“When I die, Dublin will be written in my heart.”

Day 17: Dublin

I never thought I’d be drinking Guinness at 9 in the morning but that’s what time our tour of the Guinness storehouse was so we just had to roll with it. It was Beer O’Clock in Australia anyway.

Did you know that when Arthur Guinness started the brewery he actually signed a 9000 year lease! Confident in his product that’s for sure.
There are just 4 ingredients in Guinness:

Barley – natural, malted and roasted (that’s what gives it its distinctive colour which is actually a ruby red under the light).
Hops
Yeast (said to be the same one Arthur started with and kept in a safe)
Water from Wicklow Mountains

The process is as follows:

Roasted
Milled
mashed
It is now called Grist and mixed with liquor and water then mashed and sieved
Now it’s Called wort
Goes into a large kettle and hops is added and boiled
Fermentation – yeast is added to the beer and fermented for 2 days
Now called a beer or brew
Maturation – takes 6 days
Whole process is 9 days

After the process was explained we got to sample a small glass to learn how to taste it properly. I got very distinctive coffee flavour a when I did this.

Then we went to a Master Class to learn to pour as it is quite a specific process.

We took our pints up to the 7th floor to drink in the Gravity while enjoying 360• views of the city.

The Ads

There’s a great collection of advertising from over the years.

And a photo booth to put yourself in the action.

City tour
We drove around in the coach stopping at places and having a commentary by our local guide.

Pope John Paul II said a papal mass in the huge parklands that Dubliners enjoy and a cross has been erected on the site. Ireland is mostly Roman Catholic.

The President’s home is also in the park. He or she is just a figurehead really and don’t have power in the parliament however they are elected by the people for 7 year term at the end of which they can be reelected for another 7 years.

Anna Livia Plurabelle

The monument is a personification of the River Liffey which runs through the city. Anna Livia Plurabelle is the name of a character in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake who also embodies the river. Dubliners have nicknamed her the Floozie in the Jacuzzi, a nickname that was encouraged by the sculptor.

We passed the oldest pub in Dublin, The Brazen Head pub established 1198!

There are two Cathedral’s:
Christchurch and St Patrick’s Anglican Cathedral which is built on the site of St Patrick’s wooden church called ‘St Patrick on the island’.

Jonathan Swift is buried here. He famously wrote A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick,commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal. It is a satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. In it Swift suggested that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocked heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as British policy toward the Irish in general.

Victorian era tenements

We wandered down Grafton St and came across this Maccas:

Oscar Wilde lived here:

And his statue overlooks his house from the park across the road.

Trinity College

Home of the Book of Kells (800ad) and the Long Room library (inspiration for the Jedi Library on Coruscant in Star Wars Episode 3).

The Book of Kells

The Book of Kells is an extraordinary illuminated manuscript decorated with lavish Celtic and Christian iconography. Its distinctive designs are thought to have been created around 800 AD by Christian monks on the Isle of Iona in Scotland. It is composed of the four gospels, hand-transcribed on vellum in a script style known as “insular majuscule” or “insular script” which flourished in Ireland and Scotland between 600 and 850. It is named for the monastery at Kells, County Meath where the monks took refuge after a Viking raid and which became the manuscript’s home for centuries.The Book of Kells came to Trinity College in Dublin in 1661, for safekeeping after the Cromwellian raids on religious institutions. It has been on display since the 19th century. Two volumes are normally on display, one opened at a major decorated page, the other at a text opening.

You can see every page at this link:

http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/#folder_id=14&pidtopage=MS58_007v&entry_point=6

The Long Room Library

Built between 1712 and 1732, the Long Room at Trinity College’s Old Library holds the collection’s 200,000 oldest books.

The distinctive and beautiful barrel ceiling was added in 1860 to allow space for more works when the existing shelves became full. Marble busts of famous philosophers and writers line the central walkway of the nearly 200-foot-long room, created by sculptor Peter Schemakers beginning in 1743.

The enormous collection housed in the long room includes a rare copy of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic and the 15th-century wooden harp in the library which is the model for the emblem of Ireland.

Tower Records

Josh was in his element among the huge collection of vinyl at this store!

Lunch at Carluccios (Italian) and it was the huge meringues in the window that grabbed my attention!

We returned to the hotel and walked a few blocks looking for Windmill Lane where U2s famous recording studio is, or as it turns out, was. It was demolished last year to make way for fancy apartments. Was very sad to see rock n roll history gone, along with our messages from 27 years ago.