Dublin, Ireland

We took a Ryan air flight from a tiny airport outside Munich (thanks for the ride Tobi!) to Dublin and arrived in Ireland around 6pm. We gathered our luggage and hopped on a bus downtown to meet up with our couchsurfers. We met in front of the giant spire (apparently the worlds tallest sculpture) in the middle of town and then went out for a nice dinner together (where I had to enjoy a Guinness, of course). We were exhausted from the day of traveling so we went back to the apartment and got to bed after a long chat with our hosts.


The Spire


Our Gracious Couchsurfing Hosts

The next morning our hosts left for class, so Amy and I headed downtown to catch a free walking tour. These free walking tours are awesome. Not only are they around 3 hours long and extremely infomative, but because they are tip based, they are about 4 times cheaper than the standard tours.

The tour left near Dublin Castle, which was built in 1204 by the British and stood as their headquarters during the period of Irish occupation.



Dublin gets its name from an old harbor that is now a grassy park. The harbor water was very dark, and was given the Gaelic name Dubh Lin (pronounce dove lin) meaning "black pool". The name was eventually anglo-sized to Dublin.


The grassy area behind the castle which use to be the Dublin harbor. The brick paths represent the eels that used to be in the water, but they also show a celtic design from the air.  This also happens to be the helicopter landing pad for when important people visit Dublin.

On the backside stands a tower that is one of the oldest structures in Dublin. The tower use to be a dungeon in the ol' days and only one person ever escaped. The story goes that an Irish man (who was a high ranking rebellion member) was walking along the river when he came upon a group of English soldiers unloading wine. The Irish man asked if he could buy some of the wine. The English said that the wine was meant for the king but that the Irish man could come aboard their ship and have some drinks with them. The Irish man kindly accepted, indulged in the wine, and found himself awake with a terrible hangover in the dungeon. Apparently the English had been kidnapping important members of the rebellion recently to be used as political bargaining chips. The man sat in prison for sometime when some fellow clan members decided to bust him out. They dressed up as British soldiers, snuck into the dungeon, freed the prisoner, and made their way down to the basement of the dungeon. The dungeon was heavily guarded above which prevented their escape via the standard route. Their plan was to dig down, once in the basement, until they reached an underground river that was known to run from below the dungeon to an outlet far from the reaches of the British. So they dug their way out to freedom.


The tower walls were 4 meters thick!

Our next stop was the Christ Church Cathedral. This church was a beautiful gothic structure built in 1030 and is suppose to house one of the largest crypts in Europe.



After a rant from our very knowledgable, but perhaps overly political Irish tour guide we headed over to Trinity college. The campus was beautiful, although small, and houses the library used in a Harry Potter movie and in Star Wars Episode II (the jedi library).



Our tour ended in Merrion Square with another political rant from our guide. We then headed back to the national museum to look at the bog bodies (bodies found in the Irish bogs that are extremely well preserved and date back at least 1000 years). Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures.

After our gruesome detour we wandered past St. Patricks cathedral and popped our heads into a few very expensive antique shops.


St. Patrick's Cathedral and grounds.

The next morning we had a bit of time to explore the city before catching our bus so we headed to the Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced Jail) prison. There we haggled with the ticket holder for a student priced ticket (saved 8 euro) and toured the prison. The place was eerie and housed children, women, men, and political prisoners who committed crimes ranging from stealing food to murder. By the way, the punishment for an 8 year old boy stealing a loaf of bread was six weeks in jail with daily whippings. Not a very nice place.


View looking into a cell from the cell door porthole.


One of the cell doors with an all seeing eye (peep hole).


The main prison atrium. The prison was designed to give the illusion that one was being watched at all times. The guards above could see everything happening below but the prisoners could not see the guards. (Oh hey photo kids look at the panopticon, thanks GFR)

The prison was our final tourist sight. We headed back to say goodbye to our hosts and collect our things and caught our bus to our next workaway in the Metropolis that is Lorrha!