Dublin Travelogue

Change of countries: Ireland! 

Introducing us to Ireland is Dublin with good food, lots of history, and Guinness. We checked into Ariel B&B in Ballsbridge, an upper class area of old Dublin. It's a Georgian home, with a confortable drawing room which featured Irish whiskey, coffee, and copies of Lonely Planet Ireland in many languages. I drank my evening Sleepy Time herb tea in there while planning our next day.

We had an outstanding historical walking tour, led by Donal, whose passion for and knowledge of Ireland and history, mixed with his wry sense of humor, made the two hours fly by! Dublin has had many famous writers. Even three, count them, three! Nobel prize winners in literature.

How did that tall ship get under the harp-shaped bridge?

My engineering heart was thrilled by the Samuel Beckett Bridge, opened in 2009. It is suspended by a Guinness-symbol harp. How is it that traffic on River Liffey can pass it? It's not a drawbridge. Turns out, it rotates horizontally by 90 degrees! Samuel Beckett was one of the Nobel Prize winners in literature, in 1969. Remember 'Waiting for Godot'?

My genealogist heart was thrilled by EPIC: the Irish Emigration Museum. It's "an interactive journey about how a small island made a big impact on the world. You won't see leprechauns or pots of gold here, but you'll find out that what it means to be Irish expands far beyond the borders of Ireland." These pictures of me are from the section about infamous criminals with Irish blood, like Billy the Kid. The section on discovering and inventing showed James Watson, of DNA fame, for instance. Sections on sports, on music and dance (Riverdance), on state and society, and more, meant that we ran out of time. There was a whole temporary exhibit on JFK, John F. Kennedy.

Next stop - the Midlands for MY ancestral heritage. My post is "Walking in the Steps of my Irish Ancestors" from July 25th.