Wed 21st- Dublin City

The only problem that I’ve found with staying at B&Bs are that breakfasts are served between a certain time usually lasting from one to two hours and usually fairly early in the morning. Most of the time this is OK as we’re keen to get on the road each day but just occasionally when you feel like a sleep in, the timing becomes an problem especially when you look out the window and it’s dark, cold and still raining! Of course we could go without breakfast but I always feel like I’ve paid for it so I’m going to eat it and anyway, it’s part of the holiday experience, every breakfast is a new experience. Today we feel like sleeping in, we’re coming to the end of our tour of Ireland and we’ve been on the go every day. One more full day and we fly to Manchester in the morning. In the end we make it to the breakfast room with 5 minutes to spare where we have our last cooked breakfast of the holiday while planning our day.


Top of the list is a tour of the Guinness Brewery even though neither of us likes Guinness! It would seem you can’t come to Dublin and not do a tour, its Ireland’s number one visitor attraction. We headed off in the general direction of the St James’s Gate Brewery and spent the next hour trying to find the entrance to Storehouse which is where the “visitor experience” happens. No matter where we drove we saw signs of the brewery; the iconic St Patrick’s Tower, a tall redbrick building with a green dome(it’ was actually an old windmill that has lost it’s blade sails), other brewery buildings, dozens of trucks, huge neon signs, etc but not the Storehouse. The brewery is located on 60 acres of land on Dublin’s south side and it would seem we drove right around the outside perimeter with a few one way roads throw in for good measure. We finally asked directions and found that we’d passed the entrance road at the very beginning of our tiki tour. It didn’t help that it was morning rush hour and it was raining.

The site has been the home of Guinness since 1759 and this year they are celebrating 250 years of brewing. Arthur Guinness signed a 9000 year lease on the St James’s Gate property, which at that point was only 4 acres, costing him the princely sum £45 and that was for the whole 9000 years! Each day this brewery alone produces 3 million pints of the black stuff for the Irish, UK, European and US markets. The 7 storey high Storehouse was a former fermentation plant which has been turned into the visitors centre. The story of Arthur Guinness and how to brew Guinness are told as you wind yourself round and up the various floors until you finally reach the highest point of the building, The Gravity Bar where you can get your free pint of Guinness and admire the 360o view of Dublin city. We thought we should at least say we’d had a drink of Guinness and so I got a ½ pint and David got a Sprite :)  Unfortunately I still didn’t think it was any nicer after watching how it was brewed and we left a near full glass on the table, along with a few others that people obviously didn’t want it either. The views were great but it was still overcast and gloomy.

The view over Dublin city, St Patrick's Tower with it's green dome in the centre-

Some facts-
100,000 tonnes of Irish grown barley are used every year in making Guinness
Hops only grow in two regions of the world- between 35o & 55o north and south of the equator- Australia, Czech Republic, Germany, the UK, the US and New Zealand!
8 million litres of water flow into the brewery each day and contrary to popular belief is not- and has never been- drawn from the River Liffey. The water comes from the Wicklow Mountains above Dublin city.
Stout is a “stouter” version of porter. Porter a darker version of beer was invented in London in the 18th century.
Over 300 coopers(barrel makers & repairers) were employed before machinery took over the job.

David wanted to return to the B&B and catch up on some business at home so I had him drop me off downtown so I could have a wander around the city. I was happy, I had a city map and I’d catch a bus or a taxi home later in the afternoon. I got out of the car at the lights on the corner of the Grattan Bridge and Parliament Street. It wasn’t until David pulled away that I realised I’d dropped the map in the car in the hurry to get out before the lights changed. Lucky I had the umbrella and I was bound to find a map somewhere on my travels. Unfortunately I didn’t have my bearings and I was convinced I was on the other side of the river to the general direction of the B&B. I headed off in what I thought would be the direction of the main street, O’Connell Street. In fact it was in the total opposite direction. Along the way I watched some barrels of ale being off loaded and rolled across the footpath and then dropped down into the cellar of a pub.

I passed Christ Church Cathedral and walked a little further on before deciding this was the wrong way, there were too many "suits" walking by.

If I had walked another 6 or so blocks I’d have found myself right back at the Guinness Storehouse! I turned around and retraced by steps, I next found myself in the Temple Bar area of the city, a place I did want to visit even though I had no idea how I got there.

This area is well known as the Cultural Quarter and is a maze of cobbled streets with an array of restaurants, bars and shops, most with vibrant coloured shop fronts.

Still without a map I followed the general direction of the people around me and found myself crossing over the River Liffey via the pedestrian Ha’penny Bridge built in 1816.

I carried on through to Henry Street, a very wide pedestrian only shopping street and it was here that I could see the 120 meter tall Spire(aka the Spike) built for the Millennium and finished in 2003. I had seen it from the Gravity Bar where it looked like a tall thin needle, now it was huge and it stood right in the centre of O’Connell Street.

It was raining quite hard now so I thought I’d better locate a map and start to head home. I was also thinking that I was on the right side of the river and it wasn’t too far to get back to the B&B. I found a bus counter but unfortunately their maps didn’t have the information I was looking for and to make matters worse I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name of the street the B&B was in. Next I found a visitor’s information centre but their free maps only included the city centre and I wasn’t going to fork out money to buy a map I was only going to use for an hour or two. They were happy to give me directions but I still couldn’t remember the street name. I had a quick scan of the map books on display and finally found it, duhhhh!! Waterloo Road hence Waterloo B&B!

O'Connell Street-

Now I could see I was actually on the wrong side of the river and miles away from the B&B. I asked for directions to the right bus stop to catch a bus back, they directed me up O’Connell Street and into Parnell Square West. When I got there a helpful bus driver said no it’s Parnell Square East you’d be wanting. Bloody hell! The Square was quite big and even further away from the direction I wanted to head. By the time I got to the East side it was rush hour and there were hundreds and hundreds of people jostling and rushing for just as many buses. I though blow this I’ll start to walk back home and catch a taxi if I get tired.

Parnell Street West-

Off I headed back down O’Connell Street again and over the O’Connell Bridge where not only was the rain heavy but the traffic was too. By now I had a rough idea of where I needed to head, down College Street I passed Trinity College and then into Grafton Street, another pedestrian only shopping street, turned left at St Stephen’s Green, passed along Merrion Row and then into Baggot Street Lower and then Baggot Street Upper which was now just a short haul from Waterloo Road and home.

David had called me earlier in my wanderings wondering where on earth I’d got to as it was over 3 hours since he’d dropped me off. It was now well over 4 hours, I don’t think he believed me that I hadn’t set foot inside a shop but I can quite honestly say that I didn’t and that I sure did “walk” Dublin City. I think I would have walked at least 10 kms.

Hmmm......maybe I should have hired one of these to see the city-

In fact there are 40 of these bike stations around the city, you can get a 3 day ticket or a long term hire card and then it's just a matter of inserting your card at the station and removing a bike. Once you have finished you can return it at any of the other stations or the same one, then collect one again the next day or the next time you need a bike.

It was about 6pm by the time I got to our neighbourhood, it was dark and raining so David met me at the Baggot Street shops and we grabbed an early dinner from a great Italian restaurant on the banks of the Grand Canal then it was back to the B&B where I had to repack the bags in preparation for our flight to Manchester early the next morning. Needless to say I slept very soundly that night after my “great walk”.

Tue 20th- Newgrange

Guess what? It’s raining, no surprise there then. We pack the car say good bye to our charming host after having kippers for breakfast! We leave the B&B stinking to high heaven, a nice welcome for their next guests, some musicians(he won’t tell us who, but they are well known).

We find our way onto the A1 and head south in torrential rain. I was hoping to take some of the coast road to Dublin but there’s no point, you can hardly see the edge of the road. We pass from County Antrim and into County Down just south of Belfast and then we say good bye to Northern Ireland and cross the border once again into the Republic of Ireland, the M1 and County Louth. There is no way I want to stick to M1 even if it is raining. You just don’t get to see anything of the countryside barrelling along at great speed so we take the off ramp to Ardee and head south on the N2 although I do have an ulterior motive, providing the rain plays ball. And sure enough it does, it’s now just a few light showers here and there and clearing all the time. I’m hoping we can stop off at Newgrange, the most famous of all Ireland’s Megalithic Passage Tombs.

We follow the sign posts all the way round in a big arc and end up nearly back on the M1.We are now also in County Meath. The visitors centre is actually 5-6kms away from the tomb on the other side of the River Boyne. After you book your tour you catch a bus to the tomb and are shown around it by a guide. This is obviously so there is less impact on the environment and not thousands of cars using the country lanes and disrupting the farming community that farm right up to and around the tomb sites and even all over some of the lesser known sites. There are three main passage tombs in the Boyne Valley and lots of other megalithic sites and stone circles, the whole valley has been designated a World Heritage Site.

The rain has returned with vengeance but we’re here now and we have our wet weather gear and umbrellas. We get our tickets and colour sticker for our jackets to say which tomb we are visiting. The sticker also has our departure time on it, we follow the path up and over the river and I feel like we’re back at school waiting for the bus to arrive with our stickers on show in case we get on the wrong one.

There are only 10 or so people for our tour which is great, we later hear that you can have up to 40 plus people and I’m afraid where we’re heading that would be no fun and very claustrophobic. We arrive at the site and wait in the “corral” for our guide. The rain has mercifully stopped again but it’s bitterly cold and we all move about rubbing our hands together and jumping up and down on the spot trying to keep warm. Our guide gives us a brief rundown on the history of the area and the tombs and answers quite a few questions from us. We then make our way across the grass to the entrance to Newgrange.

I “stole” this photo to show you the size of the thing. You can see a group of people at the entrance.

You will remember that we saw a roof box in tomb at Carrowkeel in County Sligo, well Newgrange is the tomb with the only other roof box. A shaft of sunlight shines through the roof box and penetrates the passage to light up the chamber, this only happens for 17 minutes at dawn and for a few mornings either side of the Winter Solstice. So many people want to experience this that there is a lottery system set up where 50 names(with 2 places each)are selected to be in the chamber when it happens. Over 30,000 applications are submitted each year!

We wait outside the entrance for the previous tour to exit and then make our way in through the opening ducking to get underneath the capstone at the entrance. It’s a very narrow passage and takes some getting through between the huge rocks that jut out into the passage way. The passage rises 2 meters from the entrance so that the light from the roof box (at winter solstice) is lined up with the chamber floor.

We weren’t allowed to take photo inside the chamber so these chamber ones are again “stolen”

Newgrange was built about 3200 BC (it predates Stonehenge by 1000 years), the mound covers over an acre, is 76 meters across and 12 meters high. It’s surrounded by 97 kerbstones, some of which are decorated with megalithic art. It is estimated that the construction of the tomb at Newgrange would have taken a work force of 300 at least 20 years.

Within the mound, a long passage, stretching approximately one third of the length of the mound, leads to a cruciform (cross-shaped) chamber. The passage itself is over 18 meters long. The burial chamber has a corbelled roof which rises steeply upwards to a height of nearly 6m. A tribute to its builders, the roof has remained essentially intact and waterproof for over 5,000 years.

Newgrange appears to have been used as a tomb. The recesses in the chamber hold large stone basins into which were placed cremated human remains. During excavation, the remains of five people were found. It is speculated that the sun formed an important part of the religious beliefs of the neolithic people who built it.

Note the tri-spiral design on this stone. This is probably the most famous Irish Megalithic symbol. It is often referred to as a Celtic design, but it was carved at least 2500 years before the Celts reached Ireland. At 12 inches in diameter the tri-spiral design is quite small in size, less than one-third the size of the tri-spiral design on the entrance stone- see the photo up above.

Once we were all safely inside the chamber there was more time for questions. It was a tight fit (and we were only 10 people) and would be very, very claustrophobic with more people on the tour, I'm not sure how they fit up to 40 people in there. The chamber is dimly lit by electricity so we can see the three side chambers, the huge stone bowls, the megalithic art on the stones and the corbelled roof with its huge stones all placed just right to support each other.

Before we were given an example of how the the roof box worked the lights were switched out and we were left in total darkness. You could not see your finger in front of your face, it was pitch black. Our guide suggested that one of the gentlemen sing in the darkness, apparently women’s voices are no good but the chamber is very acoustic for the men’s(personally I think they’re more gullible! ). None of the men wanted to do it other than of course you know who. David started singing of all things, Danny Boy! (I wonder how many times that’s been sung in there) The other men then all followed along, I was laughing my head off knowing that it was so dark they couldn’t see. Most of them were out of tune but then, I wouldn’t be any better, in fact I would have been ten times worse, being tone deaf and all! We all had a good laugh when the lights came back on. But boy it was black.

Next they simulated the sunrise and how the light box worked. The lights were turned off and you watched as the sunrise “beam” slowly crawled up the passage way from the entrance and into the chamber. That was very interesting. It’s amazing how something so huge that was constructed so long ago can be so precise that a tiny beam of light finds its way inside for such a short period of time. Incredible.

We then made our way back to the outside and proceeded to walk around the perimeter of the mound and back to the entrance way to await our bus.

More art work

Newgrange lay hidden for over 5,000 years due to mound slippage, until the late 17th century, when men looking for building stone uncovered it, and described it as a cave. Newgrange was excavated and mostly restored between 1962 and 1975. The mound is retained within a circle of large kerbstones topped by a high inward-leaning wall of white quartzite and granite. Most of the stones were sourced locally(within a 20km radius) but the stones of the façade have been sourced further afield.

The large kerbstones topped with stone wall

As part of the restoration process the white quartzite stones and cobbles were fixed into a near-vertical steel-reinforced concrete wall surrounding the entrance of the mound. This restoration is controversial and critics of the wall say that the technology did not exist when the mound was created to fix a retaining wall at this angle. Another theory is that the white quartzite stones formed a plaza on the ground at the entrance.

Quartzite stones at the entrance, standing stones in the foreground

Just as we got back to the waiting area the heavens opened up again. Our small umbrellas were no match for this downpour. Luckily the rain was nearly horizontal and we had a big sign to shelter behind although the smokers in the group weren’t so lucky!  :)

Back in the bus a little worse for wear we made our way back to the visitor’s centre where we grabbed ourselves some lunch, dried out and warmed up. Most of the selection was very expensive, a captive audience no doubt, we settled for the cheaper soup and bread roll which was very tasty.

It was about 4pm by now and we still have about an hour to travel to Dublin(in the final county of our visit; County Dublin!). Of course we arrive during rush hour and our B&B is across the other side of town. I actually don’t mind arriving at a busy time, it’s gives you a chance to see the city while waiting in a queue or at the dozens of lights.

After a few wrong turns we eventually find Waterloo House tucked down a side street and not very far away from the city centre. We unpack the car, catch up with some work and the wander down the road to find some dinner.

The suns out but it's still raining! A sun shower.

Mon 19th- Belfast Murals

We had a business meeting in the afternoon in Ballyclare (there are so many villages in Ireland starting with Bally in the end I had to ask what it meant. Bally in Irish means "place of..." so I guess it makes sense!) Ballyclare was about 30 minutes drive north of Belfast.

With the morning free we were able to do another tour that I had been hoping we’d be able to fit in. At least one good thing came out of all the rain yesterday; we had more time in Belfast. I phoned the famous Black Taxi tours that do personalized tours of the Belfast Murals which appear throughout the city but predominately in Shankhill Road(Protestant) and Falls Road(Catholic), two working class neighbourhoods that were the focal points of the civil conflict known as The Troubles (1969 – 1998) and where many lives have been lost in the sectarian violence. The Murals are now quite a major tourist attraction, a lot of the more provocative murals from both sides of the fence have been painted over during the peace process although there was still a subtle underlying current running through a few of them.

Our taxi driver (to be known as TD from now on) arrived early and had a quick smoke while waiting for us , it wasn’t in a black taxi either just one of the hundreds with advertising all over them. He was a lovely guy with a quick wit and enjoyed hearing his own voice I’m sure.

TD was very, very knowledgeable regarding The Troubles and the history of both the Catholic’s and Protestant’s point of view. He wouldn’t tell us which he was but challenged us to guessing by the end of the tour. He explained that we’d be heading to the Shankhill Road area first. We parked up in an open park area surrounded by terraced houses, this was in the heart of Shankhill and in fact during The Troubles a lot of the houses were damaged by bombs and fires, etc and have been demolished and new houses built. While TD had another smoke he sent us on a little walking tour across the park and along the rows of houses getting a close up view of some of the Murals. They are mostly on the gabled ends of house rows or on any large blank walls.

TD told us to keep our eye on the guy with the gun in the middle and report back what happened. In fact the gunman’s eyes followed you from one side to the other. He never took them off you, it was quite an uncanny feeling.

Back in the taxi the next stop was at one of the Peace Lines. These walls (there are several in Belfast and in Londonderry) are a series of separation barriers ranging in length from a few hundred yards to over 5kms that separate Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods. They were built as temporary structures in the 1970s following the outbreak of The Troubles but proved very effective and have since become permanent structures with more being built and others made longer.

There are huge gates that lock off each side at 8pm each night , reopening at 5am and in the past they have been locked for weeks at a time during times of conflict or during the Protestant marching season (July) and sometimes when Celtic & Rangers play each other at soccer in Scotland. The walls are topped with very high steel netting so bombs and missiles can’t be lobbed over to the other side and in fact you can still see the scorch marks left from petrol bombs. There are CCTV cameras and razor wire on top of the gates which used to be manned 24/7 by police before the peace process.

TD said he had something in his car boot that was far more harmful to the dissidents than guns. I guessed it was black marker pens. TD was very impressed (I didn’t tell him I’d read it on a website) We stopped at the wall to add our names and peace messages to the thousands of others along with dozens of different graffiti than ran right along the wall in both directions.

We then drove through the gates and into the Catholic Falls Road area stopping at the Clonard Martyrs Memorial Garden which is right below the Peace Wall. The garden commemorates people killed from the neighborhood as well as IRA paramilitaries.

Click on the photos to read the inscriptions.

TD then pointed out the protection the houses have when they are backed against the peace wall. Odd constructions that look like metal conservatories, this is to stop any missiles that could be thrown over from the other side.

He also showed us a rubber bullet, the supposedly non-lethal ammunition that British soldiers use, it was huge, about 50cm long by 30cm wide you could still see the powder burn on the bottom of it. TD said it had bounced off a wall and just missed him. Another taxi driver on a tour came and borrowed from TD to show his clients. It was obviously “hot-property”.

TD beside the phoenix outside the gates to the memorial garden

We next stopped at the headquarters of the political party Sinn Féin with the famous mural of hunger striker Bobby Sands on the side.

Back in the car and a little further along we stopped at the International Wall of Belfast which features murals of people and organizations inspired by or with connections to Irish Republicanism. There’s an expert copy of a Picasso painting about the 1936 Spanish Civil War and also ones that criticized the war in Iraq.

Last stop of the day before TD dropped us back at the B&B was at the entrance to another Protestant area, Sandy Row. This mural is very similar to the Republican one that we saw in Londonderry. TD then pointed out the Europa Hotel known as “the most bombed hotel in Europe”. Between 1972 & 1994 it was damaged 33 times by the IRA.

Have you guessed whether TD is Protestant or Catholic? In fact he is a Protestant and “born and bred” on Shankill Road. He’s been driving taxis for 30 plus years and it used to be quite a dangerous job. In the worst days, a gang known as The Shankill Butchers used to drive round the Catholic areas in a black taxi, grabbing people off the streets. He said he’d had a few close calls over the years, but now he can drive around any neighbourhood without any trouble. He also knew of an illegal drinking club(known as a “shabeen”) that was used for kneecappings. That area has since been leveled.

We both thoroughly enjoyed the tour and would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn a little more about the political situation in Northern Ireland. On our way back to the B&B we drove through the centre of the city which looks a very vibrant and interesting city. Belfast is apparently the new "hip" place to visit, once again, it's a pity we don't have more time to explore.

We drove out to Ballyclare for our business meeting which went very well but was a bit of an anti-climax after such a thought provoking morning.

We had dinner in the city with friends later in the evening and had a great time catching up. One of the couples had been to NZ last summer and toured in a camper van for six weeks. They so enjoyed the van that when they got home they purchased their own and are now touring Ireland at every available moment. I asked the husband how he compared NZ and Ireland. I thought he had a great answer. He said “New Zealand was Ireland on steroids! Everything was more extreme, bigger, faster, greener, bluer, etc” I would have to agree although we can’t compete on the history and cute & colourful villages!

The rain had returned by the time we made it back to the B&B, tomorrow we are heading to Dublin.