Irish Springs (Come From Irish Rain)

Ireland! It's a quarter of my heritage and half of Mary's, but we've made it almost two years in without a visit. The time had come to change that.

Considering that it was Ireland in November, we had pretty decent weather. Mornings were consistently rainy, but the evenings cleared up and even brought some sunshine. Since we had geared for it, the rain wasn't much of a challenge and we still had a fun and full journey. It did impact picture quality a bit, as grey-sky shots tend to come off a bit dour. It allowed me to get all artsy-fartsy with things reflected in puddles though, so at least we have that.

While we were based in Dublin, we spent most of our time elsewhere. The first day was all about Kilkenny. Kilkenny is known for their castle and their beer brewery, both of which we visited. As with most castles, theirs started small several hundreds of years ago and then grew and changed over time. Some rooms were done up with replicas of Victorian furnishings, which was roughly the last time it was occupied. Unlike many castles, this one is owned by the town thanks to the former owners recognizing that they could not afford to restore it and selling it for fifty pounds. In the castle we got to see the second-longest room in Ireland, which was fun for us since we love qualified extremes. The brewery tour ended up being a bit cheesy and touristy, with Disney-style animatronics and videos. We had hoped this would be a bit more process-focused like the scotch tour we did in Scotland, but twas not to be. If you ignored the cheesey bits there was some neat history though, so we did manage to have a good time. Good beer, too.

Our second day was spent in Howth. This is a small town on a peninsula sticking into the Irish Sea North of Dublin. And when I say small, I mean it had roughly two streets, stretched along the coast by the busy harbor. For tourists there are two sites: The rocky coastal hiking path and the radio museum. The museum was supposed to be closed due to it being off-season, so we headed for the trail. The coast here is very rocky and blustery, and it was amazingly beautiful. Probably a quarter of the photos we took were from the few hours we were on this walk, because it was just so striking. The rocky coasts, views back of the tiny town, and crashing surf on rocks really spoke to us.

Back in town, we made a glorious discovery. It was Science Week in Ireland! This meant that not only was the Radio Museum open, but the admission charge was waived. This is the kind of tiny, hyper-focused museum that Mary and I love (see also: Pencil Museum, Canal Museum, the Postcard Museum Betrayal.) The museum is located in an old tower on a cliff above the town, which was built to fend off a Napoleanic invasion that never came. It consists of two rooms stacked floor to ceiling with radios of every shape and form. We saw some built into small picture frames to hide from occupying armies, elaborate fancy ones, and plain-old work-a-day models from basically the entire history of the device. It was exactly what we wanted from this kind of museum, and we were so very lucky to have had it open.

On the final day, we spent some time in Dublin proper. We visited the museum of archeology, the highlight of which was of course the bog mummies. We've both heard of and been fascinated by these, so to see them in person (they had four on display) was pretty amazing. What gets preserved (hair, leather) is astounding. Very neat.

The other main site we visited in Dublin was Trinity College. Shown here is The Long Room, which is the first-longest room in Ireland. It's the library, but the real highlight was the display on The Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is an illustrated manuscript from around 800 AD. That's a long time ago. The book is at the end of a very well laid-out exhibit, which really goes into detail on how the book was made as well as the significance of its iconography. It was a fantastic visit, and I strongly urge anyone in town to check it out. Sadly, no photos are allowed.

Overall, we had a great time on the trip. The sites were cool, the scenery amazing, and the food well above what we expected. Toss on those wellies and mackintosh, bust our your brolly, and head to Ireland!