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Published: June 23rd 2008
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View of River Liffey
About 11:30pm, still some daylight. Sunday, June 22
Dublin
How long can it rain? We got up to another wet day. We had an added feature this morning with high winds. It was gusting up to 50 mph.
We had plans to check out of The Regency Hotel and move downtown to the B/W Royal Dublin Hotel early. But with this weather we decided to take our time. We did not want to do a ‘Dublin walking tour’ on a day like this. We finally left the hotel about 11:00am.
We drove into town and found the parking garage for the hotel. Jackie tried but failed to find a way to get the door open so we drove around to the main street in Dublin, O’Connell Street. The only problem now was this is a busses and taxis only street. I acted like a dumb tourist and drove right to the front door of the hotel. No one seemed to notice or care.
We checked in but the room was not yet available. So, we parked the car and walked over to the Tourist Info office just across the street. Here we purchased the tickets for the 24-hour hop on/hop off tour bus. This worked well
since we could just sit and listen to the tour guide. We did about 2/3 of the route and got off at the Kilmainham Goal (old city jail).
The jail turned out to be a very good tour. It was a jail used by the British as a political prison. It opened in 1796 as both a county jail and debtors’ prison. It was considered a model of its day. But later it became a political prison where many of those that fought in the fight for Irish independence were held or executed. It was here where national heroes Robert Emmett, Charles S. Parnell and even Eamon de Valera were held. De Valera later became the Irish President and political leader for 40 years.
After this tour we hopped back on the tour bus and returned to the hotel. It was still windy but had stopped raining. Since we had plans to do the ‘Dublin Literary Pub Crawl’ that evening, we did what we have often done, took a nap.
The pub crawl started at 7:30pm in the area known as Temple Bar. It is on the south bank of the River Liffey. We took a cab over and
entered the Duke Pub. Several people were already waiting for the ‘crawl’ to start. Jackie met a couple from Windsor, Ontario, and began discussing our trip and theirs. It wasn’t long before we learned that he had worked for Air Canada. We had friends in Freeport, Bahamas that also worked for Air Canada. When Jackie asked if they knew Randy Beck, they said yes, he once lived next door to them. Small world!
The ‘pub crawl’ was fun. There were two people guiding our group. The guides are actors doing basically a performance. They told us at the beginning that there would be a test at the end with the winner getting a tee-shirt. We did the tour through three or four pubs and part of Trinity College. At the end the contest began. Jackie became a finalist by correctly answering one of the first five questions. Unfortunately, she lost in the playoff to a woman from Colorado.
After the tour we walked to the restaurant, Le Caprice. It was recommended by RS. It is an Italian Restaurant located in theTemple Bar area. The food was great and so was the ambience. There were photos on the wall with the
Photo of Gaol when in use
Up to 80 movies have been filmed in this part of the jail. owner and several stars like Gregory Peck, Robert Redford, and James Cann.
We walked back to the hotel after dinner and crashed. We had to get up early on Monday to meet Dianne and John at the airport.
Cheers, Tom
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Pam
non-member comment
Sounds like you are getting a good dose of true Irish weather!! The pub crawl looks like fun! By now, hopefully, Mom and John have joined you and you all are having loads of fun!! Wish I was there!!!