Ireland

Visiting Ireland was probably my favorite part of my entire trip. We spent several days going into Dublin, but we stayed with my friend Kevin's family in the town of Howth, which is right outside the city and is absolutely gorgeous! It's a small fishing town but they essentially live right on the coast - we went exploring the cliffs, and there was a field of horses right across the street so i was in my element. I have a ton of pictures to share.

The first thing we did was head into Dublin to check it out. The city is apparently well-known for its beautiful, brightly-colored doors. Here's one example.

 First we visited was St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is actually a Protestant church and my favorite church I've seen so far in Europe. 

Main view of the nave. 

While we were exploring the church, a boys choir came in to rehearse - this is a view of their choir stalls. 

One of the main reasons I really liked this church is because it seemed to function as a living monument to the Irish people. It was full of little memorials like this for Irish soldiers who had died in past wars.

The church also had this book, which lists all of the Irish soldiers killed in the first world war. The picture below shows just how big the book is, which is amazing when you consider that Ireland is traditionally a pacifist state and has a small population.

The church also had a ton of cool historical objects, almost as if it was a museum. This is the "Door of Reconicilation" - check out the explanation in the picture below. 

More monuments inside the church.

View of one of the side aisles. 

A collection of the various keys that have been used to lock and reopen the church.

The official list of the Knights of the Order of St. Patrick.

The banners of the knights. 

Grave of Jonathan Swift,  famous author and Dean of the church during the early 1700s.

This stone was supposedly part of St. Patrick's Well, which, according to legend, was situated right outside the cathedral's location. This is where St. Patrick baptized so many people in his effort to convert Ireland to Christianity. 

  

Exterior of the cathedral.

Ireland was great because the people there are the most cheerful in the world, and everyone loves Christmas! Check out this giant gingerbread house I saw in a window.

A typical Dublin street.

This picture and the one below are of Trinity College.

 Another street view.

Next we visited the Dublin Castle! It was originally a Viking Castle, then got converted for the Anglo-Irish aristocracy in the Middle Ages. More recently it has served as a diplomatic building and a museum. I have some pictures of the exterior later on, but I'll start with what I have here. This is the throne room.

This is a couch designed for old-school social interactions - the singular seats on the ends are for chaperones, so couples could sit in the middle and chat under their chaperones' supervision. 

Portrait room.

I'm not sure what this room is usually used for, but it had a bunch of banners displaying Irish family crests. 

 This is me with a portrait of Queen Caroline.

While we were there they were playing music from the Nutcracker Ballet throughout the whole building, and there was even a short ballet performance! This picture is awful, but it was super cool.

Christmas tree in the castle.

Outside view of the castle - it's definitely much less fancy than castles in France, which I appreciate.

After the castle we wandered and saw that there was a Christmas market in the crypt underneath the other big Dublin church, Christ Church. So of course we went and checked it out, and there was even a cool little museum down there! This is a mummified cat and rat that they found at some point stuffed inside the organ while they were doing renovations. So disgusting but also so awesome.

 Inside of Christ Church.

Steps inside the church.

So of course all the traffic in Ireland drives on the wrong side of the road, every time we were in a car it felt so weird to be on the left instead of the right. Consequently, whenever we tried to cross a street we never knew which way to look for oncoming traffic. Fortunately, many of the intersections had these little hints to warn you which way to look. I wonder how many dumb tourists got wrecked by cars before they decided to start putting these helpful tips on their streets...

We didn't actually go to the Guinness Storehouse (or the Jameson factory either), but we passed both on the bus tour we took. The Guinness family has always played an important role in providing jobs for the people of Dublin, and the Irish do like to drink, so Guinness is a big deal.

Although we didn't take the brewery tour, we did get a tour of the Kilmainham jail, which was built in 1796 and housed prisoners until 1924. It fell into disrepair for a while until a group of people got together to restore it and turn it into a museum. It was really cool to see what conditions were really like (basically it sounds like it was always cold and people were either overcrowded or freezing to death), and it was also super creepy. Besides the people who died from the harsh conditions, a ton of rebels were executed there, including the leaders of the 1916 Irish Revolution.

A view of one of the cell doors. The fact that the place is still in pretty serious disrepair made it even creepier. Plus, as soon as the tour started our guide told us to stay close because the place is huge and it's super easy to get lost. I can't imagine how terrifying that would be, if anything is haunted this jail definitely is.

One of the hallways.

One of the main rooms, this was the biggest one we got to see on the tour - all I could think about when I saw it was how it looks exactly like the jail in the movie Chicago. Our tour guide later told us that this room is actually a very popular place for shooting all sorts of movies, music videos, tv shows, etc, but I don't think Chicago was on the list.

They even let us go into some of the cells! A few were lit up like this, but some other ones were way more dark and dank, and then there were the ones with locked doors that you could look into through the little peep-hole. 

In the main courtyard there was a cross at each end to mark where major leaders of the 1916 Rebellion were executed. 

So after that experience we made a lighter choice and went to the free history museum in the city! We only had about 45 minutes to look at stuff before they closed, but there was a ton of cool stuff, like this replica of a Viking boat! The Vikings took over Ireland at some point and you can still see the influence. I also realized that I didn't get any pictures of my favorite thing - Bog Bodies! Ireland has a ton of bogs, which are excellent for preserving things like the bodies of people who get lost wandering and sink in like quick sand and die. There was a whole exhibit that we didn't really get to explore, which included bodies that essentially looked mummified. There was also a collection of clothing that was hundreds of years old, all preserved by the bogs. Kevin and I of course immediately started making bog body jokes, ie dont drink too much you'll fall in a bog and die, dont let your dog out alone at night it'll get sucked in, etc. 

Viking sword, hundreds of years old!

This was actually really cool - this is the skull of a Viking who apparently died from getting hit super hard over the head. Notice how the skull is a bit cracked? 

Dublin is full of super cute pubs that look just like this. The Christmas decorations made everything even more festive!

The next day Kevin and I took a bus tour into the Wicklow Mountains, which is one of the world's most important sites for filming movies! PS I Love You was filmed here, along with scenes from Braveheart and a bunch of other movies that I'd never heard of. Anyway, we got to go into the country and stop at some great sights. 

This was cool but also a bit creepy - during WWI and WWII, a lot of German pilots were shot down over Ireland, and other German civilians or soldiers were otherwise killed in Ireland. In 1961 all their remains were removed and brought to this one cemetery. Most of the remains are unidentified, but some are still unknown. 

And here are some of those amazing views that filmmakers love!! This was definitely my favorite part; it was freezing cold and impossibly windy but I loved it. Our tour guide also thought it was necessary to inform us that last year when the weather was bad the bus got stuck in this exact mountain pass for several hours. That idea, along with the fact that one of our fellow passengers decided to barf repeatedly during the day made our trip slightly less enjoyable. Still, we made it through alright!

The bridge where the big PS I Love You meet-cute happens.

Me on a mountain! I giggled when I looked at this picture afterwards because I'm standing with my legs like that to brace myself, otherwise I might have actually been blown off this mountain. Check out the view of the lake below!! It's called Guinness Lake because one of the Mr. Guinness (pretty sure the original one) put down something like a 9,000 year lease on it for a wedding present for his daughter. They even had tons and tons of white sand from somewhere in France in to make it look pretty, even though the water is a dark brown color because of some sort of reaction with the bogs. Still, I expect similar treatment for my wedding. 

Next we went to this park that houses an old monastery (which we didnt get to visit) and this church, which I believe is from the 4th or 5th century (plus or minus a few centuries, doesn't make that much of a difference really).

Outside view of the church.

Some views of the surrounding mountains.

Next we went to the Avoca store/mill! Avoca is famous in Ireland for their amazing knit goods and baked treats! Some of you may or may not have gotten gifts, I'm just saying.

The next day we went to Newgrange, which might actually be one of the most fascinating places in the world. It was built five THOUSAND years ago (aka 500 years before the Pyramids, before the invention of the wheel). It's basically an engineering miracle - it's aligned so that exactly at sunrise on the morning of the Winter Solstice the sun shines into the interior chamber and lights it up. There is a lottery conducted every year to earn a spot to be there, the waiting list is over 20,000 people long and it's not even guaranteed that it'll work, since it's often so cloudy or foggy in the area. During the tour they simulate what would happen with a light, but it was actually even more amazing because we were there so close to the solstice that we did get to see some ambient sunlight! Incredible. I read a book on the subject, it's actually fascinating. Some theorists think it was part of a collection of complex observatories, similar to a modern university system that conducts research and publishes its results - in this case "publish" means "build giant structures that will last 5000 years and still work." There are about 40 of these structures in Ireland, but few have been excavated or studied, since archeologists are obviously worried about overly disturbing them and destroying the buildings. 

View of the surrounding mountains.

The front of the structure, the steps are obviously a modern addition.

The smaller stone structures just outside still exist too.

The front door.

Me and Kevin standing outside; as you can tell by my hair it was a bit windy that day.

The next day we explored the cliffs! I thought these signs were hilarious. Just in case you were worried, I didn't just fall off the cliff like the guy in the picture.

The docks in Howth!

Brightly-colored houses in the village of Howth.

On the walk back to Kevin's family's house we got a bit lost (aka got too adventurous wandering) but we passed this bar and giggled, it's almost the exact name as our program director in France.

On our last day in Ireland I did a cliff walk alone and took a few amazing pics.

Selfies! Check out the view.

I almost deleted this pic, but then I thought Emma would giggle when she saw it. My head is sticking out sideways, it doesnt look like I'm on a path it looks like I'm about to fall off the mountain! I actually almost did more than once, too...

This abbey was hidden by high walls but had an amazing view of the coast. If I had to be a nun I would definitely want to live on the Irish coast, one of the most beautiful places in the world!

So that's all for Ireland! I really loved it, Kevin's family was great and even though I missed home I got to see some beautiful stuff. It might just be the best place I've visited yet.