Annabel and Dave's Awesome Adventures: The Dubliners

Waterford chandelier in the castle

I decided I had to split the Dublin adventures up into at least two posts. There was an awful lot to see in this town, and we did spend quite a bit of time there. I'm definitely keen for a return visit to Ireland, probably get out more into the country side next time though, maybe try and get across to the west coast area, that seemed quite a bit wilder.

Something we had to visit whilst we were there was the Dublin castle. As far as castles go it wasn't super impressive, being squashed in quite a bit in the middle of the city. It is impressively old though, a fort was first built here in the 13th century, and for seven centuries this was the seat of English rule. The castle is still in use today, and the only way to view it is on a tour.

The throne, Queen Elizabeth II did not sit here when she visited recently

Justice at Dublin castle

I think the people of Dublin have had a troublesome relationship with the castle, it being a symbol of English rule over them. There have been a few atrocities committed here by the English as well, which perhaps doesn't help the situation. This attitude between the English and Irish is perhaps well demonstrated by the below statue. It is meant to be Justice, she is standing on the castle gateway, but she is positioned facing the castle, with her back towards the city. And the locals long viewed that they would get no justice from the English.

Queen Elizabeth II was the first British monarch to visit the castle in 100 years, when she travelled to Ireland in 2011. The last visit was by George V in 1911, though in the intervening period there had been a rebellion, independence and a civil war, so you can understand the reluctance.

Mirrors so you could see all

The back of the castle, viewed from the Chester Beatty museum

Whilst we were waiting for our tour to start we decided to check out the Chester Beatty museum. For anyone who loves books this is a must see, it was also named European Museum of the Year in 2002, and there's an awful lot of museums in Europe! It was a bequest of the collection of American and mining magnate, Alfred Chester Beatty, who died in 1968. During his lifetime Beatty had collected almost 300 copies of the Koran, there was also a 6,000 year old Babylonian stone tablets, as well as numerous east Asian scrolls. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed, but the collection was definitely impressive.

Strange sand sculptures at Dublin castle

The ringing (or cacophony)

There's one thing Dublin is not in short supply of (apart from pubs) and that's churches. It seems that most Christian denominations are represented here, with the Christ Church cathedral being the official church, being home to the Church of Ireland (which is basically the Church of England). Christ Church's is a lovely old building, it was first built by a Norse king, before being rebuilt in 1186.

They do a bell ringing tour every hour or so. At first we thought it was just a way to get up to see the view from the bell tower. But no it was an actual bell ringing tour, in that we got to ring the church bells. But first we had to sit through a 30 minute talk by the head bell ringer. I never knew there was so much to discuss regarding bells. Apparently the big thing with bell ringers is to be able to ring the changes. It was here that I finally learnt what this actually means. When you have a set of tuned bells then you can ring them in a certain order, each order is called a change, once you have rung all possible combinations of the bells, only then can you say you have rung the changes.

Dave pretending to ring a bell

They do it once a year at the Christ Church cathedral and it takes a couple of hours to complete. Fun times for the local residents. The tour guide was certainly a passionate bell enthusiast, and it was kind of fun to be able to ring a church bell for once.

Dessicated cat and rat found in the bell tower

Pretty Christ Church cathedral

Campanile - a 30m bell tower

Another place that is a must visit on every tourists itinerary is Trinity College, particularly the Book of Kells. Again this is a no-photo venue but the illumination of the manuscript is particularly stunning. It was created in 806 AD by monks who were fled to Kells from Iona to escape Viking raids. We turned up a little late and were hoping that we could stay as long as we wanted, but no, the book was shut at 5pm, so we had to follow the crowds around. It also meant we didn't get to spend as long as we liked in the Trinity College library. Trinity College was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I, Catholics were only allowed in any numbers after 1970, when the Catholic Church relaxed it's opposition to their attending.

St Patrick's church

Having visited Christ Church cathedral we thought it only fair that we also paid a visit to St Patrick's cathedral. These two massive churches are literally 500 m apart, but serviced completely different groups of people. St Patrick's church was more the people's church, it is Ireland's largest church and was founded beside a well where St Patrick is said to have baptised people in around 450 AD. There's certainly a lot of stuff collected around the place, but I think I preferred Christ Church inside, the outside of St Patrick's was definitely prettier though.

The stone slab covering what was thought to be the well of St Patrick

Dave and the spire of St Patrick's

Can't get away from this guy here - St Patrick

Jameson whiskey - though this was only water

There is one church that I don't have any photos of, but I would recommend a visit purely for it's freaky factor. This is St Michan's Church and is on the north side of the Liffey. It is a rather boring looking church, but it's star attraction is what lies in it's crypts. There are a number of bodies preserved due to the church's magnesium limestone walls. Their caskets have cracked open and you can see perfectly preserved bodies, with hair and clothes still intact. In one vault is said to be Hamilton's body, that vault is still in use by the family today, so definitely a no-go zone. Their star mummy is the crusader knight, a giant man, they cut off his feet to fit him in the coffin.

Out final visit was also our most touristy - the Jamison whiskey distillery. We had already been put off visiting the Guinness brewhouse and thought we had to try some of their famous whiskey. It was OK, a very smooth operation, I just didn't really like their whiskey, and there were an awful lot of people crammed in on the tour.

I'll leave you with some final pictures of pretty Dublin