On the is a great museum tucked away in the corner of city centre Dublin. If you walk past Ely House. This part of Dublin has maintained it Georgian architecture, and the houses and entrances are incredible.
This door in particular caught my attention. The ornate knockers and well-polished mail slot was a great example of these doors. A lot of them have plastic business signs on them or are neglected by the landlords.
One day, on the way to the Brazen Head, I took an alternate route and stumbled across this site. It is the Dublin City Wall and Gate from 1240 AD.
Two things occurred to me. First, that Dublin was not much bigger than it had been back then. Second, there are some many old things in Europe as compared to the United States.
It very often is staggered in between something new as well. You see a new office building next to ruins that are hundreds of years old. Awesome
One of the things that you start to notice when you have gone to a city several times, is the number of signs or placards that are around for places that are not there anymore. Sometimes it is obvious because they have been converted into something else .. like the Dillards sign on the Cleveland Visitors Building (soon be become a casino).
In this case, the Royal Bank of Ireland building is now a pub. A very cool, upscale one. Regardless, the sign is dutifully polished on the outside.
While watching a documentary on Irish music, I learned that the band Thin Lizzy was actually an IRISH rock band. Aside from that completely shocking fact is that the lead singer, Phil Lynott was black. His mom was Irish and his father was Afro-Guyanese.
I guess it makes more sense to me why Thin Lizzy actually performed the song Whiskey in the Jar. And it also makes sense that there would be statue of him in city centre Dublin.
The statue is just off of Grafton Street outside of a place called Bruxelles, that has great music as well.
For all the times I have gone to Dublin, I have walked by Neary's pub so many times. I think the lanterns being held by the hands are interesting. They are kind of a landmark for the establishment just off of Grafton Street.
For the people who get weary from their shopping adventures on Dublin's business shopping avenue, it always seemed like an Oasis. Until this year, I had never gone inside. Encouraged by the rain and my lack of an umbrella, I ventured in. There was not an open table or a seat at the bar. I did a u-turn and headed back into the rain and for an alternate location.
The inside was like walking into Dublin 20 years ago. The crowd was much older and it just seemed more sedate and genteel. Maybe how Ireland was before the Celtic Tiger and the recent economic downfall.
While I was in Dublin, I stopped at Donahue's pub to get a Guinness. While I was there a made a couple of notes about the places I had gone and the things I had done.
Since I go to Dublin pretty often, the trips have started to blend into each other and I really wanted a way to capture (aside from my photos) the things I had done during the trip.
This was my first Guinness during the trip. Lovely!
During my trip to Ireland, I stopped at the Cobblestone to hear a session of local musicians play traditional Irish music. The music was incredible. Mick also sang a couple songs and has an incredible voice.
It is interesting that the Cobblestone almost met with distruction because the area, Smithfield Village, has gotten so built up. Ironically, when the Celtic Tiger started to collapse, the owner of the building was not able to sell, and the Cobblestone was saved.
There are not very many places in Dublin that you can find traditional music that isn't played for the tourists. This session is played for Irish people who want to keep the tradition and the old songs alive.
If you hop on the DART in Dublin City Centre and take the train about 20 minutes south, you will be at Bray. Bray is a seaside town that is about as close as Ireland gets to the Jersey Shore in America. There is a promenade and a couple of arcades for the kids and adults.
Mostly, it is a place where the Irish gather to enjoy a great view of the water. On this day, it was about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit). Since the sun had made an appearance and the kids were off of school, the area was packed with people. In American, we would have been hiding in our houses. The Irish, they never miss soaking up a minute of sun.
One of the things I always love about Ireland is that the road signs are in both English and Irish. It often helps you figure out how the Irish pronounce the name of a town.
There are a couple of exceptions where the Irish for a place and the name of the place are different. Dublin - the capital city - is a great example. The name Dublin comes from the Irish Dub Lin (or black pool), but the Irish name for it is Áth Cliath.
At any rate, I love the weathered signs that you find around the country. It adds to the romance and charm of the Emerald Isle.
On my recent trip to Ireland, I had the good fortune to be escorted to Wexford by a lad named Feilim. Although the trip to Wexford was nice, the journey back to Dublin the next day was extraordinary.You can make it from City Centre Dublin to Wexford in about 60 minutes. The drive back was a relaxing 2 hours of great stories and side roads. With Feilim as my guide, I got to see some out of the way and interesting sites.
Although I had taken a tour through the Wicklow Mountains, I had never seen this lake before. I don't know the name of the lake, so I am aptly naming it Feilim's Lake because it reminds me of that trip.
Any time you are laughing so hard you and you driver have tears in their eyes, you can chalk that up to an amazing day!
Of course we managed to eat lunch in a place that is a pub. You need a good Guinness with your lunch when you are on vacation in Ireland.
This pub is directly across from the Tourist Office. However, the most incredible thing about this pub is that it is HUGE inside. It is a bit deceiving from the outside. It has 5 or 6 rooms, an upstairs and two carvery rooms inside.
Oh, and the Guinness Beef stew was Yummy!
At the top of O'Connell Street, there is a statue in the middle of the intersection. It is a statue of Charles Stewart Parnell . The square directly behind it is named after him.
In Dublin, there is a bar called the Knightsbridge. It is right on the River Liffey. You can sit in the front and look out of the window at the traffic going by on the quays. It is a great spot to have a pint of Guinness.
After a long day of touring the city, my friends and I stopped in there. While we were there, I noticed these two friends sitting there enjoying the view out the window.
I was torn about converting the photo to black and white because there were some lovely, warm brown tones in the other one. However, I think the black and white photo shows the light flooding through the window in a better way.
This year, Guinness is celebrating their 250th anniversary. To commemorate the event, they have a special display at the Guinness Factory. It is amazing to think that in 1759, Arthur Guinness opened a brewery that has remained opened for 250 years. Ultimately, it was his decision to only brew the now famous porter that was the real difference maker . . . and most likely people drink approximately 5 million pints of the stuff every day.
While on the tour at the Guinness Factory, there is a room where they display all of the master brewers from Guinness through the years. This log book is on display as an example of the detailed notation of the brewery operations that were done.
This photo is of the main gate of Trinity College. According to Wikipedia, Trinity is one of the seven ancient universities in the English speaking world and the only one outside the present United Kingdom.
It is a gorgeous campus and boasts alumni such as Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and Samuel Beckett. Pretty impressive and incredible to think as a student, you are sitting in some of the same classrooms.
By trade, I am a coffee drinker. However, I do have to say there is somethign about the tea in Ireland. I drink it every day and virtually don't have any coffee. (I substitute Guinness for my black beverage.) At any rate, I shot this on the second morning when I sat down in the breakfast room of my hotel.
Although there is something very simple about this photo, I always flip back to it. I think I like the symmetry of the silver ware or something. It also make me long for yummy Irish sausages.
While we were listening to some rollicking good reels at Oliver St. John Gogarty in Temple Bar, this gentleman started dancing. I guess he couldn't contain himself. In short order, the woman in the picture was up and dancing with him as well.
When I looked at this photo when I first got home, it reminded me of the couple dancing at the Fais Do Do stage at Jazz Fest in New Orleans. I guess it doesn't matter where in the world you are, when you have good music there is always a chance someone will be dancing.
It was very exciting to be able to go to Ireland and visit the Guinness Factory during the 250th Anniversary yaer. I have posted tons of pics and stories about Guinness over the past few years. So you can imagine my excitement.
The actually day the Arthur Guinness signed the brewery contract (for a whopping 9000 years) was on Sept. 24th. Guinness is having a big bash called Arthur's Day to commemerate the event.
Brilliant!
One of the benefits of Dublin as a big city is there is a lot of music. You can find music in plenty of pubs every day.
These musicians were playing in Oliver St. John Gogarty in Temple Bar. Although they do play traditional songs, the actually music isn't really considered a 'traditional session' because the musicians are using microphones.
In a traditional session, the gathering is relatively informal and the group of musicians is not set. Tradition or not, the music is great.
