Ireland, Blog 2

Ireland, Blog 2

We took DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) into the city—having a fascinating conversation with a TV drama director en route.

We had breakfast in a famous old restaurant, Brawleys. Dan had his first and possibly last traditional Irish breakfast, because he wasn’t completely sure of the identify of some of the items on his plate. A 5- minute walk took us to Trinity College, where we were introduced to Irish wit and humor by the adorable student guide.

My favorite story was about the head of the college in the early 1900’s, when women were not allowed to attend. Although he said, “Woman would be permitted over his dead body,” the English Parliament voted to admit them in 1904. After saying that he would agree to it with his actions but not with his heart, he put his hand over his heart and died of an attack! When I asked the guide if this was an aprocryphal story (to be checked on Snopes), she insisted it was true. At the end of the tour, we went to an exhibit on the book of Kells, which culminated with a look at the actual document. Even more impressive was the “long hall,” part of the oldest of four libraries at the college. It WAS an extremely impressive “long hall,” but it is basically unusable as a resource for the students. Thousands of books line the shelves not in Dewey Decimal System order, ABC order, or by topic. They are organized by size with the largest on the bottom and the smallest on top. On display is the famous harp, made from beautiful carved willow, (800 AD,) which became the symbol of Ireland

On our way to Dublin Castle, we came across a 3-hour free tour (we tipped generously at the end) outside of City Hall To give you an idea of how bad the job market is in Ireland—our guide was a graduate of Trinity college with a background in computers, linguistics, and German. The group initially was quite large, but less than a third of the way through, the senior citizens dropped out, leaving Dan and me and no one else over 25. The tour was informative and fascinating, and we learned much more than we could have on our own. However, we had to omit a number of places we had planned to visit; but, we will spend another day in Dublin, which is a very easy to see on foot.

2 Observations:

A number of people on finding out that we were Americans asked if we had Irish ancestry. When we said, “no,” they were surprised that we wanted to visit Ireland. I don’t get their reasoning. I’ve visited China and I’m not Chinese (except in name) and Egypt tho’ I’m not Egyptian, and Croatia, with no Croatian heritage—you get the picture.

When we picked up our rental car, I asked the man at the counter how we could be sure that all the dings and torn carpet were noted down. With a grin, he gently said, “Because I’m tellin’ ya.”

I’m “tellin’ ya,” Ireland is a very friendly country.

I asked our afternoon guide, if there was a Jewish synagogue in the area.

He replied, "Why, do you want to go to mass?!!!