St James Gate Brewery:
the safe holding the yeast carried down through many generations:
tasting room:
Carly learning how to pour the perfect pint:
our "Perfect Pint" certificates:
view from the Gravity Bar:
After the Guinness tour, we headed into the city center and did a short walking tour of the main sites to get ourselves acquainted with the city. Although it was quickly getting dark, and cold, and most things were closed for the day, we got a good sense of how to get around and where we wanted to go the next day.
Christchurch cathedral (Ireland's oldest):
bridge to Synod Hall (which used to house the ruling body of the Church of Ireland):
Liffey river:
fun Dublin graffiti:
St. Audoen's Church:
St. Patrick's cathedral (Ireland's largest):
After walking around we tucked into a couple of pubs for some great live music, beers, and traditional Irish food (I had some Dublin Coddle, a sausage and potato stew that was delicious.)
Quay's Bar:
Oliver St. John Gogarty's:
The next morning we headed straight for the Temple Bar area and a food market I had heard about at Meeting House Square. Temple Bar is a really fun area filled with shops, restaurants and pubs. We had some amazing scones at the food market and then did a quick tour through the Gallery of Photography which had an interesting exhibition going on about the US housing market collapse.
Temple Bar:
Merchant's Arch (leading into Temple Bar):
Quaker Meeting House on Meeting House Square:
the guy we bought our scones from at the food market:
Ha'penny bridge (so named because it used to be privately owned and there was a half penny toll charged to cross it):
After exploring Temple Bar we tried unsuccessfully to visit the Dublin Castle. Unfortunately, the castle was closed because the EU Presidency of the Council is being held there for 6 months. Dublin Castle used to be the seat of colonial rule when Ireland was part of Great Britain and was the site of many important independence events for Ireland. We took a few outside pics and then headed for the Chirstchurch cathedral. Christchurch is the oldest cathedral in Ireland and its foundations date back to the 13th century. It is the seat for the Anglican Church of Ireland.
Dublin Castle (oldest remaining section, the Record Tower, 1226):
Christchurch cathedral:
Christchurch cathedral (baptismal font):
We were then sort of wandering around wondering what to do next since the Dublin Castle was supposed to take up a big chunk of the day and was closed when we ran into a free walking tour about to start. It was being given by Sandeman's, which does tours all over Europe and Carly had done the London one and thought it was great so we decided to give it a try. It was actually pretty good and our tour guide was really cute. It was supposed to be 3 hours but ended up being over 4 so we were both exhausted and starving by the end of it but he definitely hit some spots we might have missed otherwise and gave us a lot of great information.
shamrock lamposts:
Dublin castle gardens (on the site of what was once the black pool, which is where Dublin gets its name, the ancient translation of black pool was "Dubh Linn")
recording studio where U2 got their start (that is their picture on the upper left):
Dublin castle:
rowers on the Liffey:
St. Stephen's Green:
National Library:
The spire (built in 2003, most Dubliners consider it a giant waste of money; it goes by many nicknames including "stiffy on the liffy" and "stiletto in the ghetto"):
O'Connell street (main boulevard to the north side of town):
The next morning we slept in, as nothing opens in Dublin on Sunday until noon, and then headed down to Trinity College. Trinity was founded in 1592 and has about 16,000 students. It is a beautiful campus and we had a great tour given by a graduate student, followed by a look at the Old Library and the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is a manuscript containing the four gospels scribed by monks from the island of Iona in 806 AD. It was gifted to Trinity in the 17th century.
Trinity college:
Campanile (bell tower):
Old Library (holds 200,000 antique texts, organized by size):
Trinity college:
After checking out the Old Library, we took a quick coffee break and then headed over to the National Gallery. The gallery had some great works of art by mostly Irish artists as well as a large collection of one of Ireland's most famous artist's, Jack Yeats. There was a whole section featuring his sketchbooks that I found really interesting. After the gallery we grabbed a late lunch and then headed to the airport. I thought Dublin was a great city and such an easy weekend trip from London. The people were so friendly (although if you catch someone with a really strong accent they might as well be speaking another language,) the weather was great (we were lucky!) the pubs were fun, and the beer was delicious. Slainte!
