Stephen's Green

Turning your internal clock around isn’t always easy and Laurie has had a restless sleep. We get up early and are at our breakfast spot at the 7AM opening. It is a full breakfast and we depart caffeinated and full.

It is raining lightly as we walk to the National gallery a couple of blocks away. The gallery is part of a series of National museums all in the same part of town - similar to the Smithsonian museums. It is a decent if not spectacular collection of art work - some Rembrandt’s, a Vermeer, a few Ruebens, a bunch of early renaissance works and a whole floor of Irish painters.

Cultured up, we go full tourist and take the Hop on Hop off bus to the Guinness Storehouse for a 45 minute long advertisement for Guinness that ends with a pint of beer in the Gravity bar 7 stories up with a nice view over the city. It was free with our Dublin pass (thankfully) and I am no more a fan of Guinness now than I was before - luckily Ireland has so much more to offer in the ways of craft beer now.

Today has been logistically fine tuned, which is another way of saying we have a schedule to keep, and we leave Guinness and catch our HoHo bus to the Kilmainham Gaol for a pre-booked 12:45 tour of this famous prison which housed many a political prisoner but most notably the leaders of the Easter 1916 rebellion. The Gaol is a national museum and if it wasn’t obvious before, it is now, the Irish have not been well treated by the British over the 700 years that the English were lords and masters. The potato famine of the late 1840’s being the worst example of English rule. It is very well presented and you don’t have to hate the English to enjoy it. The Gaol closed in 1923 and fell into disrepair until the early 1960’s when it was restored and used as a location for many movies including the following:
The Italian Job, 1969
The Mackintosh Man, 1973
The Last Remake of Beau Geste, 1977
The Whistle Blower, 1987
In the Name of the Father, 1993
Michael Collins, 1996

After the tour we linger for a while and explore the museum before HoHo’ing to the Jamieson Distillery for more alcohol and advertising. We both find Jamieson’s to be a better tour and it culminates with a taste test of Jamieson’s, Jack Daniels and Johnie Walker Black label - the best selling brands of each particular type of whiskey. Irish Whiskey is definitely smoother than its counterparts if not as full of flavour.

By now I am amazed that Laurie has stayed awake, and with a big evening ahead, we HoHo it back to our hotel and have a 45 minute power nap - not in the schedule but important nonetheless.

Amazingly refreshed we head out for our evening Musical Pub Crawl which starts in Temple Bar at Oliver St John Gogarty’s for a quick bite before beginning our pub crawl. It is a fun 2+ hours at three pubs. It is informative and we make new friends - singing along (quietly). A great time. It is a precursor (hopefully) of things to come on the Irish west coast.

We end at a north side bar and walk home to our hotel for a good nights sleep.Read more