Weekend in Dublin

We are back from our trip to Dublin, which I enjoyed a lot. Overall it wasn't my favorite city I've been to or the most fun excursion we've done on the trip so far, but it was still a great weekend. I feel like there is a lot more to see and do there, so I'm happy I'll be back there a week from Thursday before we leave for our break, and again in December when my parents come to visit.

Most of the things we did during the daytime in Dublin were class-related, which was good but also got a little long sometimes. When we arrived on Thursday afternoon after about a two and a half hour bus ride, we toured Kilmainham Gaol. This former jail is now a museum that tells the story of the many leaders of Irish rebellions that were imprisoned and some executed in the prison by the British and later in 1923 by the Irish Free State. There was no segregation of women, men, and children in the jail, and often children as young as 5 years old were imprisoned for something as minor as petty theft. The tour was interesting, and so was the architecture in rooms like the East Wind, shown below. This room has been a part of movies such as The Italian Job, Michael Collins, The Escapist, and a U2 music video was also filmed there. 

After the tour we had some free time and a lot of the group toured the Guinness Storehouse. Since it was such a beautiful day (a rare occurrence) some of us decided to pass on this and walk around instead, and tour the brewery when we're back in Dublin next week. In the evening we had a group dinner at the Brazen Head Pub, the oldest pub in Ireland, which was very good.  Later on we checked out some of the pubs in the Temple Bar area.

The view of the Four Courts from our hostel room window.

On Friday morning we visited the Hill of Tara, and archeological site with some ancient monuments. The site itself was a little boring, but the views of beautiful green fields surrounding the hill were really beautiful. 

Next we drove to Newgrange, which ended up being one of the highlights of the weekend for me. I wasn't expecting anything too exciting, but we had an excellent guide who was really enthusiastic about the history of the site and made it very interesting. Newgrange is a passage tomb that was built around 3200 BC, so it is about 500 years older than pyramids of Egypt, 1000 years older than Stonehenge, and also older than the Mycenaean culture of ancient Greece. We were split into two groups to enter the tomb, since it's actually a pretty small opening on the inside. We were all huddled inside and the lights were turned off making it completely dark, and then the guide used another light to simulate what is looks like on the winter solstice, when the opening of the portal is perfectly aligned with the rising sun and light fills the tomb. Being inside a 5000 year old structure, the oldest standing man-made structure that you can enter in the world, was a pretty cool experience.  

Newgrange

That night almost all of us signed up for an organized pub crawl, where we stopped at five different pubs. It was a fun way to get to a lot of places in one night, hear some good live music, and talk to other students from around the world who were also part of the group. 

Saturday we had a tour of some of the highlights within Dublin. We drove around for awhile while a guide pointed out some points of interest, then got out at Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells and the beautiful Long Room of the library. You aren't allowed to take pictures inside the library, apparently because George Lucas used photos of the library without permission when making Star Wars Attack of the Clones and used it as the Jedi Library, so I found a photo of what it looks like, it was pretty awesome:

The rest of the day was spend visiting St. Patrick's Cathedral, walking around Grafton Street, going to Christ's Church and seeing Strongbow's tomb and the crypts, and going to the National Museum where Br. Colman, our theology professor, met us for a tour. That evening was a little more low-key, and a group of us went to a free traditional music and dance show we had heard about. 

Trinity College

Outside St. Patrick's Cathedral

Grafton Street 

Outside of Christ's Church

Inside the National Museum

On Sunday Br. Colman led us to Clonmacnoise, ruins of an ancient monastery. It looked like a lot of the places we have seen already, but I enjoyed the beautiful weather while walking around, and thought some of the high crosses were pretty cool. 

There was an archway you could whisper into and someone could hear it on the other side, so here Charlie and Greg are testing it out:

As we headed back to Galway it started downpouring, as though signaling our time in the sunny east of Ireland had officially come to an end.