My last full day in Dublin, I took a city bus tour, saw lots of Georgian architecture, beautiful old townhouses with different colored doors. Crossed the River Liffey about a dozen times, saw the General Post Office where the 1916 rebellion started and visited the Famine Memorial, larger than life and very powerful. Check it out:

Visited Christ Church Cathedral, dating to 1030(!) if you count the time of the Vikings there and why wouldn't you?  (costs millions in upkeep each year – wonder where they get the money.)

 

Then, I eschewed the Guinness or Jamison tours and went to Kilmainham Gaol and had a tour with Raorie.  (Can’t believe I actually used “eschewed” in a sentence. V. cool. Good for me.) Raorie (pronounced Rory) was passionate about the history of this horrible jail. I asked him if it bothered him or intruded in his sleep and he said yes, but people needed to know what happened here.

It is a really creepy place, freezing cold even in June so I could just imagine what it must have been like in the winter months.

He reeled off the names of the leaders of the Easter uprising (as though they were family members or close friends), all shot here without benefit of trial or justice, and told the story of the wedding of Joseph Plunkett and Grace Gifford just hours before Joseph was shot by the firing squad. Chilling to be standing in front of his cell and hearing how they were able to share a few short hours where they could barely speak, armed guards standing there with them, before he was taken away and shot. It was the killing of these men that finally swayed the opinion of the general public and at last, the Irish got out from under British rule and became the Irish Republic.

This is a picture of the exercise yards where prisoners got an hour a day, separate spaces for the men, women and children (during the famine, an 8-year-old child would be put here for 5 years for stealing a loaf of bread!) This is also where prisoners were shot and hanged AND buried.

I can’t tell you how many times during my Scots-Irish visit, I felt gratitude (and some guilt actually) for being alive in this time in history. And American. And White. You get the picture. So lucky.

The last night, I had dinner with Diana, a travel agent from Honolulu I met at the storytelling dinner. We went to The Mermaid Cafe on the recommendation of Mary Wilson, Dublin City Tour Guide (snooty woman but knows her restaurants.) If you are ever in Dublin, you must go. It was fantastic!

Flew back across the pond and let me tell you, I wish I could have stayed over there forever.

The end