October 17th
It's a Sunday, and we end up waiting for the bus to get into town. I find out later that the
10 runs every 30 minutes on Sunday, ![[Footnote12]](images/foot.gif){kind=small}
and we just missed the previous one.
If we had a better idea of where we are (the B&B is off the edge of the tourist map), we could
have walked into the city centre, but then we'd be starting the day with tired feet. We also stop
by the Dublin General Post Office, which conveniently enough, is open on Sunday. I send
off a few more postcards, and buy enough stamps to cover the cards I plan on sending from Ireland.
|
The River Liffey |
(52K) |
|
The Custom House |
(60K) |
We start the day by walking around a bit. We head downriver from O'Connell St., and take a picture of the Liffey heading out to the sea. Also, pictures of the Custom House, which is a pretty impressive building.
We find the bus out to Kilmainham Gaol and get on. There are apparently other tourists going
out there, so we're unlikely to miss the stop. In general, the bus drivers have been pretty helpful
about telling us what stop will put us nearest to the place we want to see. At the risk of repeating
myself, a bus map would've been a great help. There are somewhat useful maps on the Dublin Bus Maps
page, but something even more detailed would be great.
|
Kilmainham Gaol |
(45K) |
|
Breaking Rocks |
(49K) |
|
Memorial |
(42K) |
At Kilmainham Gaol,
we take the tour. While we're waiting for it to start, I see a
sculpture that's in the museum/visitors center that really catches my attention.
The first part of the Gaol we go through was built during Victorian times and
|
James Connolly Cross |
(86K) |
one of the things they did was to make sure it was well-lit to lift the spirits of the prisoners. I'm not
sure good light would do that, but I guess it couldn't hurt. Also, the windows are placed high in the cells,
in order to encourage the prisoners to look to heaven. Older parts of the gaol look a lot more like I expect
a prison to be. Smaller cells, darker and danker. This place was actually shut down for quite a while, and
I think that they're behind on their cleaning. The dust in the air causes me to spend a lot of time sneezing,
which distracts from the tour a little. I don't take a lot of pictures, but the central gallery of the Victorian
wing looks a lot like a shopping mall Brian remembers seeing. During an outside part of the tour,
there are more memorials to people killed in the revolution.
After the gaol, we start walking back towards the city centre. We pass through the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, which is housed in the former Royal Hospital Kilmainham. It's got an impressive garden that we look at for a while, but since it's a nice day outside, and we're short on time, we don't head inside except to use the Gents. Walking downhill from the museum, we actually see a tent on the side of the street, tucked in among some trees. It's the first sign of homelessness we've seen so far.
|
Collins Barracks |
(35K) |
|
Croppys Acre |
(16K) |
|
The Guinness Brewery |
(16K) |
Our next stop is going to be the Collins Barracks part of The National Museum of Ireland which Jim
especially wants to see. Along the way, we pass Croppy's Acre, a small (about an acre) memorial
set aside as a memorial to the uprising of 1798. More dead Irish who were hoping for a free country.
We also see the Guinness Brewery from across the river as we're walking along.
It's a BIG place.
We get to Collins Barracks about 1330, and the museum doesn't open until 1400, so we take advantage of the
small cafe they have there and get lunch. Once again, the hearty breakfast has carried us well past our
normal lunch-time.
Inside Collins Barracks is the other part of the National Museum. This is where they're going to be moving the bulk of the collection, I think. It's a much bigger space than the small museum downtown, and you can tell they've been busy sprucing the place up. The most interesting thing is an exhibit about the uprising of 1798, but there are also exhibits of silver, crystal, traditional furniture, and other bits that are plenty interesting. It's also free, which is nice.
|
Dan, The One-Man Band |
(17K) |
As we leave Collins Barracks, the sun is out for real. We've got a beautiful blue sky, and after a brief stop at Messrs Maguire, which is a rare microbrewery/brewpub in Ireland, we're off to St. Stephen's Green to enjoy a little sunshine. We spend some time walking around the park, and also take in the buskers on Grafton Street. Dan the One-Man Band gets some change from us.
After we walked around a bit, we decided it was time to head back to the B&B to drop off our stuff for the day, and head out to find some food. We ended up on quite a quest for food, since the directions given to us by the staff at the Charleville Lodge weren't exactly clear. Most pubs in Ireland don't serve food, and even those that do generally stop supper service early on Sundays, so we ended up trying a few places before finally settling on an Indian restaurant where the hot food was surprisingly mild. After that, we went to Doyle's (on N. Circular Rd. and Phibsboro Rd, not the Doyle's downtown), where we talked agriculture with a few older gents for a while. It was another pub I could see spending lots of time in.
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