Day 5 got off to a shaky start, complete with a forbidding weather forecast once again (“cold and rainy”) and some early-day appliance difficulties (a fried flat iron like in the movie “Just Married,” which happened to be on the previous evening). Yet we had another busy day ahead of us, and a few raindrops and chilled bones weren’t going to slow us down.
Our first stop was at Trinity College, just a short walk from our hotel. Once on campus, we were quickly struck with the beauty and sense of history that was seemingly palpable in the air.
We had initially deciding against seeing the Book of Kells, a 1,200-year-old illuminated manuscript, a “masterwork of Western calligraphy” and “widely regarded as Ireland’s national treasure,” located in the Trinity College Library. We had been warned that the lines were always super-long and it would be difficult to get a good view of the book itself. However, the lines weren’t too bad, so we elected to give it a try. Not only was the display itself phenomenal (alas, no photography, which was understandable), but the long room of the library upstairs was stunning as well, with a long line of busts of distinguished writers, such as William Shakespeare and Jonathan Swift, and Greek philosophers as well. As a bonus, we saw a group of Italians that we had seen the previous day at Newgrange. Small world. Another short walk through the tremendous Trinity College campus brought us to the verge of our next adventure.
We had tickets for the Hop On, Hop Off, a double-decker bus that tours the city with 25 different stops, any of which you can get off on (hence, “Hop Off”), then get back on when the next bus comes by 15 minutes later (hence, “Hop On”). Since the morning was pretty and the weather was holding up, we went up to the open-air second deck of the bus and took in some of Dublin’s sights. The driver/narrator of the bus was pretty funny, and kept us suitably entertained until we got to our next stop, the famous Kilmainham Gaol.
Since our tour of the 200-year-old jail didn’t begin for a while, we went up for some coffee and tea in the tearoom, where we noticed the “Sprockets” German couple, who we had also seen at Stonehenge the previous day. Wow. (Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance.) When our tour began, we got lucky with our guide once again. He was a knowledgeable, passionate Irishman who told us the story of Kilmainham Gaol’s vital role in the Easter Rising of 1916, which eventually lead to independence from British rule for southern Ireland. Prisoners were subjected to horrific conditions, overcrowding and disease at the jail, with as many as five prisoners confined to a single cell.
During times of extreme poverty throughout the region, many people committed crimes just to get sent to jail and get meals. Yet as the times got worse, an underground revolution began, highlighted by the quote inscribed on a wall by Patrick Pearse (later one of the authors of the Irish Proclamation of Freedom on April 24, 1916): “Beware of the Risen People Who Have Harried and Held, Ye That Have Bullied and Bribed.”
Long story short (yeah, yeah, too late, I get it), 16 of the rebels involved in the Easter Rising were executed in the courtyard at Kilmainham Gaol. The most famous execution was that of James Connolly, who had been terminally injured during fighting at the Easter Rising; yet he was still sat down and tied to a chair and shot to death in the jail’s courtyard. A solemn black cross still stands on the spot where he was executed.
Connolly’s death without honor and treatment by the British was so despicable that it actually began to sway the tide of popular Irish opinion away from Britain and toward independence. The jail was eventually abandoned and began to rot away, but a voluntary restoration movement was begun in 1960 to resurrect it and return it to its pivotal place in the history of Ireland. Now, the jail is a popular spot for movies, with “Michael Collins,” “Boondock Saints,” “In the Name of the Father” and “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” all shot there in the last 15 years, as well as the U2 video for “A Celebration.” Visiting the jail was quite an unexpectedly moving and informational experience about the fight for Irish independence.
A meandering, longer-than-anticipated walk brought us to a place where we could toast those brave rebels of yesteryear and check out Ireland’s true national treasure: The Guinness Storehouse.
Since we had bought our tour tickets in advance, we were able to bypass the lengthy lines to get in and view the seven-floor storehouse facility. Considered the No. 1 visitor attraction in Dublin, the Guinness Storehouse is located in the middle of the 65-acre facility that comprises the second-largest brewery in the world. Interactive exhibits, examples of old marketing campaigns, a description of the brewing process, an enormous store and other notable displays are peppered throughout the storehouse. The original harp that is a crucial part of the Guinness logo is located here as well.
One of the first things you see upon entering is the original 9,000-year lease for the brewery signed by a forward-thinking Arthur Guinness.
We sampled the four crucial elements involved in brewing Guinness, as well as the all-important “fifth ingredient”: Arthur Guinness himself. What’s the result?
Walking all those floors left us famished and yearning to try a bit of what we had been smelling and seeing. So we stopped off at the sixth-floor restaurant, where I enjoyed a phenomenal dish: Guinness, pork and leek sausage, with mashed potato and red onion compote. I also had a Foreign Extra Stout, a variety that was originally brewed in 1801 but is unavailable in North America (probably because of its 7.5 alcohol percentage). It was a little more carbonated than the usual Guinness, but still very good and ideal with lunch.
Finally, we ended the tour with the trademark free Guinness at the Gravity Bar on the seventh floor. Featuring floor-to-ceiling glass that overlooks all parts of Dublin, the Gravity Bar was a neat experience, but it was packed with schoolkids hanging out in groups, drinking Coke and taking up all the seating. Still, a lofty perch, a free brew and a stunning view of Dublin was the perfect way to end our visit to the Guinness Storehouse.
We grabbed the next Hop On, Hop Off over to the north side of the city, where the route ended and we had to hop off to wait for the next bus and the beginning of the ride back to Grafton Street. It was mesmerizing to watch insane bicyclists fly in and out of traffic and skirt buses in tiny bicycle-only lanes, but the weather was getting very cold (still no rain though!) and some spillage in the back of the bus from some overzealous fellow tourists made it essential to get back to the hotel soon.
After catching up on some of the Masters and resting up for a bit, it was time to walk down to the Temple Bar district, where we had reservations at Gallagher’s Boxty House (apparently voted the Best Irish Restaurant by BBC viewers). We had been urged to try a boxty, a very traditional Irish food that is basically a potato pancake with various fillings inside. I ordered a seafood boxty with a Murphy’s Red Ale, and both were amazing. The restaurant was packed, so even if you have reservations, you basically sit down at picnic-like tables, elbow to elbow with strangers. It was a different experience, but it was certainly an awesome one.
Following a somewhat disappointing visit to Davy Byrne’s the previous night, I wanted to pick a more authentic pub to check out after our dinner. Hell, there are 714 pubs in Dublin, so that shouldn’t be a tall order, right? I settled on Mulligan’s, another historical pub very rich in literary history. As soon as we walked in the door, we knew that we had picked a winner. The bar and lounge were packed, but the feeling was very genuine and authentic, complete with beautiful, intricate lattice work on the ceilings and old-school lamp and chandelier holders. We eventually found a coupla seats and enjoyed a Guinness or two at Mulligan's before finally heading back to the hotel. It was a long, exhausting day, but as our path took us past the darkened Trinity College campus, we still animatedly talked about all the amazing things we had seen throughout the course of the day, from painstakingly rendered, ancient texts … to dusty old cells with echoes of pain and whispers of revolt … to everything that goes into the black gold that courses through the veins of Dubliners young and old.
Yet it was time to put our instant memories aside — and rest up for our final full day in Dublin …
The next (and final) installment of the Irish adventure, Day 6, will be forthcoming in a coupla days. P.S. You can click on the pix for bigger versions if you like. All photos taken by the Scoot. Click on the Ireland tag below for accounts from other days along the trip. Giddyup.
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