Last Stop--Dublin--Another Ancient City

Dublin—Another Ancient City

I think that could be the title of this grand adventure. 

 One Ancient City after another.

Dublin is just plain old. No doubt. 
I passed a 4500 BC site today where they found fishing traps and the city was founded in 1256...I think..something like that—right century anyway. Yep. That's OLD!

This chain mail weighs a TON!

It's an interesting blend of Viking, Celt, Norman, English and finally free Irish.

They talk of Dublin being one of the wealthiest cities in the world (before the Normans did their damage). Trading with places as far as Istanbul. Hmm....been there recently. That seems appropriate somehow.

The Custom's House (rebuilt 3 times!)

They have anger toward the 1801 act which abolished the Irish Parliament and all the wealth Brits moved home to rule Ireland from there. Absentee landlords are never an easy prospect.

Replica Jeanie Johnston carried
over 2500 immigrants

I heard about the Potato Famine at the Jeanie Johnston--a famine ship. (No my students....potatoes don't come from Idaho!--nor do they come from Ireland—think Columbian Exchange...) Soooo, excited that I've stumbled onto some cool primary sources for my next year's discussion on immigration!

They speak with pride about the 1916 Uprising. Where 16 martyrs lost their lives by firing squad for their roles in trying to bring independence to Ireland. (Aren't we glad John Hancock and the like got away?)

The Presidents House in Phoenix Park

And of 1922 when Ireland finally got their independence. Oops...and some continued IRA activity blowing things up in the 1970s.

The city is a mix of architecture. Modern, sleek, weird, beautiful and Georgian, Victorian and then the old stuff. Churches and cathedrals sprinkle the landscape.

To a non-drinker, their marriage to Guinness and drink is amazing. The Guinness factory here still makes 10 million...that's million pints a day. And this is not their biggest factory. Realize this though. Poor Yorkshire farmers and Italian immigrants to America needed to fill the bellies of their hardworking men. They couldn't afford meat so what'd they do? Yorkshire pudding and pizza. Stout is Ireland's answer to that problem. Evidently, stout is very filling. As my guide said today, “Well, even if you don't like the taste, you won't be hungry for awhile. It does make some sense when you have 1.2 million people starve to death during the Potato famine, I can see people doing whatever it takes to survive.

The Green in Trinity College

So, I rode through the city, managing to take pics despite a brisk breezy trying to blow away my ipad before the rain started. Learning and remembering.

I'm staying at another ancient university. Trinity. What a privilege I've had to have stayed at four, two of those this trip. (Edinburgh, Trinity, Oxford and Cambridge.) Drove by St. Andrews but didn't stop.

Yes, it rained. Got wet up to my knees. But with all the museums, I could have stayed more days and not seen it all. (I walked 4.85 miles today...and it didn't seem like all that much.)

But tomorrow, I go home. At long last.