May 23 - Touring Dublin 2

Today was our third day in Dublin and our second day playing tourist.  Today we had the best weather since we've been in Ireland.  Once again we used the Hop On Hop Off bus to take us around the city.  Our first stop was St. Patrick's Cathedral and you can see by this photo that it was a beautiful day.

The site of St. Patrick's is believed to be the oldest Christian site in Ireland with initially a wooden church built in the 5th century.  In the garden next to the cathedral they have located a well which is believed to have been used by St. Patrick to baptize the locals.  The current cathedral was built between 1191 and 1270 so it's about 50 years newer then Christ Church but is bigger and it's the largest church in Ireland.  I thought is was a prettier church than Christ Church.  Both St. Peter's and Christ Church are Anglican and part of the Church of Ireland.  This designation as the Church of Ireland is a remnant of the days of English rule as the Irish are by a large majority Roman Catholic (84%) while the Church of Ireland is less then 3%.  Here is a photo looking down the length of the church.

Here is a photo of the choir area:

Here is a photo of the main altar:

Behind the altar is an area called The Lady Chapel.  This is a large chapel dedicated the the Blessed Virgin Mary and located directly behind the main altar.

And here is a close up of the altar in the chapel:

At the very front of the Nave is this pew reserved for the head of state with the emblem of Ireland, the harp, on a field of blue which is considered to be St. Patrick's color.

The floor is covered with ceramic tile set in a pattern.  Since anything made by the hand of man can not be perfect, one of the tiles is intentionally set wrong, it's rotated 90 degrees.  Here is that floor area with our guide pointing out the incorrectly set tile.

One item they have on display is an old door with a section missing out of the center.  This dates back to 1492 when there was a feud between two Irish Families, the Butlers and the FitzGeralds.  The Butlers took refuge behind this door in the church and the head of the FitzGeralds had his men cut a hole in the door and reached his arm through it to offer peace to the Butlers.  They accepted, shook hands and peace reigned for at least a little while.

One of the most famous of St. Patrick's Deans was Jonathon Swift who served as Dean from 1713 until his death in 1745.  In order to have the last word, he wrote his own epitaph as shown on this plaque which is on the wall of the church just above his grave in the church floor.  He wrote Gulliver's Travels while serving as dean.

The church has a lot of monuments either attached to the walls or free standing, here are a couple of photos of examples:

The stained glass windows were very beautiful and here are examples of some of them.

Our next stop was the Guinness Storehouse which is the location of the original brewery established by Arthur Guinness in 1759.  He must have figured that brewing would be a good long term business as he signed a lease for the property for 9,000 years.  The building we entered was a fermentation plant from 1904 to 1988 but now is a seven story visitor center.  When you enter the first thing you see is the gift shop as in this photo.

You then walk from floor to floor where they take you thru the steps of making Guinness Extra Stout Porter.  Here is one of the exhibits which is about how they get their fresh water from the Wicklow Mountains just south of the city.

On the top floor is what is called the Gravity Bar where you get to have a pint of Guinness Stout.  The bar has a 360 degree view over the city that is pretty spectacular. This photo shows part of the plant.

Here are some views.

This photo shows the Spire of Dublin which is on O'Connell Street.  It is 400 feet tall and is supposed to represent Dublin looking to the future.  It is 10 feet in diameter at the base and tapers all of the way up.  Looks like a giant flagpole without the flag.

Here you can see the spire of St. Patrick's the The Aviva Stadium just to the left.  This stadium is home to a rugby team and a Gaelic football team.  When we were visiting in Collon we had Gaelic football explained to us, it's complicated and seems to be a cross between soccer and rugby.

In this photo you can see the Wicklow Mountains just to the south of Dublin.

We then had lunch on the 5th floor in the cafeteria as seen here:

Here is a photo of the interior of the visitor center.

Our last stop was the Jameson Distillery.  Unfortunately is was going to be over an hour wait to get on a tour so we just hit the gift shop

Here is a photo of the entrance area of the distillery with several restaurants and bars.

While we were waiting for the bus I took this shot of modern apartment building in this area of the city.  Convenient location as just at the corner there was a stop for the light rail system which takes you right into the city center.

We mad e it back to the hotel and then went out for Saturday Vigil Mass at St. Mary's Church which is just one block down from the hotel.  Here is a photo of that church.  It was built in 1839.

And here is the interior.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped off for a traditional fish and chips dinner.

Tomorrow we meet up with our tour.