As we woke up on our flight descending in the morning through the beautiful sunrise, and lush green land below us, we got very excited to be on the third leg of our journey – Ireland. Extra credit if you can name all 9 countries that we’ve visited so far. Extra extra credit if you can do them in order. Operators are standing by.
The name Dublin comes from “dubh linn”, Gaelic for “black pool” – where the Poddle Stream (which today runs underneath the city) met the River Liffey to form a deep pool near the medieval Dublin Castle.
We managed to get through customs swiftly and caught the Airlink bus into the city, and found our Airbnb, centrally located by St. Stephen’s Green and Trinity College. This would be our home for the next two nights and the first city in our journey through Ireland. If you have read our previous posts, you know by now that we would drop our bags and hit the ground running.
The first order of business was to fuel up. We found a nice pub and enjoyed our first traditional cod fish and chips. In the states, you simply get a full fried fillet of fish and some fries. On this side of the pond, you will get your plate of fish/chips included with a small cup of green mushy stuff. It may not look very appetizing, but it’s delicious – mushed peas. We washed all of this down with a few microbrew porter stout style beers. They didn’t sell Guinness! Is that even legal in Ireland?
After we satisfied our appetite, we made our way to Trinity College. Queen Elizabeth the first founded this research university in 1592 and modeled it after Oxford. As we walked the cobblestone streets, we noticed how pristine the grounds were, and it was an un-Ireland-like warm and sunny day – many students and tourists lounged in the green spaces.
Trinity College is most known to tourists for The Library of Trinity College – which houses 6.2 million printed volumes and significant quantities of manuscripts, including The Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels in a Latin text, written around 800 AD. Although this book is what drives the large crowds – making it impossible to get a good glimpse through the hordes of people surrounding the case, the real attraction to us was the Old Library. Our recommendation – make your way through the crowd, quickly circle the case enclosing the famous book, then proceed up the steps into the magnificent Long Room (The Library).
As we ascended the stairs, we caught a whiff of old books/paper, and were greeted with a stunning room filled with rows and rows of historic books and busts of literary and philosophical masters. The Long Room is the longest single-chamber library in the world and houses 200,000 of the Library’s oldest books.
Next, we continued our walk to cross the famous Ha’ Penny Bridge. This white metal bridge is pedestrian only and got its name from the toll one used to pay to cross it – half a penny. There are 21 bridges spanning the River Liffey, many of which are pedestrian only bridges.
We worked up a thirst on this unusually warm and humid day and decided to walk over to the notorious Temple Bar neighborhood. Temple Bar has smaller cobblestone streets and is crowded with many pubs featuring live music, restaurants and trendy shops. The Temple Bar Pub was our choice – we made our way inside and through the crowd and ordered our first round of Guinness. “Mmmmmm – Guinness!” Think Homer Simpson chugging his first Duff Beer of the day!
The namesakes of the Temple Bar neighborhood…
As luck would have it, two seats opened up in the over-capacity room, with a perfect view of the small, live music stage. The first guitarist played covers mainly attributed to artists from Great Britain. The next set was three artists (flute, fiddle and guitar) playing more traditional Irish music. Although Irish music is known for its heavy, deeply sad lyrics, this trio preferred upbeat and happy tunes…befitting the festive atmosphere on the warm day.
We noticed a sign above the stage – “Guitarist Dave Browne broke the Guinness Book of World Record for the longest marathon playing guitar 114 hours live from June 12th to June 17th, 2011. Woah – how did he do that?!?! And now you are wondering – is the creator of this great beverage we are drinking related to this great book? Why yes, they are! The Guinness Book of World Records was created to settle a pub argument. In 1951, the former managing director of Guinness was out shooting with some friends when they began to argue over which was the fastest game bird in Europe. They had no way of finding out the correct answer. Fast forward three years – they decided the drinking world needed a book to single handedly settle any pub dispute and printed their first volume.
The next morning, and our only full day in Dublin, we planned a little bit of sightseeing and a little bit of beverage tasting to fill our day. After fueling up on coffee, we walked through the brisk and misty morning air to our first stop, St. Patrick’s Cathedral. This is Ireland’s largest church and was built between 1191 and 1270. Remarkably, we found out that morning that The Pope would be paying a visit to Dublin in two days’ time. We felt honored to be walking through this beautiful Cathedral days before The Pope would visit.
Next, onward to the Dublin Castle. We opted for the guided tour, which gave us access to the excavation site of the Viking era, medieval Dublin and to the Gothic Chapel Royal. We were able to see part of the old city walls, one of the remaining towers (The Norman Powder Tower which was spared by the fire that destroyed most of the castle), the double archway and the postern gate (a smaller gate in the rear of the castle with boat dock access that allowed daily access for merchants and locals). The Chapel Royal has since been deconsecrated to support separation of church and state, given the government presence onsite. It is now mainly used for cultural events. As a fun note, Bram Stoker, of Dracula fame, worked at the Ireland Revenue service for years and it is thought that the Gothic Chapel Royal (which sits across the courtyard) served as inspiration.
Inside the Powder Tower…
The postern gate…
The double archway…through which the moat flowed before being sealed for security reasons and to stop the spread of the plague.
Afterwards, we walked through part of the State Apartments (some were closed due to the upcoming Papal visit). Proudly displayed throughout the rooms is the Coat of Arms of Ireland – a gold harp with silver strings on a blue background. Ummmm – wait, this looks a little familiar. It was on our pint glass yesterday. Do Guinness and Ireland share the same symbol? Fun fact – Guinness trademarked the harp logo in 1876, while Ireland was a colony. When Ireland gained its “independence” in 1922, they quickly settled on a harp as a logo but ran into the Guinness trademark problem. A resolution was quickly found…the new republic’s harp would face the opposite direction as the Guinness logo. But why a harp at all? The last independent king of Ireland would play his harp before entering battle. So, it’s a fierce symbol of independence.
OK, that’s enough history for the day. After grabbing a quick lunch, and ensuring it was after a respectable 12:00pm, we walked into the Jameson Distillery for the Whiskey Experience Tour. This interactive tour took us through a short interactive film on the history of Jameson (we promised no more history). In the second portion of the interactive tour, we learned about the making of Jameson from start to finish. The third part of our experience was the best part – tasting. We were presented with a shot of Jameson (which is triple distilled), Jack Daniels (to try the most popular American Whiskey) and a shot of Johnnie Walker Black label (the most popular Scottish Whisky). Obviously, this is a sales pitch for Jameson – so, of course they would have us comparing their whiskey to those that are severely inferior.
After the tour, we made our way to the main bar and cashed in our free drink ticket, included with the tour. We opted for a mixed cocktail of Jameson, ginger ale and lime. It was quite refreshing and would have been perfect for the warm weather the day before.
Our final stop of the day was The Guinness Storehouse. This experience takes you through the brewing process, the history of Guinness and the marketing history and tactics. We had an opportunity to learn how to properly taste Guinness – with cute little shot glasses, and finally were learned how to pour our own Guinness. If done correctly, there are 6 steps to pouring a Guinness and it should take 2 full minutes time. So, the next time you order one in a pub, be patient with the bartender. It’s worth the wait. Our tour ended with one of the best views of the city. We grabbed our self-poured pints of beer and headed to the skybar on the top floor. This bar offers 360-degree views of the city with floor to ceiling glass. It’s a perfect way to enjoy a pint, so long as the crowds don’t get to you.
Our shot glasses of Guinness during our tasting lesson…(ahem, not us in the background)
Without boring you with the finer details of what we learned, here are a few fun facts we didn’t know before visiting The Guinness Storehouse:
- Guinness invented the first nitro beer
- Guinness is not black – it is a dark ruby red. Test it – order a pint and hold it up to the light
- Arthur Guinness knew he would have the best beer; he signed a 9,000-year lease on his first distillery site. Commercial Real Estate Brokers reading this fact are drooling right now!
- The Guinness family have been very generous and loyal Irish citizens. Arthur Guinness founded the first Sunday School in Ireland. In more recent times, they have been huge philanthropists – they helped fund the restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and landscaped St. Stephen’s Green into the vast park it is today – to name just a few notable things the family has done for Dublin.
Given that we gave ourselves less than two full days to explore Dublin, we feel more than satisfied with our experiences. We put together a fine mix of history, sightseeing and sampling the local refreshments. On our final morning, we took a final saunter through historic St. Stephen’s Green (awed by the bravery of the Irish citizens) before boarding a train headed for Cork and Blarney Castle.
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