Dublin, Ireland
The last day of this trip came way too soon. We didn’t have any group activities planned, but everyone else ended up taking a day trip to the fishing village of Hoeth, which was a brief train ride from Dublin. Everyone said it was beautiful and peaceful and quiet – a welcome change from the city.
Though we certainly hated to miss what sounded like an excellent day trip, Josh and I had too much unfinished business in Dublin. Our morning began at the Irish Emigration Museum – also called the EPIC (Every Person Is Connected) Museum. It was extremely interactive with lots of bells and whistles. Throughout the museum the stories of real Irish citizens who left the country (by choice or otherwise) were told.
One really poignant story was of a young woman named Mary Welsh(?) who was caught stealing from a shop with her baby. She was found guilty at trial and, despite her husband begging for leniency, she was sent to an Australian prison colony for seven years. Her husband and young son were not permitted to go with her, but she was allowed to take the baby. Unfortunately, once she arrived in Australia, Mary was separated from the baby who died just a few months later.
Another story was of a priest whose passage out of Ireland was arranged and paid for by the Church during the famine. He and his brother were adopted and both went on to become priests in order to pay back the debt they felt they owed to the Church.
After the Museum we made our way to Trinity College, the oldest university in Ireland. The campus was beautiful, but our primary purpose was to visit the Book of Kells exhibit.
Believed to have been written in 800 ad, the book of Kells is a beautifully illustrated Latin manuscript. An exhibit featuring the book and several other ancient literary works were on display in a small museum. After the museum, we got to enter the famous long library at Trinity College, which I frankly enjoyed way more than the Book of Kells.
It looked like the library out of Beauty and the Beast! Ceiling to floor of dusty old books. Shelves upon shelves upon shelves with wooden ladders connected to tracks installed on the ceiling in each section so the books could be reached. It was just lovely and probably the best library I’ve ever visited.
Our visit to Trinity College completed our “must do” list of historical cites and museums for this trip, so we spent the late afternoon and early evening on more blithe pursuits.
A visit to the Teeling Whisky Distillery completed my personal goal of becoming a self-proclaimed Scotch/Whisk(e)y connoisseur. To be Irish Whisky, a whisky must be made from malted and unmalted barley, distilled in Ireland and aged in oak barrels in Ireland for three years and one day (exactly one day longer than Scotch in Scotland).
Whiskey was originally called the Water of Life in Gaelic. The pronunciation was too complicated for the English and they mispronounced the word as Whiskey. The Irish are the original inventors of the drink. It was created by monks who had travelled to present day Turkey and learned about the perfume making process. They attempted to make perfume using the barley that was readily available to them and, obviously, found it made a better drink than fragrance.
What was once a booming industry died out almost entirely in the 1920s and after, for various reasons but, primarily because of prohibition in the US and the fact that Scotch Whiskey was being made in a blended style and thus more palatable to the masses. Teelings opened in 2015 as the first newly opened distillery in over one hundred years. Our tour guide walked us through the full distillation process and the tour ended with a tasting.
After Teelings, we spent some time just walking around the city and enjoying the uncharacteristically warm and sunny weather (the weather has been incredibly and unexpectedly nice the entire trip).
We wandered upon (what we later learned was) a very well known restaurant called Bull and Castle and had a delicious dinner. We didn’t even have reservations, but they worked us in and we both had scrumptious steaks and a great bottle of Pinot Noir.
We were lucky enough to get a table, most likely, because it was only around 6 and still pretty early for dinner. It was perfect because we had made last minute plans to see Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at the Smock Alley Theatre, so we needed an early dinner.
The Smock Alley Theatre is the oldest theatre in Ireland and was originally built in 1662. It operated until the 1780s and then went into ruin and was lost. Renovations to a catholic church located on the site many years later uncovered the remains of the theatre and, in 2012, it was reopened in all its former glory – even using one of the original brick walls as the main stage backdrop.
The show was sold out, but with a little luck of the Irish and two no-shows just as the first act started landed us with seats on the second floor balcony.
The show ended about 10:00 p.m. and we took a long, leisurely stroll across the city back to our hotel as the sun was finally setting for the day.
This was definitely a different travel experience for us and we are so glad to have had the opportunity. Being with others to explore and enjoy such beautiful places has expanded our views well beyond what we expected.
For Josh and me, it was so nice to spend some time apart, adventuring with friends, and to do things we wouldn’t normally do on our own like seeking out a highly recommended pub and hanging out into the late night hours or touring the Scottish countryside in search of a sea monster.
I keep this blog so Josh and I can have a place to store our memories, but also to share with others in hopes they might get a spark of inspiration to leave their own comfort zones or at least laugh a little at our quirky misadventures. Recently, I was told, “You have been blessed, so go be a blessing.” It’s a new mantra, I’m trying to live by. This trip was such a blessing, so I hope my readers were at least a little bit blessed by our tales.
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