Ireland Day 6 - Dublin

Checking my notes for today, I have:

	"Ireland, day whatever: Dublin. It's a city, like all cities. It was meh. Then we drank a lot. It was better, but still to hell with this let's go find some castles. The end."

So I'm going to have to recreate this from memory...

(Ethan)

We decided to take a walking tour of Dublin today! We met our tour guide, Ritchie, at the Spire of Dublin.  The spire is a 390' tall stainless steel tower built to celebrate the new millennium, and conveniently within sight of our apartment. Even before they finished the monument (in 2003) the locals started renaming it, in Irish tradition. The appellations start with "Stiletto in the Ghetto" and go downhill from there.

We visited the River Liffey, the Irish House of Parliament (now a bank), Dublin Castle (now ancillary and ceremonial government offices), Temple Bar (a entire neighborhood, now full of bars) and both cathedrals (one financed by Guinness, one financed by whiskey). At each stop we were regaled with history, witticisms, and amusing rants - Ritchie was obviously chosen for his historical knowledge and personable nature.  Oh, and also because he had a great speaking voice... our family nodded to each other and surreptitiously shifted over while they were splitting the group in half, and we "just happened" to get Ritchie instead of his quieter partner.




My favorite tidbit was on the history of Dublin is the history of the name of Dublin itself. Dublin was founded by the vikings (or possibly earlier monks?), who asked the locals what they called the place they were at. The locals responded: You're by the black pool (dubh lind). And the vikings responded "Blackpool. Got it" (Dublin).  Later on down the line, the Irish realized that the vikings were asking for the name of the town - not the tidepool, and let the Dubliners know that the town name was actually Town-on-the-hurdled-fording-point-of-the-Liffey-River (Baile Átha Cliath). Nobody could, nor cared to, pronounce it, so they stuck with the simple Dublin in a pragmatic, Irish way. Or at least, that makes a good story, and not letting the facts get too far in the way of a good story is truly the Irish way.

(Mom)'s picture of Ritchie at The Coach House

My good picture from today.

After the tour we wended our way back and forth across the Liffey towards Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is an illustrated manuscript of the four gospels, produced ~800 AD at the height of calligraphy. We pre-booked our tickets, and after a brief wait in line entered the exhibit hall. After spending some time perusing the crowded pre-exhibit learning about the book, we entered the (more crowded) viewing room itself. It was fascinating to see the reverent hush that persisted over the crowd, as we all clambered to look at the book. It was hard to see and pictures were strictly verboten, you're much better off getting a look at it online if you are interested in the content of the book.  The tour ends with a walkthrough of the Long Room - the oldest part of Trinity College's library. This room was gorgeous, all muted light, dark wood, and ancient books. It's inspired libraries throughout fiction (Star Wars almost got sued for it) and it's easy to see why.

Worn out from walking (and worse - standing around) we headed back to the apartment to make plans for the evening.  The boys decided to head out on Ritchie's bar tour, while our parents settled on a nice sit-down dinner.  So back to the Stiffy by the Liffey! I mean, um, the Dublin Spire.  The night consisted to listening to Ritchie describe the history of various drinks, and then drinking them while getting to know our single-serving friends (Navajo, Polish, German, Latvian, Canadian, etc) who were drinking with us.

At the first bar, I accidentally ordered a liter of beer. I felt like Pippin - "It comes in pints?!"  Turns out when the bartender asked if I wanted this <points to poster> she meant the glass, not the Octoberfest inside it.  I poured as much as I could into our new friend's empty tasting glasses, and tried (and failed) to drink the rest before we were off to bar two!

At bar two we had whiskey (still gross), a dairy-based Gin ( B+), and dinner! We went with  fish&chips and Coddle, a traditional Dublin dish designed to use the last of the cheap meat before Friday. The stew is based around black pudding, white pudding, and bacon -  Ritchie refused to tell us what was in the sausages until we'd eaten some. After sampling them I asked for a hint and he said "You know the grossest part of black sausage? Leave that out and you get white sausage." Despite knowing what they were made of (according to the packaging in our airbnb: suet, oatmeal, breadcrumbs, offal, and a lot of blood for the black) they were both legitimately delicious, and we finished the whole thing.

At bar three we had Guinness, Dingle Gin (we had to try it after driving all over Dingle, C-), and more Guinness. We listened to the Traditional Irish music - played in the traditional Irish manner - a few guys in a side room having fun and not really a performance. Ritchie warned us that he might give us an Irish Goodbye, but we could all make it back to the Steel Erection at the Intersection if we turned left and followed the tram lines.  Around midnight we gave our own (American) goodbye, turned left, followed the tram lines, and made it home after a brief and blurry detour for milkshakes and fried chicken.  I jotted down some cursory journal notes and fell thankfully into bed.

We all took this photo! (Dad) took it best!!