Ireland, Day 4, Dublin - Book of Kells, Natural History, Guinness, Kilmainham Gaol

Today was our first day exploring Dublin. Our hotel is pretty far out of town, but we're an easy walk from the LUAS station (the light rail system). It goes right downtown, and then we're going to buy the 3 day bus pass. It includes the Hop On - Hop Off bus, as well as the regular city buses, so we're covered wherever we want to go. At the end of the day, we just hop back on the LUAS to the hotel.

So, I knew we needed to get off the LUAS at Abbey St. When we got downtown, Max looked at the map on the wall and didn't see anything called Abbey Street. I looked and saw that 3 stops was too far, and I didn't recognize the name of the one right before it. I didn't have time to get my map out to check. So, we got off at the next stop, Jervis. Turns out that Abbey St. is the stop after Jervis, but on the LUAS wall, it had been written in Gaelic! No worries, it wasn't too far. We did get to see this place, though.

And this one

And this one

We bought our bus tickets and hopped on. Our first hop off was at Trinity College, too see the Book of Kells. It is freshman week, so they have booths set up all over the place showing off the various clubs and such available to the students. It was fun to see.

No pictures are allowed in the Book of Kells exhibit, and it's too dark to do any hip shots. It's amazing, though. I love illuminated manuscripts, and this is a spectacular one. The detail is just fantastic. Google it, you won't be sorry. After the Book of Kells, you enter the Long Library. I want it! It looks like something out of Hogwarts. Again, no pictures, but it was light enough to get some anyway.

We got to see the harp that's on the Irish euro coins

Here's Oscar Wilde's home

Here's Oscar Wilde. His is the only colored statue in all of Dublin

I like these lampposts

Our next stop was The Natural History Museum. This was Em's number one destination for Dublin. We told her she could spend as long as she wanted, but that if she didn't take as long, we could do other things, as well. So, we gave her the camera, and we were off! The museum has changed very little since Victorian times. The bottom floor is native Irish animals. They were OK. This guy was cool

When birds dress up like Martin Van Buren

The second floor was awesome, though. It was stuffed with animals. Stuffed ones. And heads. Also stuffed ones.

I wonder where Timon & Simba are...

Some better than others. We discovered that the Victorian aesthetic for stuffing animals was to make them look like they were mid-poop. Unfortunately, many of the monkey pictures (the most poopalicious of them all) didn't turn out well. But, we still got these guys.

Some of them were just friggin' weird.

I think Brian Froud designed this guy

Why, hello there.

ohmygodohmygodohmygod

My new buddy, Twitchy

There were a lot that just didn't look quite right somehow. I think maybe the taxidermists just had never seen the animals in real life, and so didn't have the knowledge to make them just right

Back then, there were no animal rights people. Museums acquired animals however they wanted. You can see how this guy was acquired if you look over his left eye (our left).

They were also not the best at their jobs, perhaps.

After the Dead Zoo (as Dubliners call it), it was lunch time. We hopped back on the bus for Temple Bar. But first, we admired the doors across from the museum. Dublin is famous for its brightly colored doors. The story goes that when Queen Victoria's husband, Albert, died, she ordered everybody to paint their doors black. Well, Ireland did not care to be part of the UK, and really didn't care what Victoria said. So, instead of black, they painted their doors as colorfully as they could. It's quite pretty!

Temple Bar is "Dublin's Cultural Quarter." It kind of has a bohemian feel to it, I think. Of course, we skipped all of the hip pubs and went straight to Hard Rock, because that's what we do.

We had seen O'Neill's on the bus on the way over, so we walked down there and took pictures for my friends Melissa and Brian O'Neill.

We had finished in the morning all I had planned for the day, so we started on the next day's activities. Finishing early meant we could do more stuff! So, next was the Guinness Brewery. On the way to Guinness, we drove past St. Patrick's, where Johnathan Swift (author of Gulliver's Travels, amongst other things) is buried. He was Dean here. We didn't have time to go in, though.

It is a very Disney-fied tour. You don't see the actual brewery (there are waaaay too many people there for that), but it is at least on the same grounds as the actual brewery. And from what I could tell, Guinness takes up like half of Dublin, I swear.

The middle of the building is shaped like a giant pint glass, and at the very top is the Gravity Bar. A free pint comes with your admission (a soda for kids), so up we went. I don't like beer, so Max had mine, too.

You can see how big the place is

He didn't actually drink all of these, but we thought it funny to make it look like he did

On my list as one of the things I wanted to do, but I wouldn't be crushed if we didn't make it was Kilmainham Gaol (Jail). I had seen pictures and wanted to go. After seeing all of the stuff about the fight for independence, though, I also wanted to see it because it was where the leaders of the 1916 rebellion were executed. Since we had some extra time, and we were already on that side for town for Guinness, we went.

First, we saw the museum, which was on our own. The rest was a guided tour

Locks

Keys

The first place we visited on our tour was the old part of the jail. This is where all of the 1916 people were kept.

She was a prominent freedom fighter, but she wasn't executed

We then went in the "new" part of the jail, which was constructed in the late 1800s. I really thought it quite lovely. The ironwork reminded me of the Victorian shopping arcades we've seen in various cities, and also reminded me of the central market in Budapest.

Such beautiful steps, even in a jail

Then it was out to the yards. We saw the yard where children were made to do their exercises and work (the youngest child to have been sentenced to hard labor here was 5).

And then we saw the yard where most of the 1916 leaders had been shot. 

She also told us where to look to see where the public hangings used to take place. They're right over the front door to the jail. Look for the two light squares, just above and to the outside of the window. Those are where the gallows stood. Nice and high, so everybody had a good view.

After that, we just took the bus back to the LUAS, and the LUAS back to the hotel.

Emma says - The Natural History Museum was one of the most fun places that we have gone on a trip. It was a gigantic building filled with dead animals, and I had a camera. I don't think I need to say any more. The food we got at Hard Rock was seriously delicious, and I got a new pin for my hat. I didn't really care much about the Guinness tour or the jail.