It was our last day in Dublin, and we were determined to see it all. We woke early, grabbed a bite to go, and hoofed it over to St. Stephen's Green, a big park in the middle of the city. The edge of the park was lined with taxis and horse carriages--we opted for the latter. We thought the horse walked us through the park, but the ride really traveled through the city instead.
Our driver, almost a stereotype of your typical older Irish guy, was great. He had a thick brogue, so I only understood about half of what he said, but the half I got was very interesting and funny.
"Right there!" the driver shouted. "He just walked past us!"
And so we turned, just in time to see two men in fancy suits pass by. The Prime Minister of Ireland, right in front of us! I snapped a few photos, and giggled, excited to be in the right place at the right time.
"Never seen him that close before," the driver told us. "And I drive past here all day long."
We sauntered on, the driver telling us Irish lore. He said in old times, harpists were the revolutionary leaders, so Queen Elizabeth 1 banned all harps and harpists. The Irish responded by making the harp their national symbol.
As we passed down a Georgian street, we asked about the doors--each home had a different, brightly colored door.
I just figured the Irish like bright colors, but nooooo, this one was about Queen Elizabeth, too. When she died, the English ordered everyone to paint their doors black in mourning for her. The Irish painted theirs every color BUT black. I was beginning to really appreciate the rebellious Irish nature.
We rode alongside a tiny canal, previously used to haul boatloads of Guinness. It was such a tiny, skinny little river (and river bank) that when the driver said horses pulled the boats in the shallow water, I stupidly asked, "Did they walk on the water?"
I don't know why I asked that (maybe I meant next to the water??), except that it was early, and I was still drinking my morning coffee (think I was suffering a caffeine deficiency). But Amber and the driver immediately burst into laughter, and he cried, "Yes, the horses walked on water and pulled the boats!"
Even a taxi driver at the red light beside us heard the conversation, and laughed through his open window.
"Did ya hear that?" our driver asked him. "She wanted to know if the horses WALKED ON WATER while they pulled the boats!"
So yes, my dumb brain was just as confused in Ireland as it normally is here in the U.S.!
Our carriage ride ended shortly after that, and I was kinda glad, lest I ask any more dumb questions!
We parked back at St. Stephen's Green, and wandered around the park a bit. Statues decorated the park, and giant swans sailed elegantly across a tiny lake. Small children fed them, throwing the food directly at them, which the swans didn't seem to appreciate, but ate anyway.
The park was peaceful and serene, and like all the other places in Dublin, we could have spent all day there. If we had time. Which we didn't--it was on to the jail.
Our big green limo arrived, and we boarded. It was quite a contrast to the quiet park we'd just left--from the open deck on top of the bus, we could hear the city waking up. Traffic jammed the streets, and pedestrians filled the sidewalks--Dubliners on their way to work, tourists on their way to everywhere else. Construction also filled the streets, funneling the traffic into single lanes, slowing everyone down to a crawl.
Soon enough we arrived at the Kilmainham Gaol, but the earliest tour was a couple hours away, so we opted for lunch at a little cafe across the street. We sat at the front window, where we could see a little Jack Russell terrier running freely across the street. Apparently, Irish people don't believe in leashes, because this little guy owned the street, greeting every other dog or person that walked by him.
"He's the mayor of this street," Amber said, and she was right. I realized Ireland would be a great place to be a dog.
Visiting Kilmainham Gaol was a little bit sad and depressing. It housed (and executed) political prisoners, which made Amber a bit reluctant to take the tour. By the end of the tour, I fully agreed with her.
The guide took us through the chapel, and the old cells, which opened to the outside windows (or empty spaces where windows should have been). The cells were small, drafty, even in the summer, and I imagined unbearably cold during the winter. We learned that prisoners were all ages (yes, children, too) and both genders, and were not segregated. The population, mostly political prisoners and leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, boomed during the great famine, when people committed crimes solely to get locked away, guaranteed a meal a day. Cells built for one person routinely held six or seven people, and during the famine, prisoners even slept in the dank passageways, exposed under open windows.
The dark, old cells were eventually replaced with a large oval-shaped cell block, more open and with built-in skylights. This block had lots of natural light and a bigger common area. It looks more like a modern jail block, and was touted as far more humane. The light was better for the prisoner's morale and mental health.
We ended the tour in the yard, where a lonely little cross sat in the corner. I took a few photos of it, then stepped back, sadly, as the guide explained this marked the spot where James Connolly, a leader in the Easter Uprising, was executed. Injured during the riots and too weak to stand, the guards lashed him to a chair, where he still slumped over. The guards shot him anyway, then dragged him to the gate, to make it look like he'd tried to escape. People were outraged when the story got out, and it proved a turning point in the revolution.
Anyway, by the time it ended, Amber wasn't the only one feeling a bit off about the tour. I'm glad I went, because I learned a lot of Irish history, and even more about how tough and resilient the Irish people are. But like a lot of Irish history, it was sad how much the people suffered (especially during the Potato Famine, when Ireland actually had enough food to feed its people, but shipped it instead to England, resulting in over a million Irish people starving to death). :-(
After all that, we needed a little bit of levity. With no green bus in sight and the clock ticking down, we decided to cab it to our next destination, the Jameson Distillery.
Jameson was one of my favorite tourist sites, and not because of the whiskey. It was a total man hub! That's right, the man to woman ratio was approximately 10:1, and we loooooved it!
We wandered around the distillery until our tour began, staring at all the gorgeous men. Here's my attempt at capturing one of the cuties--I told Amber to stand still so I could take a photo of her. ;-)
They finally called our group into a theater where the tour started. Amber and I sat down near the middle, and a stag party filled in the seats to our left. I nudged Amber, and both of us grinned at all the cute guys. And then it got even better--the rest of the party filed in, and grabbed the remaining seats all around us. A movie about the distillery's history began, but all I remember is being completely surrounded by cute guys. Don't ask me any history about Jameson! (Or as the Irish call it, "JAM-ah-son.")
After the movie, we walked through the tour, which was basically many rooms set up like life-size dioramas. I was surprised that the process of making whiskey mirrored the process of making beer--roast the hops, add water and barley, ferment them--all the way until the distilling. I didn't realize the ingredients are the same.
By this time, my brain was on overload--I'd stuffed it with so much information over the past three days. I wasn't really paying attention until we entered the last room--the tasting room.
I love tasting rooms. I've spent many a fun time in wine tasting rooms, and some equally fun times in beer tasting rooms (most recently, Guinness!). I don't drink much (any) hard liquor, but Amber and I were up for tasting the three shots in front of us.
We took lots of photos and half-way listened as the guide explained the differences in our three shots (she called them "glasses"--tomato, tomahto). She explained how many times each was distilled (Jameson 3 times, the American whisky twice, and the third whiskey only once). She pointed out the differences in color, and aroma, and finally directed us to taste them.
Amber and I cheered each other, clinked our glasses together and sipped, then immediately grimaced and yelled, "Ack!" Because we weren't really expecting to toss back a glass of fire, which burned all the way down our throats.
"No!" Amber cried, quickly setting down her glass. "I'm not doing that any more!"
I admired her conviction, but figured what the heck, three small tastes probably wouldn't kill me. They didn't, but boy, my throat and chest were warm for a long time after!
We exited the tasting room, only to pour into--another tasting room! This one was way better though. You could select a beautiful low ball glass of Jameson neat, or a pint-sized cocktail of Jameson, ginger ale, and lime juice (they called it a whiskey cocktail, I called it "How Girls Drink Whiskey"). Amber and I were reluctant to drink it, but cheered "Slainte!" and took a sip. To our surprise, it was GOOD! Really good! The tour guide said every girl should have a signature cocktail, and Amber and I just found ours!
We left the distillery with a slight, happy buzz, in search of our big green bus. With none in sight but the sun brightly shining, we stretched our legs, and followed the road back to the hotel on foot. It was only about a mile, a nice walk through a part of the town we hadn't seen yet.
It was late afternoon by the time we returned, so we didn't waste time. We made a quick stop to the room for heavier jackets, then to the front desk for directions to a sleepy little fishing town called Howth. (Pronounced "Hoe-th," as Eimear kindly corrected me. Butchering Irish names became a specialty of mine during this trip!)
The receptionist pointed us to the closest big street, then told us to walk 10 minutes down the road, until we saw the LUAS (metro) station. The guidebooks said it was a 40-60 minute bus ride to Howth, so we were surprised (and delighted!) that it was only a 30 minute train ride.
We found the station, and after the initial confusion of buying tickets (I blame it on exhaustion, sorry, Amber!) we found our train. It was packed, but emptied slowly with each stop. The coolest thing about it was the view. We'd been traveling through the big, bustling city, all concrete and moving people, all car horns and bumper-to-bumper traffic, and here, with each mile further, the city melted away. We left the graffiti-ed buildings, which gave way to open fields and then beaches. The beaches were gorgeous, as was the rest of the land, and we oohed and ahhed excitedly.
By the time we hit Howth, the last stop, there were only a few passengers left. We followed them off the train, and through the station.
"Where do we go now?" I asked Amber, once we found the main road.
"Let's just look around," she answered, which seemed like a pretty good plan.
We didn't really have a plan, we just wanted to get out of the city for a bit, and had heard how cute Howth was. We also heard they had a great "chipper"--a fish and chips restaurant, and later we found out there was a castle and some great cliff walks. That would've been fun, but since we only had a couple hours left, we just explored locally.
Unlike Dublin, awake all night long, Howth seemed to have rolled up the carpets by the time we arrived (6:30). The hotel receptionist had warned us we might be arriving a bit late, and she was right, because most of the shops and restaurants were closed. That surprised me, being a Friday night in summer, but isn't unusual for smaller towns, I guess.
Amber and I explored the pier, stopping to take goofy pictures and peer into the windows. We were laughing because we liked taking photos of both of us, but hadn't quite mastered the selfie yet. We'd gotten a pretty good system down, where I would hold the camera and Amber pushed the button, but I had a hard time trying to frame us and the background correctly, in reverse. In Howth, the wind was whipping and it drizzled a bit on us, making an already difficult task even MORE difficult. (Also, I'm never in any of the photos, so I didn't realize until now how really awful my hair usually looks! My mom is--gasp!--right, turns out I SHOULD brush it more often. Which further slowed down the selfies!)
Howth was empty, empty, empty! Our only companions were the fishermen at the end of the pier, casting long, wobbly fishing poles into the ocean. Numerous signs warned we were in a casting zone, and to take care. That scared me a little, and we managed to take a very quick selfie there.
We wandered back down the pier to the chipper, Leo Burdock's, across the street. And suddenly, we realized where all the people of Howth were hiding--at the chipper's!
The line was long, but the food well worth it. And that's something, because it was my third day in Ireland, and my third serving of fish and chips. (Not proud to say third of...many, many more. Oy, my cholesterol!!)
We enjoyed our dinner, but enjoyed the cute little lady working there even more. She cheerfully brought me more ketchup, and Amber more vinegar, and talked her ear off. She was so kind and helpful, so friendly, a trait we found in most of the Irish people we talked to. The food and sights in Ireland were great, but the real treasure is the people.
Full and happy, we crossed the street back to the adorable little train station.
We boarded the train, hopeful that it was going back to Dublin, but a little nervous because it might possibly change routes at a different station, and end up elsewhere. To add another wrinkle, some station names were in Gaelic, and the English versions weren't much easier to pronounce.
As we conferred, trying to figure the whole mess out, a nice couple across the row asked where we were heading.
"To Tara," Amber said.
They stared at us blankly.
"Tare-ah?" Amber repeated. Still nothing.
She pointed to it on the map, and suddenly their eyes lit up.
"Oh, TAR-ah!" they said, and we nodded. (Later on, we cracked up, because honestly, Tare-ah wasn't all that different from Tar-ah!)
And with that, we'd made new friends. They asked where we were from, how long we'd been here, where we were going, and if we liked it so far. We had a great conversation until their stop a few minutes later. They waved goodbye, bid us a good trip, and left us happy and relieved to be on the right train.
We finally made it back to the hotel around 9:30, after stopping to take a million photos of the Ha' Penny Bridge at dusk.
I was drained--we'd run ourselves ragged, and some serious exhaustion was setting in. We were leaving town early the next morning, and my big plans for the night were to organize and re-pack my suitcase.
But then we walked in to the hotel. We heard voices, three of them, singing along to guitars. It seemed no matter where you go in Dublin, even home, there are talented musicians serenading you.
Amber looked at me excitedly. "Just for a little while," she said, hopefully.
Grumpy Old Person Heather thought, "I'm exhausted."
Young Fun Heather thought, "I came to Ireland for the music, not to go to bed early!"
The argument lasted all of three seconds, then I nodded at Amber. I could go to bed early any night I wanted at home. We were gonna soak in some local flavor!
So we headed into the bar, where we spent another fantastic evening listening to great music and drinking great local beers (a blonde Guinness!).
And heck yeah, the packing could wait!
