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Published: March 28th 2008
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Millenium Spire
At the Centre of the main street, O'Connell St. Also known as the Stiffy on the Liffey and the Intersection Erection. Those Irish.... Right, I’m back from Ireland and have managed to survive with my liver intact. Actually I didn’t once wake up with a hangover, which I think is more down to the lack of preservatives in the locally brewed Guinness than any lack of alcohol consumption. Also this blog is going to be separated in 2. Half because I did so much and there are a lot of photos, and half because I want one for Ireland and one for Northern Ireland.
Alright, the 10 day trip started with getting up very early on a Saturday morning to catch a coach out to Holyhead in Wales where we took the Ferry across to mainland Ireland. Then it was a short trip into Dublin where we were greeted with rain as we checked into our hostel. We were also welcomed with the sight of a giant drunk ginge Irish guy relieving himself in the doorway of our hostel while the tiny Asian guy who worked there tried to push him out. Welcome to Ireland! 😊 Our first hostel thankfully was not a sign of things to come as over the 3 nights, I did not once feel hot water and 3 freezing
Celtic Cross 1
Very detailed crosses dotted around Ireland. They were used by St Patrick as a way to convert Pagans. He combined the cross with the Pagan-venerated sun to appease both peoples. cold showers in 4-5 degree mornings definitely gets you ‘energised’. Also the room was 22 beds, thankfully 17 of which were girls, so there was hardly any snoring.
After chucking our stuff there, I went out and bought an umbrella (after I had specifically thought ‘No, I won’t need one’ while packing back in London) and had a look around the main street before hitting a couple of pubs in the Temple Bar area with a few of the others on the tour.
The following morning, we were off out on a day trip to Glendalough, which is a very picturesque part of the country about an hour out of Dublin. It’s also where a lot of the ‘Braveheart’ scenes were filmed. Apparently it was easier to get to rather than travelling to the Scottish Highlands for 3+ hours from Edinburgh. I also got to see my first Celtic crosses dotted around the monastic ruins. Monasteries once were all over Ireland as it used to be known as the ‘Land of Saints and Scholars’. Before the Vikings came over and invaded anyway.
That night was St Patrick’s Day Eve, so myself, Sam, Nikki, Susie, Brooke, Trudy and
Glendalough
Where alot of the Braveheart scenes were filmed a couple of others headed out to Temple Bar for a few drinks. And it was packed! We eventually got sick of the crowds and did our own little pub crawl on the way back to the hostel.
For St Patrick’s Day, we got a bit of a sleep in, no doubt to cater for those who had drunk to excess the night before. We headed to watch the parade, and although we couldn’t see much, it was a great atmosphere of green and we even got to meet some Irish people! Then a group of us, with a bit of gentle persuasion from me, headed out to Croke Park to watch the finals day of Hurling and Gaelic Football. Croke Park is an 82,000 seater stadium, and also the site of the first of the two Bloody Sunday’s, where British soldiers fired into a crowd of peaceful protesters, killing 14. Both the games were new to us, but I managed to pick up the rules fairly quickly, and for an amateur sport, they are all incredibly talented.
Paddy Wagon had booked us a club for our own St Patrick’s Day party and we headed along there after
Lake at Glendalough
Definitely not warm enough to swim in! the football. It was packed and it was obvious people had been there for a while. I talked to loads of people who I hadn’t spoken to before, and as far as they could remember the next day, still never had! We got to see some proper Irish (Ceili) dancing and got home fairly late.
So that was the end of the first 3 days of the tour and it was here our groups split. There were 4 of us (Sam, Brooke, Susie and myself) that were on the 3 day North, but luckily, the majority of the rest of our friends were on the 8 day tour so we went the same way anyway, which was up to Derry. On the way, we went through Drogheda (home of Gary Kelly, Leeds United legend) and saw the well preserved head of a saint. Can’t remember what he did or who he was but he was hung, drawn and quartered by the English for his troubles, and for whatever reason, his head has remained naturally preserved. A miracle some would say. Personally I attest it to the volume of alcohol the Irish drink.
Overall Derry was probably my favourite
city in Ireland, and not just because we had fantastic weather while we were up there. By the way, we have now crossed the ‘border’ into Northern Ireland. The only way you can tell is that the lines on the side of the road change from yellow to white. We arrived in Derry and started on a tour of the ‘Bogside’, which was where the other Bloody Sunday happened. Again British soldiers opened fire on peaceful Irish protesters. It’s also the site of a few which commemorated people killed and the troubles in general.
Actually I’ll interrupt here with a bit of a history lesson because I didn’t know that much about it before I went over there. It all started when the English first invaded Ireland several hundred years ago and bribed some of the English citizens with land to head across and live there. At the time, Irish were Catholic and the English were Protestant, and this is the ‘war’ that has raged on for over 300 years. Anyway, it came to a head over the course of the 20th century as the Irish tried to force the English out of Ireland and become their own country
My Personal Gate
Into the home of Guinness again. After a few little rebellions, Ireland got 26 of her 32 counties back (the most Catholic ones) in the early 1920’s.
They were ‘happy’ with this until the late 1960’s when ‘The Troubles’ started as the Nationalist Irish tried to free Northern Ireland from British control. What started as peaceful protests against the British turned bloody and often involved riots and guerrilla warfare that more often than not resulted in deaths of innocent parties on both sides rather than soldiers. Violence was finally halted in the rein of Tony Blair in 1998 and there has been a truce ever since, including a demilitarisation of British barracks over the last few years.
Anyway, back to Derry. We walked around the walled city and got some very good views. There are actually two sides to Derry. North and south of the river. One side is completely Catholic (barring 600 Protestants in there own fenced off section with their own bridge over the river), and the other completely Protestant(who actually call the city Londonderry - they consider themselves basically British, and would call themselves so rather than Irish).
Despite all that, we all (majority girls) went into the Bogside
What I drank while in Ireland
Well probably not quite, but I tried. The Guinness in Ireland tastes a 100 times better than anywhere else. Inn (an area infamous for being the centre of riots between UVF (Ulster Volunteer Forces) and British soldiers, to the shock of the locals (20 guys, 1 girl). Saying that, they were all really friendly and we stayed there before moving onto some bars with live music. A couple of the bars actually were joined by a door so no need to go outside in the cold to move location! Handy as one bar played traditional Irish music and the other played rock, so we were skipping between them all night. Great fun! 😊
So that’s the first instalment of my Irish adventure. The second half should be posted shortly.
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