March 21, 2009


Kilmainham Gaol (Prison built in 1796)



On the weekend we went to see a 200 year old prison, one of the only unoccupied prisons in Europe. It is famous for housing many of the political prisoners from the 1916 Easter Rising, a rebellion for Ireland independence, which destroyed Dublin’s city centre. It was amazing to see and the tour guide was great. We were taken throughout the prison and shown many of the rooms were their most famous prisoners were held, including Constance Markiewiicz, who was originally sentenced to death, but her charge was later dropped and she became the first women elected to the British House of Commons. She refused though and helped form the House of Representatives in Ireland.

All of the cell doors had holes carved into them. This was an old Victorian model of prisoner correction. It was thought that if prisoners felt that they were always under surveillance then it would help correct their criminal behaviours and help reform them.

It was a really fun and interesting day!

You also might find the main room familiar. Apparently a lot of movies and television shows were filmed here including The Tudors, and the original Italian Job, and more that I can’t remember.

St. Patrick’s Day Festival week

Ireland celebrates St. Patrick’s day for a week. They have various events going on all week long. We went to a few of them. We saw an old Disney movie called Darby O’Gill and the little people. The director was actually at the screening and gave a speech about the movie before it began. When it first came out in Ireland a lot of people were upset with some of the stereotypes displayed in the movie of Irish people. Apparently the chef justice of Ireland picketed the movie when it first came out because of the stereotyping. It was a great movie though. It starred a young Sean Connery, before he developed his strange way of speaking.

We also went to the parade on St. Patrick’s day. It was ridiculously busy. People were climbing on statues and sitting on street signs and lamp post in order to see the parade. We didn’t get there early enough so we had a hard time seeing anything, but what we did see was strange…one of there floats was a bunch of washing machines.
We also went to the Fair and went on the giant Ferris wheel. We got a great view of the city. It was a lot of fun.

March 18, 2009

After a morning of job searching (Dave and I both scored job interviews for tomorrow!) we decided to take advantage of the Beautiful day, it was about 15 degrees out today with clear blue skies! We went for a long walk through Phoenix Park. We stopped for lunch at a little tea room in the middle of the park. They had amazing Panini’s. And we stopped by Irelands Presidents house and went to the Military cemetery. During our walk Dave spotted a field full of Deer/Stags. There were probably about 50 of them. It was really neat. We got pretty close to them and they didn’t even seem to be bothered by us. It was a really nice day!

Presidents House (below)

Military Cemetary

This little dog was at the Park. His name was Pudge and he reminded me of Sophie. He loved his ball and ran around like crazy.

Also on the 30th we will be heading to Paris, France for a few days. We will post our pictures from that when we get back!

Friday March 13, 2009
Wild Wicklow Bus Tour

Yesterday we went on the Wild Wicklow Tour through the Irish Country side. It was a really long day, but it was beautiful. We finally got to get out of the city and even got out of County Dublin. The tour guide brought us down the Irish Sea side and through the beautiful town of Dun Laoghaire (Don Leary) and Dalkey (Dorkey) which is home of Ireland’s rich and famous. The tour guide said that Dalkey was home to some of the members of U2, Sinead O’Conner and yes, even the proclaimed Irish singer Enya! lol

We then left the coast and Dublin County behind and took off up the mountainside into County Wicklow. We stopped on the mountain side to overlook the Guinness estates while enjoying some Old Jameson Irish whiskey. It was quite cold and the mist was rolling down the mountain side making the whole experience very eerie, but exciting none the less.

We got to enjoy a traditional Irish lunch in the town Laragh (Laura) which is the highest village in Ireland before heading towards the main stop on the tour. Our last stop was at Glendalough (Glendy Lock) which was an old monastic settlement. The settlement was home to the only remaining double archway left standing in Europe (without the use of and adhesives, its just the stone on stone), the tallest Irish lookout tower, St. Kevin’s Cross which is the oldest Celtic cross in Ireland and the only remaining stone roof structure left in Europe. These structures are all focused around an ancient graveyard which actually dates back to before the time when gravestones were marked with dates. The graveyard also contained some ruins of old churches and what was left of the monastery. We also got to head off on our own to explore the two lakes settled in between the mountains within the park. The tour ended with the long ride back through the mountains and home to Dublin City.

March 10, 2009

Christ Church Cathedral Dublin

Yesterday we went to Christ Church Cathedral, located in Dublin's Medieval district. It is a beautiful church which was started during the time when the Vikings occupied Ireland in the year 1030. Its current restoration was done in the 1800's, and many of the details, such as the floors where finished in its original decor. There was also a viking exhibit called Dublinia, but by the time we got there the last tour had already left. From the brochure it looked pretty cheesy so i don't think we missed out on much. Here are a few of the pictures we took!

Below picture (left): This was the Peace Chapel of St Laud. We were invited to write a prayer and light a peace candle. The chapel was named for a fifth century bishop in Normandy.

Below: This room was the Baptistery. The Architect who rebuilt part of the cathedral built this room for his wife, who died. it was built in 1871-1878. The Architect was named George Edmund Street.

This is a detail of the floor tiles.

This is the ruins of the old Chapter house.
It was used during the Pre-reformation period for meetings of the chapter of the Augustinian canons.

It was really neat to see the Cathedral. On our walk back to the bus we saw the location for the Castle of Dublin, so we hope to go do a tour of the grounds there soon!