Ireland 1

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On Linda's spring break this year we went to Ireland. We chose Ireland because the plane tickets were cheaper than plane tickets to nearly anywhere domestic. We'd never been to Ireland before, and I quite frankly didn't know much about the country other than the standard leprechauns and green beer. What we found was beautiful scenery, friendly people and lots and lots of potatoes.

Okay, here's the deal: I have a new camera and I have a lot to learn. I took pictures at a high resolution, so even though they're compressed, they take a long time to load. Linda's photos load faster because she has less to learn. If you're using a dial-up Internet connection, you may get to wait a little to see some of the photos. Sorry about that. It isn't too bad if you have DSL.

Click on any photo to see a larger image.

	We flew into Dublin, but stayed for two days in the 'burbs of Portmarnock, on the coast. Portmarnock is a wide brown beach on the Irish Sea, between Ireland and Great Britain. In the nearby town of Malahide, we went to a pub to have a pint, and to generally soak up local information. In Ireland pubs are bars, but they are also a kind of "public house" -- a cultural and social center, place to drink and eat, and a place to gather info on local happenings. In Smyth's in Malahide, we discovered that fries are chips and chips are "crisps" and whiskey comes on tap. Photo by Linda.
We slept almost as soon as we got to the hotel... and slept, and slept, and slept. Then, hours later, on what may or may not have been the next morning, there was breakfast. We had nearly identical breakfasts offered to us every morning, at many different hotels and B&Bs: fried eggs, sautéed mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, sausage, bacon, "black and white pudding", toast and cereal. Little of this is optional, though on a few mornings I managed to get my eggs scrambled. I don't eat meat, so Linda was the only one who was brave enough to try the pudding, which inexplicably is actually a kind of sausage. I won't tell you any more about it, because you don't really want to know. The first morning, they also had a kind of unrecognizable delicacy that the waitress described as "fermented garlic sausage". Hmm. I declined.
We went to Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland's only university, to see the Book of Kells. Trinity College is the only place we encountered people who weren't eager to be friendly. The librarians who keep the Book of Kells are not friendly people. They are dour old men who did not want people looking at their book, and they really don't like photography. Here's Linda standing in front of the entrance to the college. Photo by Robin.
	Dublin has two large cathedrals: St. Patrick's and Christ Church. We went to both. At some point I decided I would henceforth take pictures only of ceilings and floors in churches, because they are the most fascinating to me. This didn't last long, but I did get a nice sampling of floors and ceilings in Dublin. This is the floor of St. Pat's. Photo by Robin.
Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels) was Dean of the cathedral and is buried at St. Patrick's. The Irish make much of him. He's buried beside his girlfriend Stella, who has a nearly identical marker. Photo by Robin.
	And here he is on the wall in addition to the floor. Photo by Linda.
We took one of those double-decker on-and-off bus tours around Dublin because I chose the week before we went to break a toe. Linda snapped this picture from the top of the bus. Photo by Linda.
	Christ Church wasn't as big as St. Patrick's, but it was more interesting. I walked in and immediately thought the building might keel over at any moment, because the northern wall was leaning outward at the top. The rector later told me that this is because a century or so ago, the ceiling caved in, took the south wall out, but left the north wall standing. So they just replaced the ceiling and the south wall, keeping the leaning north wall intact. Here's the new ceiling. Photo by Robin.
And, of course, the floor of Christ Church Cathedral. I think I might like a quilt that looks like this. Photo by Robin.
	Then we were off to the Guinness Brewery for a tour and free stout. I now believe we have toured every brewery in the western world. Linda makes her own beer, and for Christmas she has asked for a barrel this size to store it in. Ireland was full of odd juxtapositions like this for us. in the morning, a cathedral; in the afternoon, a brewery. The Irish are a very Catholic people, and a genuinely friendly and cheery people -- and Ireland seems to be an entire country seeking to drown its sorrows in a pint of Guinness. I never quite figured out how to put those things together. Photo by Robin.
Guinness is everywhere in Ireland. You can almost say Guinness is Ireland. Dublin has leased the land on which the brewery sits to the company for the next 9000 years. I am not exaggerating. The brewery used to be the largest in Europe. This is no small thing in a country that has suffered through repeated famine and economic down times. The Guinness Brewery figures importantly in the history of statistics. (Want to know how ?) Photo by Linda.
Back to Two Dog Way Home	See more of Dublin. Go on to more of the rest of Ireland.