Advertisement
Published: October 8th 2013
After my 10 days in Scotland, I flew back to Dublin and spent two nights before head back to Limerick to spend my final week in Ireland with my family.
I hired a car at Dublin Airport but in hindsight maybe I should have caught a cab in from the airport, as traffic in Dublin can be chaotic! The traffic was busy alright but what almost brought me undone was getting to my guesthouse, just on the edge of Dublin city centre.
The difficulty with driving in a city like Dublin is the one way system of streets in the city centre and the lack of street signs on the roads in the city centre. Dublin is a compact city, it was built this way to make the best use of space, so the small street signs are on the end of buildings rather than the roads. I did have some directions from the Guesthouse but eventually I lost my way amongst the cars, cyclists and pedestrians and after a couple of loops and about an hour later, a helpful taxi driver pointed me in the right direction. I arrived at the guesthouse with a few hairs raised but
in one piece! The hosts of the Number 31 Guesthouse were lovely and had a welcome cup of tea on arrival. As well as showing myself and other guests a map with the highlights of Dublin, they parked my car for me and after showing me around and to my room, I rested for a bit and walked in the city centre about 10 minutes walk via the lovely city gardens, St Stephens green.
I really did not need the car in central Dublin. It was only going to be useful for my driving up north the next day. The next time and I'd recommend this to all, i'll catch a cab in and hire a car from the city which is easy to do. The access to cabs, buses and trams, as well as being a nice city to walk around, make central Dublin quite accessible.
For a couple hours I walked around the central city and talk in the atmosphere. There was lots of street theatre in the Grafton St Mall and O'Connell St another 10 mins walk away. There were lots of people around the city which surprised me considering the summer tourism was starting
to wind back in Ireland and it also being a working day. Someone said to me later that many folk were in town for the national hurling final which was to be in Dublin two days later on a late Saturday afternoon. The Dublin Theatre festival had also just started so no doubt some visitors were in town for this as well. Fortunately I had heard about the festival earlier in the month and had booked a ticket for two different shows for each of the nights I would be in Dublin.
After my walk around Dublin I got back to the Guesthouse, freshened up and went to a local hotel and met with a friend of my sister in law's family. It was great to see her again after many years and we chatted a lot about the latest with us as well as news at home and in Ireland. Nearly two hours flew by before we walked to the local shopping strip where I caught a cab to the theatre and my friend went about the evenings activities. We were both busy for the rest of my stay in Dublin but I really enjoyed our catchup early
that evening.
The show I saw that evening was Heartbeat of Home, only on for 21 shows before it was due to tour Asia and North America. The show was in the impressive and modern Bord Gais Energy theatre, down by Dublin's River Liffey. Heartbeat of Home was created by the producers of Riverdance, however with the demographic changes towards multiculturalism in Ireland in recent years, the producers wanted to embrace those influences in the show, so Heartbeat of Home featured a mix of Irish dancing, Latin, Flamingo and African dance. The 2 hour show, which featured dancers from Ireland and abroad (including 3 Australians), was fantastic and the cast received a well deserved standing ovation from the entire audience at the end of the show.
With plenty of people still about, I decided to take the 25 walk back to my Guesthouse as the guesthouse owners had given me a good map of the city. The walk was good for the exercise but would also be very helpful for my navigation the next afternoon when I was driving back into Dublin.
The next morning I set off for Newgrange, a historical sight about an hours drive
north of Dublin. My navigation out of Dublin went a lot smoother this time and soon I was on the M50 motorway heading North. I was only 155km drive away from Belfast, very doable for a day, but noted that for a future trip to Ireland.
Located in the Boyne valley, Newgrange is a huge passage tomb that was built in Neolithic times around 3000 BC. The carbon dating of the tomb predates the pyramids in Egypt by 1000 years and Britain's Stonehenge by 500 years. The tomb was built using rocks from the Wicklow mountains, the other side of Dublin and at least 60km south. What was buried in these tombs alongside the family's departed loved ones is not known, due to the tombs being open and unprotected for 200 years from the 1600s, but as well as being a great spectacle to look at from the outside the strength of the building was amazing. Newgrange, as well as neighbouring passage tombs Knowth and Dowth, are regularly checked for being safe, were built without the modern technology of today. How the people of the day managed to shift the building materials and then put together these impressive structures,
we will never know. The local Neolithic people also built the tombs with a small passage above the main tomb entrance, to time with the winter solstice (sunrise and set) and equinox so that the sun shines into the middle of the tomb. Newgrange is built for the winter solstice sunrise. Each year, interested parties can put their names down to enter Newgrange for sunrise for a few days each side of the winter solstice. The applications for tickets is always oversubscribed and being winter, the tour is weather dependant.
Entry to Newgrange is by tour only and being a world heritage site, visitor numbers are limited. Our tour guide gave as a comprehensive explanation of the tombs and turned the lights off inside the burial chamber before introducing light slowly go give us an idea of the tomb lit up at sunrise during the solstice. Newgrange is an incredible piece of engineering from 3000 BC. There are the other 2 tombs in the area open to tourists but apparently there are about 40 in the area, many of which have been left untouched.
After leaving Newgrange, I stopped in to see Malahide Caste, which is located just
to the north of Dublin. The castle is now owned and managed by the Irish government but for over 800 years until the early 70s, the castle was home to the Talbot family. Entry to the castle is by tour only and during the tour we learned of the family history and how the castle had been used both for defence and as a home. There is an Australian link to Malahide castle as the last owner of the castle, negotiated a sale of the castle to the Irish government after the inheritance taxes could not be paid. She still received 600,000 Irish pounds, a lot of money today let alone the 70s and when the sale was finalised she moved spend the rest of her days with the Tasmanian branch of the Talbot family, sheep farmers in Tassie since the 1800s. The castle and its lovely surrounding gardens had been recommended to me by one of my sister in law's family years ago, so I was glad to have finally paid a visit.
From Malahide it was back to central Dublin. I took the suburban route rather than the motorway. I saw the Bord Gais Energy Theatre as
I got close to the city centre and saw an opportunity to take a back route and avoid the crazy city centre as I was driving to Hertz to drop off my car, which was not too far from my accommodation. I remembered the way I had walked home the night before and in contrast to my arrival in Dublin the day before, I easily made my way and was relieved to have the car returned with no fuss.
It had been a lovely day all day and after dropping in at my guesthouse briefly, I enjoyed the walk into town to look around before my next theatre show. The city centre had lots of people about with a real buzz due to the end of the working week and the hurling final the next day. After dinner, I went to the historic Gaeity theatre to see Wunderkammer, which was a show of acrobatic circus acts presented in Burlesque style. The group giving the show was Brisbane based Circa. I had not heard of the show in Australia, but when I looked it up later I saw that it had been on in Melbourne's Malthouse theatre only back in
August. I really must take more notice of the shows going on in my hometown.
Anyway, the show was great and we were all well entertained by a combination of humour and clever circus acts, all performed in skimpy Burlesque outfits. The show was not as long as the night before but the show went for over an hour without a break. The strength, imagination and great delivery of all the acts of the show, got the cast another standing ovation from the audience.
It was lucky timing that I was in town for the Dublin theatre festival and going solo, it was easy for me to get tickets up the front for both shows. Dublin appears to be very similar to Melbourne with plenty going on regularly in terms of good vibe and entertainment.
I looked in on the Museum of Ireland the next morning to see the Bogmen display , before I was due to catch the bus back to Limerick to catch up with my family again. I had learned about the preservation qualities of Ireland's ancient boglands in previous visits. Back in 2003 with about 4 months of each other, there were two
discoveries of ancient Irishman buried in the boglands with the bodies very well preserved after many hundreds of years. After careful excavation and research by archeologists, the bodies are now on public display in the museum. I only visited this part of the museum and learned about other discoveries of well preserved human or animal remains across Europe. The were many jewellery and weapon items on display as well, that had been recovered from the bogs.
I caught the bus back to Limerick about midday, ready for a few days rest after my travels. On the way I saw all the traffic banked right back to Kildare, about an hours drive on the motorway away from Dublin (in normal traffic). All this traffic was coming from Clare and Cork, in the south of the country, for the afternoon hurling final. I did wonder how all these people would get into the stadium but I did not hear of anyone being turned away. For the record Clare won the final, which was apparently a replay after a draw three weeks before. Many of the locals in Limerick were excited about the win. The Irish are passionate about their sport, particularly the Hurling and Gaelic football. Both sports are played on an amateur level in Ireland and both remain games that involve huge pride from both the players and spectators which is great to see.
I spent the next few days relaxed around Limerick, only venturing out to potter around the city centre or to head to the local university for a community day with my brother and my nieces. It was nice to kick back and spend time with family at a slower pace for my last week before I was due to head home.
I organised one more day tour and that was to Dingle peninsula. I had been to Dingle on my first visit to Ireland and really enjoyed it. This time it was nice to be a passenger and hear commentary about places along a road I had driven down a couple of times before. We drove through the pretty small village of Adare home to one of Ireland's leading golf courses and many times the Irish open. We drove past the town of Rathkeale, home of the Irish traveller. I had heard about the irish travellers many times in my visits to Ireland. Their traditions go back over 1000 years but unfortunately the travellers don't have the best reputation these days. Nonetheless it was interesting to hear about the wedding or Christmas celebrations of the Irish travelling community.
Once on Dingle peninsula, we took in the varied and scenic coastline. We saw Inch beach which at almost 5km long is one of the largest beaches for swimming and surfing in Ireland. As we drove in, we saw a handglider coming in to land on the beach. I saw another one take off but unfortunately it was time to move on and we did not see it land on the beach. We passed by the historic Beehive houses and stopped for a look. The Beehive house is a dome shaped rock building that was built and used by many Irish folk from early AD until the 1700 or 1800s. After taking in more of the nice coastline, which we saw on fairly clear day, we headed back to Dingle town for our lunch and a chance to potter around. After leaving Dingle, we drove back to Limerick, via Killarney, where a small group of American tourists, myself and the driver enjoyed chatter about various things on the way home.
The time had come to prepare for my travels home. I was taking away lots of great memories and experiences from this trip. Ireland is a nation that has unfortunately been part of a recession in recent years. However the Ireland/UK region has just had its best summer for years and also had a very successful summer tourist season. 2013 was the year of The Gathering in Ireland. A number of events were organised throughout the year and locals were encouraged to organise their own events. Our family friend told of a private Dublin event organised where Irish friends living in all parts of Europe and possibly America were invited back to Dublin for this event. This event, like many across the country, were a great success and would have given the local economy and community a good boost. Ireland has certainly not lost any of its buzz or atmosphere and it was good to hear news of small steps towards economic recovery.
My family drove with me back to Dublin to spend my final daylight hours in Ireland before dropping me off at the airport hotel, in preparation for my early morning flight the next day. I always look forward to coming home at the end of any holiday, but saying goodbye is always hard. and this time was no different. I had really enjoyed my time with my family and seeing my nieces so its time to start saving for another visit to Ireland for sure. Bye for now.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.223s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.2006s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Josie
non-member comment
Have a good trip home
Alison, we love your blogs, Tom reckons you could have another career as a travel writer. Your essays are full of interesting information and really take one to the heart of the place you are visiting. We spent our honeymoon in Dublin, so it was very special to have another look at the city. Thanks heaps Love Tom & Josie xx