Annabel and Dave's Awesome Adventures: Dubliners

Flowers in Merrion Square Gardens

I've finally found the rest of my Dublin photos, and in doing so have also learned a valuable Lightroom lesson. Never move your photos around external to Lightroom, if you want to rearrange the location, create new folders, move photos etc. do it within Lightroom itself. Otherwise you are just setting yourself up for a world of pain!

So Dublin, it's a funny old place. Ireland is still very much a young country, formed only 100 years ago, as an independent nation it has certainly struggled a bit under the yoke of English rule. I think the

Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square - you can't escape him here!

thing which left Ireland open to occupation was that it never really seemed to unite under a single ruler, there were always separate clans fighting each other for land and power and they were never slow to bring in outsiders to provide extra muscle. Ireland really does have a fascinating history, a book we read on it, which I recommend, is the Story of Ireland by Neil Hegarty. It is a comprehensive description of Ireland from 400 AD through to present-day. I found it really good as someone who basically knew nothing about Irish history, though he perhaps rushes a bit through the last century.

Homeless person sculpture in St Stephens green

Statue in Merrion Square Gardens

It seems that everyone in Ireland has an opinion on their history, which must make it really hard to write an unbiased book. Whilst in Dublin we did a walking tour on the 1916 revolution, which was perhaps aimed at people who knew more history than us. The tour guide must have a tough job though as walking the streets talking means everyone hears what he is saying and pull him up on it if they happen to disagree. He was talking about Wolfe Tone, who actually seemed like he didn't really do much, though he has a massive statue in the main gardens, they call it Tone-Henge, which is the photo above. This random passerby interrupted the tour simply to reiterate the point that Wolfe Tone was a hero and courageous. I would certainly say he didn't lack courage.

Tone was again someone of the belief that Irish independence would only be achieved through armed resistance and was part of the very short-lived 1798 resistance. I think about 80 people rose up in Dublin, attempting to take over the city. Tone was captured and committed suicide in prison. The thing with Wolfe Tone was that he was a protestant, fighting for Catholic emancipation, so it certainly wasn't true that the protestants and catholics were always at each others throats. That came later, following atrocities on both the English and Irish sides.

Dave alongside the Liffey

You gotta photo the doors here

One thing I noticed walking through Dublin and seeing the different monuments to the famous people is that the majority of them seemed to be people aged in their twenties when they died. I guess people didn't live as long back then, but it seemed interesting that the history was shaped so much by these very young people, and it also happened to be violent, whether there is a correlation I'm not sure. But I know when I was 22 I wouldn't say I had much of an idea as to good governance and the best way to achieve it through politics. I think at that age the easiest and quickest way does seem to be revolution, you want what you want, now. I'm not saying that youth can never achieve anything, just sometimes perhaps they need older people to help guide them, though perhaps that's the voice of an old person speaking :).

Newly greened letter box

Back to the walking tour, the 1916 was again a very short-lived revolution, which was harshly dealt with by the English. But at least it seemed to set the stage for the final act of rebellion which led to their independence in 1921, and then quite quickly to civil war after that. Perhaps that was always going to happen though, what with the many attempted revolutions prior to independence.

One interesting point the tour guide made was that following Irish independence they didn't go around blowing up the relics of British rule. The only act they did as a sign of their new-found freedom was they painted all the letterboxes green.

Dublin is a really pretty city, I would recommend a visit on that alone. The streets in the south-eastern

You can buy postcards of Dublin's doors

quarter were these wonderful old Georgian terraces. One of the houses had been turned into a

The rotunda - the entrance to the National Museum. Based off a museum in Berlin

Georgian house museum by the electricity board. Though this was really an act of penance on their

A bog body, got munched by a tractor so only the top half survived

part, having ripped out almost an entire city block worth of these old houses to put up a 1950's style concrete office block. We actually saw a play the other night, Juno and the Peacock, at the National Theatre. As an aside it seems that the National Theatre is going through a bit of an Irish phase, in that the only two plays we have seen there were Irish. Anyway this play was written in the late 1930's and was set in one of these Dublin Georgian mansions, after the civil war, when many families were living in these houses. It was funny to see the life cycle of this part of Dublin, from mansion, to slum and now to housing small businesses.

The area around the castle in the south-west is full of the old lane ways and old buildings. Which is quite attractive in it's own way. Though it is around here that you get the sense that the GFC is hitting Ireland harder than London. The area north of the Liffey is not so attractive, having a more industrial feel. But then we didn't spend much time over the river at all.

Three-faced stone carving from 0-100AD

One of the best places we visited had to have been the National Museum of Archaeology, again I would say perhaps go to Dublin just for this! The artifacts there were amazing, it seemed that the golden age of Ireland was really the neolithic and dark ages, and the things from that time were incredible. We even went back to this museum twice it was that fantastic. It is not that big either, but everything there is stunning, no filler at this museum. It also seemed that the British Museum hadn't pillaged this area so they still had all their winners.

In particular there were a lot of bog bodies, and they were all incredibly conserved. There was also an awful lot of gold jewellery and artifacts.

Bronze horn from 1 BC, the craftsmanship is amazing

It's hard to imagine nowadays, what with the UK being completely pillaged of it's natural resources, that there used to be so much gold just lying around. Some of the necklaces were these massive, twisted gold chains, torcs they call them.

Cross of Cong made in 1123 to encase a fragment of the true cross

The ceiling was something else here.

We also saw the old Irish parliament, which was the first purpose built parliament in Europe, though now it is the Bank of Ireland. It was built in 1739, but the Irish parliament was dissolved by the British in 1800 and the Irish parliamentarians were forced to go to Westminster. At the time though parliamentarians at Westminster had to swear an allegiance to the Church of England, which made things difficult for the Catholic MPs from Ireland. Whilst the House of Commons was removed at the command of the British, the House of Lords still remains, with it's wonderful ceiling.

The senate table with amazing tapestries

Samuel Beckett

We then had a slightly strange interlude where we visited the National Wax museum. This place started out well, with a collection of famous Irish people, then we go through a bit of the Irish history, the major players and events surrounding them. There was also an interesting section on Irish mythology, but it then got a bit weird, with the house of horrors.