Ireland Part One - Northern Ireland and Dublin

Our second big trip of the summer was a quick hop across the Irish Sea for a 6 day tour of the Emerald Isle. Like some of our other vacations, we've split this post in two.

Thursday, June 18th - Northern Ireland and Belfast

We hopped an early morning flight to Belfast in Northern Ireland. We picked up a car from the airport and headed north. This was our first experience with driving on the left, and it went surprisingly well. Other than a small problem with a roundabout in the first 100 yards, we didn't have any trouble.

We drove directly to the northern coast, to a rock formation called The Giant's Causeway. I could try to explain, but it sounds confusing, so just see this picture:

There are something like 35,000 of these stone columns right along the coast, and it was incredibly beautiful. The rocks stretch all the way to Scotland (which isn't really too far), but most of it is under water. Legend says that a giant living in Ireland made the columns to build a bridge to his lover, who lived in Scotland, which is where it gets its name.

We also did a short drive along the coast and had a picnic lunch on some cliffs overlooking the sea, which only could have been better if we'd been able to eat outside the car, which was our only safety from the rain. The country was unbelievably green, but apparently that comes at a price!

After lunch, we headed back south toward Belfast. We dropped off the rental car, dropped off our luggage at the hotel, and headed out to see the city. We didn't have much time, so regrettably we had to pass on the IRA sites. If, like us, you were too young to care or understand what's gone on in N. Ireland for the past several years, and especially in the early 90's, I would highly suggest researching some history. Belfast was the center of most of this history, but has become a safe place to travel to in the past decade. As it turns out, though, it just isn't really that nice. We were able to see the City Hall (although just from the outside as it's currently closed to visitors for renovation), and the main shopping district (which is not much more than the average High Street in London).

The only thing that we really liked was that the city quenched our cravings for home. It has now been 9 months since I was last in the US (4 for Jenna), so we have been missing a few things. Belfast seemed like Little America, which normally would really put us off, but we already didn't like the city much, so when we saw the shopping mall (the first we've seen in Europe) with giant signs for Maggiano's, Chili's, and TGIFriday's, we were in heaven. After a quick stop at the Yankee Candle store (which also don't really exist here, and where the signs saying "America's favorite candle" seemed very out of place) we stopped at Fridays for a good 'ole Texas meal of Mozzarella sticks, fajitas, and an ice cream covered chocolate brownie. Not exactly traditional, but delicious! With our bellies full (and we're talking America full, where you go home feeling like you want to purge, not Europe full where you just go home satisfied), we headed back to the hotel .

Friday, June 19th - Dublin

We got up early and headed for the train station to try and catch the 8:30 train for Dublin. Due to some poor planning (or rather, great planning, poor execution), we missed the train that actually left at 8:00 (which is what I had written on our itinerary but didn't look at, thinking I remembered). The next train didn't leave until 10:30, so we ended up taking a bus instead. We got to Dublin just before noon, about 2 hours later than originally planned, but we ended up saving about 50%, so it wasn't too bad.

"In Dublin's fair city where the girls are so pretty

I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone.

As she wheeled her wheelbarrow, through streets broad and narrow

Crying cockels and mussels alive, alive-oh.

Alive, alive-oh. Alive, alive-oh.

Crying cockels and mussels alive, alive-oh. - Dubliners

We grabbed a cab to our hostel, which was probably the worst place we've stayed to date - shared a dingy bathroom and had a room with paper thin walls, right next to reception where people came in late into the night, and left early in the morning. We walked from the hostel to Trinity College, which is the first university of Ireland and its largest/most famous. It also holds the Book of Kells, which is a copy of the Gospels from the 11th century. Written by monks, it is famous for being very artistic, which I guess was surprising because it was made during the Dark Ages when people were more worried about eating and surviving tribal wars than making art. Anyway, for us it was okay. We don't really understand art enough to appreciate it fully, but it was something to check off the list.

Next we headed off for what turned out to be the highlight of Dublin for us - the Kilmainham Gaol (appropriately pronounced "jail"). This was the city's jail for several hundred years, including the most turbulent years of revolution in the early 1900s. It was also the first large jail in the world where prisoners had their own cells (before they stuffed many people into large cells), and became a model for every modern jail that exists today. It was closed just after Ireland won its independence in the 1920s, and now offers tours and a great history lesson on the struggle of the Irish.

So this is something that you should definitely look more into, but for a brief lesson...England invaded Ireland in the 1300s and ruled for 700 years. The history and culture were very different (Celtic vs Saxon), and as a result the Irish never really took too much of a liking to the English. In the late 1700s, a few revolts started popping up sporadically every generation or so. My assumption is that they got an idea from their neighbors to west, and the phrase "Taxation without representation" was uttered more than once.

In April 1916, a group of Irishmen thought that with Britain literally entrenched in WWI, they had a perfect opportunity to rise up and gain their freedom. They read their Proclamation of the Irish Republic from the steps of the city post office, and subsequently attacked the English and were slaughtered in what became known as the Easter Rising. 97 men and women were taken to Kilmainham and sentenced to death. 15 of them faced the firing squad in the jails courtyard before public opinion forced the government to commute the sentences of the others.

A few years later, a group of the survivors realized that a frontal attack on the English would never succeed, and forming the Irish Republican Army they resorted to guerrilla tactics like assassinations that the IRA became so famous for. It took several years, but in the end these tactics did work, and in the 1921 the English finally agreed to let most of the island cede from the UK (six counties in the north stayed with the UK, which not everyone was too happy with...)

I'm not sure why we're so fascinated with the struggle of the Irish against the English. I guess to some degree we sympathize with their situation. As we looked at the plaque in the courtyard that commemorated the deaths of the rebels, we read the names of Pearse, MacDonagh, and Connolly and had visions of Washington, Franklin, and Adams. It was also extremely evident as we traveled through the country that Ireland is entirely unique when compared to England in all aspects, from culture to climate to landscape, and it just feels right that it be its own nation. As Track 1 on our traditional Irish music CD put it - "Some men fight for silver, and some men fight for gold, but the IRA are fighting for, the land that the Saxons stole." - Dubliners

After leaving the jail we headed back into the city, walked through Temple Bar area and down Grafton street, grabbed dinner at another very non-traditional noodle bar, WagaMama, and headed back to the hostel to prepare for our journey to the countryside...to be continued