Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland

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Friday 26th July, 2013. Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland.

We got up early, had a quick breakfast on deck 9 and then got our tender tickets. We were on the first tender boat into Dun Laoghaire at about 7.30 am. We immediately boarded the free shuttle bus into Dublin. We were dropped off in Merrion Square outside the National Gallery. We asked a friendly looking local girl for directions to the Tourist Information Office. M already had a bucket list of 3 things that she definitely wanted to do. D had been to Dublin before but M had not. We found the Tourist Information Office and arrived about 5 minutes before it opened at 9 am. We were first in the queue when it did open. The girl behind the desk was incredibly helpful. We gave her M's list and she advised us to purchase a Dublin Rambler 1 day Family Bus Ticket. This allowed us unlimited travel on Dublin's buses for a 24 hour period for both of us (and two kids if we wanted) for Euros 11.50. She directed us to a local kiosk/newsagent where we could purchase the ticket. She also gave us a map and marked the bus stops and bus numbers on it for us.

First on M's list was the National Botanical Gardens of Ireland. We entered the gardens through the Gate Lodge and went straight to the Visitor Centre where we obtained a map of the gardens. We were blessed with early morning sunshine (it still wasn't 9.30 am). We walked past the Teak House, the Herbarium and Library, the Cherries and the Annuals until we came to the Wild Ireland Native Plants Garden. We continued to the Fruit and Vegetable Garden and then strolled through the Yew, Maple and Larch Trees until we reached the River Tolka. At the river we turned right and came across a beautiful Water Lilly filled lake. We crossed a small bridge and came to the ?What is Life? Sculpture. This sculpture, designed by Charles Jencks, celebrates the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the DNA double helix in 1953. It is a gift to the Irish nation from private donors. It demonstrates our growing knowledge of RNA. It is only recently that we have discovered that all life on earth, from microbes to plants and animals are all related to one another. We continued along Yew Walk until we came to the Curvililear Range greenhouses. These supurb wrought iron glasshouses were designed by the celebrated Dublin iron-master Richard Turner. Built originally in 1849, this cas and wrought iron glasshouse was fully restored in the 1990's. Our last stop in the gardens was The Great Palm House. This has also been restored recently but was originally built in 1884. At 20 metres high it is the tallest building in the gardens. It contains a diverse collection of tropical plants from around the world. As we left the Botanical Gardens it started to rain. Luckily a bus arrived fairly promptly and by the time we alighted at our next destination the rain had subsided.

Our next stop was Kilmainham Gaol Museum. Kilmainham Gaol (Jail) is one of the largest unoccupied gaols in Europe, it was involved in some of the most heroic and tragic events in Ireland's history and its emergence as a modern nation from 1780s to the 1920s. We queued outside and were allowed in in groups of 30. Once inside we purchased our tickets (an OAP one for D!) and went into the museum to await the next guided tour. We amused ourselves looking at the exhibits but only had to wait for about 5 minutes before the tour started.

When it was built in 1796, Kilmainham Gaol was referred to as the 'New Gaol' to distinguish it from the old gaol it was designed to replace. Over the 128 years it served as a prison, its cells held many of the most famous people involved in the campaign for Irish independence. The British imprisoned and executed the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising here including Padraig Pearse, Joseph Plunkett and Thomas Clarke. In total Fourteen leaders of the Easter Rising were shot in the Stonebreakers' Yard; James Connolly, who had been wounded, had to be tied to a chair to support him during his execution. The Rising and their deaths marked a turning point in Irish history.

Children were sometimes arrested for petty theft and held in the prison, the youngest said to be a seven year-old boy. Many of the adult prisoners were eventually deported to Australia after their stay. Men, women and children were imprisoned together, up to 5 in each cell, often with only a single candle for light and heat. Most of their time was spent in the cold and the dark as each candle had to last the prisoner for two weeks.

At Kilmainham women were held in particularly poor conditions considering it was an age that prided itself on a protective attitude for the 'weaker sex'. As early as his 1809 report the Inspector had observed that male prisoners were supplied with iron bedsteads while females 'lay on straw on the flagstones in the cells and common halls.' Fifty years later there was little improvement. The women's section, located in the west wing, remained overcrowded.

When the Gaol was first built public hangings took place at the front of the building. However, from the 1820s onward very few hangings, public or private, took place at Kilmainham. A small hanging cell was built in the gaol in 1891. It is located on the first floor, between the West Wing and the East Wing. Kilmainham Gaol was closed as a prison in 1924, by the government of the new Irish Free State. Following lengthy renovation, Kilmainham Gaol now hosts a museum on the history of Irish nationalism and offers guided tours of the building. An art gallery on the top floor exhibits paintings, sculptures and jewellery of prisoners incarcerated in prisons all over contemporary Ireland. It was a very interesting tour but we both felt that the narration by the guide was a little one-sided. The British were made out to be the villains of the piece and very little attention was paid to the fact that the uprising took place in the middle of the first world war and so the leaders would have been considered to be committing high treason - punishable by death at the time. Nevertheless it was a good tour.

We decided to walk to the last item on M's Dublin Bucket List. The rain had pretty much held off with only the odd bit of drizzle while we were outside in the prison courtyards. The next stop was the Guinness Storehouse. M had been told that no trip to Dublin would be complete without a visit to this iconic site. The Guinness Storehouse was a Fermentation Plant from 1904 to 1988 and is now a 7 storey visitor centre dedicated to the history and making of this world famous beer.

The building is designed in the shape of a giant pint of Guinness, that, if full, would hold 14.3 million pints! We started on level -1 where there were many artifacts from the building's past life as a fermentation house. On the ground floor level we were given an introduction to the "Home of Guinness". In the middle of the atrium is a copy of the lease that Arthur Guinness signed on 31st December 1759. The lease is surrounded by the world's largest pint of Guinness. The ground floor contained exhibits about the ingredients that go into the 'black stuff'. Level 1 told us about the brewing, tasting, cooperage and transport of Guinness beer. We got to taste some of the stuff and spent a long time at the cooperage exhibit where we found out about the ancient craft of barrel making. Level 2 was devoted to the history of Guinness Advertising and there were many old TV ads that we could both recall from years ago. In February 1929 the first Guinness ad appeared in the British Press with the slogan "Guinness is Good for You", - a strap line that has marked one of the greatest advertising campaigns of all time. We also found out about the Guinness Book of Records which was developed by the company as a book of facts to solve any disputes that may occur in pubs across the UK and Ireland. Level 3 allowed you to find out about any relatives that worked at the plant (not relevant for us) and also about Guinness sponsorship of sporting and music events. Level 4 housed the Guinness Academy where you can master the art of pouring the stuff - we didn't bother. Level 5 & 6 was a load of restaurants, toilets and bars - we made use of the free Wi-Fi to book a hire car for Reykjavik. Level 7 was the Gravity Bar where we handed in our token for a free pint. This bar allows you 360 degree views of Dublin City. There were a load of Japanese tourists in the Gravity Bar. They didn't seem to like the "Black Stuff" too much and kept leaving their tokens lying around all over the place. We retrieved a few of these - made the extortionate entrance fee more bearable.

We left the Guinness Storehouse and caught the bus back towards the City Centre. As we travelled along it started to hammer it down with rain. We got off the bus and ran into Penney's Department store for shelter. D needed an ATM so we asked one of the staff and she directed us to the bookshop next door. Here we got some dosh and also took the opportunity to purchase a Lonely Planet Guide to Iceland. It was getting late and we didn't want to miss the last shuttle back to the ship so we decided we would just have to get wet.

As we crossed the road D noticed that there was a bus due in 1 minute to Dun Laoghaire and that we could use our bus pass. M thought that it was a good way of getting out of the rain but we had no way of knowing where in Dun Laoghaire it would drop us off. At least the shuttle bus would take us to the harbour. We decided to get soaked and go back to Merrion Square. THANK GOODNESS WE DID! We tried to flag down a couple of ship shuttle buses but they were full. We arrived at the shuttle bus stop where there was a very long queue. Eventually after 20 minutes of standing in the pouring rain we got on a bus. Once we got going D became very concerned as we were going the wrong way. M said that she had checked the shuttle was going to the Oriana so we went with it. We arrived at DUBLIN DOCKS - five or so miles away from where the ship had anchored. Unbeknown to us a mist had come down in Dublin Bay after we had left that morning, and one of the ship's tenders had got lost for an hour and a half and was crossing main shipping lanes in the fog. The Irish coastguard had forbidden any further tenders from the ship and moved the Oriana to a cereal dock in Dublin itself.

Thank god we didn't make our own way back to Dun Laoghaire - the boat wouldn't have been there! Another irritation about all this was that the captain had extended the stay in Dublin till midnight as most of the passengers had not been able to disembark until after 3 pm. If we had known we would have stayed out of the rain and gone to see some Irish dancing or something. It was shambolic. P&O were fined by the authorities though - which is some consolation. Once on board we dried off and went for dinner.

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