Dublin

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Had a wonderful time in Dublin. I tagged along with the group of women from the Bayer Women's Club. Only got to scratch the surface of a fascinating city and a beautiful country, but Skip and Maddie and I hope to go back together next fall.


Dublin is not as picturesque as Duesseldorf, but the people there are SO friendly and they love to tell the stories of the history of Dublin--often in quite colorful language! And there are so many stories to be told. It's the city of James Joyce and Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker and Jonathan Swift and many other writers and poets. There are stories of the potato famine and of battles back and forth between the Protestants and Catholics. Stories of the architects who helped build the city and the bridges over the river Liffey. And in most cases, there is the historic version and the version that has been embellished over time.

The Book of Kells (an ornate manuscript of the four Gospels) created around 800 A. D. now rests at Trinity College in Dublin. It was begun by a group of Monks in Iona, Scotland who had to flee to Ireland with the book when the Vikings invaded.

The Irish love their folk songs and even have a statue of the famed Molly Malone selling her cockles and mussels right in the middle of town. One of our funniest moments is when we were searching for a pub with "live Irish music". The first two we tried were too packed to even enter. We finally found one promising the authentic Irish music, muscled our way in and got a table. Waited for about 20 minutes when a young woman and man got up and began their program with, "We're going to start out with a song that was recorded by a group called Fleetwood Mac." We were all pretty sure that Stevie Nicks isn't Irish, but since we had worked so hard to get there, we stayed and indeed they did work their way into some "traditional" music.

Dublin has a number of Georgian Squares and all the homes that surround the squares have brightly colored doors. Dubbed the "Doors of Dublin" there are quite a few posters and postcards one can obtain bearing pictures of the doors.

There are many artists--from painters to glassblowers to potters to weavers. I brought Skip home a traditional wool fisherman's sweater so he can pretend to be the guy from the Irish Spring commercial.

The Irish were so friendly and helpful--the only people we didn't find helpful were the ones who worked at our hotel (and several of them came from other countries!). The mood of the city was light and fun. Of course that could be related to the fact that Dublin is the home of Guiness Beer and Jameson Whiskey--and both are consumed quite liberally. Every day in Great Britain (Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England) 1 million pints of Guiness are sold

We had fabulous food--from Irish to Thai to Persian. And being in an English speaking country just made everything easier. Even those in our group who speak excellent German enjoyed having a break from having to communicate in something other than their native language.

On Sunday, several of us went to the Sung Eucharist service at St. Patrick's cathedral. The sermon wasn't very good and, in fact, had absolutely nothing to do with the scriptures that were read, but the all-male choir sounded heavenly. I have visited many cathedrals, but I hadn't ever had the opportunity to actually worship in one. And sure enough, when we left the service, there was a line of people waiting for the church to open to folks who just wanted to look around. Keeping with what seems to be the theme of Dublin, even the informational sign outside the cathedral was sponsored by Bailey's.

I don't have that many good pictures because in the city of Dublin, things are so close together, it's difficult to get a good angle to get pictures. Mainly, I got a lot of pictures of signs that amused me!

I think it's my favorite place I've been so far. Maybe because here in Germany, my voice carries and everyone looks at me when I laugh to loud. In Ireland (land of the loud and boisterous), no one ever even glanced at me. I blended in perfectly!