So... my last day in Dublin. I decided to try and rest my legs a little after two very full days of walking.. given that I’ve only just been able to walk more than 200m without needing to rest my back, with both days hitting over 10000 steps, I am feeling on top of the world - but with the best part of a year out of commission - also very unfit and not used to it... So I figured, get a hop on hop off ticket and see what I want. So I thought I’d go once round, then go around and hop off and see the bits I wanted. I couldn’t do everything, I knew - so I wanted to be selective.
Well - I saw so much from the bus, and near the end I decided to jump out at Kilmainham Gaol.
I’ve said it before, there is stuff I am proud of in my (birth) country’s history.. but there is much that I am not. How both the Irish and Scots were treated ranks pretty highly in my “Oh my god, how could ANYone think that was okay” metre. Although the Gaol was built in the 1780s, it’s very famous for having housed a goodly number of people arrested for stealing food, begging for food, or just generally being homeless and hungry during the Great Famine (taking what food was left when the tatties had their blight - not one of the English nobilities’ shining moments at all)!
It also house, prior to their execution, quite a number of the freedom fighters from the Easter Rebellion in 1916 and the Irish War of Independence in 1919-21.
The rebels didn’t have the amount of followers you would expect, right up until the leaders were shot - that changed things enormously for the average Joe.
I’ve taken quite a lot of photos - but since the upload failed last time I may add some here and some more in a post by themselves. If the main ‘hall’ of the Gaol looks familiar - it should. It was used to shoot scenes for the original (and best) Italian Job, In the Name of the Father, and Michael Collins. (No wonder it looked like I’d been there before)!
It was a good thing I jumped out when I did - I was able to join a tour about 45 minutes after I got there, so I had time to go through the museum first. When the bus came back around, there wasn’t a tour spot for nearly two hours!
What didn’t quite work was getting on the next bus out of the stop to go around again - as they have different routes. So everything I’d marked down to see wasn’t on the second trip round. And by then daylight was fading and I need to leave the hotel at 4.30am to be at the airport for a super early flight.
My lasting impression of Ireland is how much people live and love their heritage. I cannot imagine that the sheer number of pubs dotted all over Dublin alone playing traditional music and putting on dances is ‘just for the tourists’ - otherwise it would be in a section of town, clumped together, so the normal good folks don’t have to go there, if they don’t want to. But it seemed to me, that the Irish revel in their past, and celebrate their own culture on a daily basis almost - it’s really cool to see when so many shun their ‘daggy, old fashioned’ stuff, and want to blend and be like everyone else.
I cannot wait to come back some day, with a travel buddy and see a lot more of this lovely, friendly, vibrant city.
No comments:
Post a Comment