Day Trip to the Country

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If I am going to have my first full pint of Guinness ever, it might as well be in Ireland.

Today we went for a day trip out into the southern countryside. Tim and I were both really looking forward to getting out of the city. The tour would take us into the Wicklow Mountains, with stops in Glendalough and Avoca. Our morning got off to a hectic start because we found out as we were leaving our apartment that the time on my iPod was about 10 min behind, which meant that we ended up running through Dublin so that we could get to our bus on time.

There were 13 of us on the bus, from all over the world. There were people from Poland, France, Norway, Japan, the US, and obviously, Canada. Our tour guide was the Irish Julia Child of tour guides. Both Tim and I thought of the 'Julie & Julia' movie the instant she came on the bus, walking up and down the isles, asking everyone where they are from, bubbling about, and so on. She made us chuckle quite a bit with quotes such as “I wish I could knock them on the head with a cricket stick, or something more dangerous” (in reference to graffiti artists) and “Prepare yourself Lord, Mary is coming!” (threatening her wrath if they had another bad summer). Her name was Mary, and our driver's name was Patty. On our way out of Dublin, she gave us some stats and painted a picture of the recent economic history of Ireland. We learned that the population of Ireland is 4.4 million, with 1.4 living in Dublin. There was apparently 6 million people in Ireland before the 1845 famine, which dropped down to 2 million two years in. She explained that the famine was specifically a potato famine, and that the issue was that blight hit the potatoes, and stuck around for 4 years. While Ireland also produced corn and barley and such, potatoes were the only thing the Irish could afford, and the British made their money exporting the other foods.

Up until 1997, Ireland was in recession. It has no mineral wealth, and is completely dependent on the rest of the world for coal, oil, etc. They have always valued education, mostly because it was all that they could give their young. Give them a good education, so that they can leave Ireland and get jobs. And that's exactly what happened. But then 1997 came along, with growing interest in computing technology. Ireland was way ahead of the world in computing sciences, and Dell, Intel, and IBM noticed. They set up their head offices in Ireland, and people began moving back and staying.

Money was coming in, and with it, so were tons of people. In the years to follow, there was a 500% increase in housing. Your average 1 bedroom condo downtown Dublin was going for 400,000 euros. The government was getting a 9% tax every time property changed hands. Young couples were unable to buy into the markets, and were commuting up to 80 miles a day for work. Banks were handing out loans like “they were confetti,” and then the world recession hit. Billions of euros are unaccounted for, and now Ireland is in a deep, deep recession.

So that was the sad history we got, but the trip perked up from there. We learned fun facts such as by law, if you uproot a tree of any kind, for any reason, you must plant a tree somewhere else. The first point of interest on our trip were the Blessington Lakes, which were man-made in the 1940's when for some reason, the county decided that they needed two reservoirs (I didn't catch why... likely just needed a closer water supply). They decided on two spots that they would flood... problem was, there were two villages there. The people living in the 76 houses were offered some kind of severance package, and were asked (forced?) to leave. The villages were flooded, and their homes were no more.

As we ascended into the mountains, we started to see snow on the ground, and we were apparently privileged because snow that low usually doesn't happen. We passed through a small Irish town called “Hollywood” which happens to be a popular landscape for the film industry, including “Braveheart” and “King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.” There was a photo stop at the Wicklow Gap, and then we pulled into Glendalough.

Glendalough is an extremely small village with a monastic site. We walked through two archways and into the cemetery. We learned that not just anyone can be buried there; you have to have a family plot. I found tombstones as old as 1881 and as recent as 1971. We walked through the ruins of an old cathedral, with tombstones everywhere that had apparently been brought in because of a storm and were left; they can't move them now because they have disintegrated. There was a large Celtic cross, and we learned that some speculate that the circle is to signify a universal infinity, but our tour guide's husband thinks that it's an engineering device that is meant to support the wear of the cross. One of my favorite moments at the site was seeing sheep in the mountains and hearing them baah at each other.

After Glendalough we went on to Avoca and visited the oldest working mill for textiles. We had a quick tour of the worker's area, and a demonstration of some of the machines - how humbling it is to now understand and see what it means for me to wear a wool scarf. Before any of the weaving can begin, two men have to line it up in the machines - and it's an 8 hour process.

We left the mill and went down to the other side of the village (about a 6 minute walk) and sat down to enjoy a pint of Guinness I had tasted Guinness before, and even have about a quarter of a can the other night (we had bought one to use to make Irish stew), but this was something else. It took the bartender about 5 minutes to pour our beers full, and it was so, so good. I am so glad that my first pint of Guinness was in a small-town Irish village.

Our drive home was along the coast, and it was absolutely beautiful. Made for a great end to the day. We are just about to have dinner - a jambalaya tonight 😊 and then will probably head back out to walk the streets of Dublin.

Sarah

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Photos

Dublin
The view from a common balcony at our apartment.

Comments

[Christine]

My Aunt lives in Glendalough! It's so beautiful there!