visitors' Centre |
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| The entrance. The kerbstone in the front is one of the most striking example of megalithic art. There are 97 kerbstones around Newgrange. |
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| Michael J. O'Kelly, archaeologist, kept a record of where each piece of white quartz fell and built it back to his interpretation. |
On the ride to Hill of Tara, Martin gave us the background. I should have done my homework first; it was all fairly confusing (all on my part). What I understand is that the Hill of Tara was a place where ancient Irish Kings (since the time of the Iron Age) held their inaugural feasts. Before that, a passage tomb was built in the Stone Age.
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| Stone of Destiny. According to legend, when the rightful king placed his foot on the stone, it would roar or cry out, signaling his legitimacy and endowing him with a long reign. |
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| The Hill of Tara - Seat of the High Kings of Ireland |
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| St. Patrick looking toward the Hill of Slane, where he built a paschal fire on the other side of the hill so it couldn't be seen from Tara, in defiance of the Pagan King of Tara, who declared no fires would be built until after a ceremonial royal fire was built. A big wind came up and started the whole mountain on fire, so St. Patrick was called to the Pagan King. When St. Patrick spoke, flames came out of his mouth, which impressed the king. He allowed Patrick to continue his work. |
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| St. Patrick's Well, Hill of Tara |
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| An added bonus: A weeks-old donkey |
National Museum of Ireland
I had a main purpose for visiting this museum: to see the bell of St. Patrick. Even if you're not interested in everything this museum has, go in for its beautiful architecture.
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| The museum on Kildare Street holds treasures dating back to 30000 to 20000 BC |
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| The museum was renamed The National Museum of Ireland in 1921 following Irish Independence. |
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| The dome in the rotunda of the Museum |
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| The Howth Bells hung in St. Mary's Abbey and are dedicated to Sts. Mary, Nicholas, and Jesus. |
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| St. Patrick's Bell and Shrine. I didn't realize this existed until I was at Aughnanure Castle during my last visit to Ireland. |
Howth
The last time I went to Howth with my SIL, we were there a little early and didn't get fish & chips. An Irishman told me that was the best place to get them, so that was one of the things on my list. I should have known better to go on a beautiful Sunday; the harbor was completely packed. So, I headed away from the harbor to St. Mary's Abbey on the hill. This was the original place of the Howth bells that I saw in the museum. We saw the Abbey from the harbor last time, but my SIL was too wiped out to walk much since it was the day she arrived in Ireland. I knew I'd get back someday to see it.
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| The original Abbey was built in 1042, replaced in 1235 by a parish church, and then the present church was built in the second half of the 14th century. |
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| View of the harbor from the Abbey |
There is a cliffside walk that I wanted to do as well. I started walking up the hill to the actual town, then decided to ask someone how to get to the start of the cliff walk. The sweet young lady suggested that I take a bus to the top of the hill (I couldn't believe I wasn't there yet), so I took her advice. It was much easier than trying to walk up that steep hill to the Howth Summit. There are 5 different trails; I think I did the Howth Summit Walk, which was really easy. Since I took the bus to the Summit, I only had to walk downhill. It was a beautiful, quiet walk. The gorse was in bloom, so it smelled like coconuts.
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| The Howth Lighthouse |
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| A beautiful, somewhat quiet walk. Even though the harbor was busy, it was nice & quiet up on the trail. |
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| "Eire" spelled out in rocks. During WWII, these were placed so that pilots would know where they were. Since Ireland was neutral, this reduced their chances of being bombed and allowed the pilots to know where they were. This is the 3rd one I've seen; the other 2 were at Slieve League and Loop Head. |
Back into the harbor, it was time for my meal. I stepped into a restaurant in town, but the lady wasn't very welcoming, so I slipped out and headed down the hill to
Kish Fish. Since it is at the end of a line of restaurants, it wasn't crazy crowded. I lucked out and grabbed a table when someone left. Since it was just me, I shared my table with a couple of Spanish ladies. Since my Spanish is minimal and one lady's English was also minimal, we mostly just sat.
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| The fish & chips in Howth didn't disappoint! |
I wanted to go back to St. Andrew's Church because I found out I missed some things last time I was there:
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| Descent from the Cross, painted by Flemish artist J.F. Beschey in 1755 |
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| Baptismal Font donated by Daniel O'Connell. It was originally a wine cooler with handles and a tap. |
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| Also donated by Daniel O'Connell, the Martyrdom of Thomas A. Beckett |
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| I'm assuming these are places to put umbrellas. |
A couple of interesting things seen in Dublin:
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| The Dublin Portal. When I was there, it was connected with Philadelphia, but it rotates with Vilnius (Lithuania) and Lublin (Poland) as well. |
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| A "not so subtle" reminder |
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| The Dublin Sign on O'Connell Street, next to where the pickup for the Newgrange tour is. |
I have to say, I felt completely safe in Dublin; however, there was only 1 night when I was out as it got dark. I was able to see a lot of things I hadn't seen before but kept saying "next time". There were a couple of things I had on the list that I just didn't get to, but I deemed them not important enough to me to make more of an effort. I wanted to go to Collins Barracks, but I had to make a decision to go there or the National Museum of Ireland on Kildare Street. Maybe next time.
**Just a couple of tips:
1. Book tickets ahead of time
2. Book the tickets directly with the site.
