10 Questions About…

Saturday we had a very fun lunch at the GastroPub, the same place we ate on Friday night. We went with everyone – including Fearghal and Irish Grandma. It was nice and sunny. The atmosphere was very relaxed and the food was excellent, again. (The picture below is Kate eating – or rather not eating – a mussel.)

Then we ventured to part two of the scariest tours in Dublin. We went to Kilmainham Gaol. Just to provide the backdrop… it was a dark and stormy night. Actually it wasn’t too stormy or night – but it was a dark, cold evening. We just made the last tour of the jail, which started at 4:45.

Kilmainham is/was a jail built in 1796. Prior to Kilmainham jails were just big rooms where they put everyone who was arrested. The goal at Kilmainham was to keep the prisoners separate, silent, and supervised. Originally I think it was built for about 77 people – with one person per cell. In it’s height there were 8 people in each cell.

Their busiest times historically were during various Irish uprisings and during the famine. During the famine some people went to jail because they thought they would be fed. Some were arrested for crimes such as stealing bread. Eight apparently was the age of reason; at age eight you could work and go to jail. I told Kate if it were 1847 she’d have only 2 months of freedom left.

Sadly 183 people were executed at Kilmainham. I won’t go into details but public executions were made illegal here in the mid1800’s.

The most famous prisoners at Kilmainham were the leaders of the 1916 uprising. Many of the Irish leaders were executed there by the British. Those executions really turned the public opinion of the uprising.

The prison was closed in 1924 and is now run as a museum. The tour guide we had was fascinating. There was/is no heat at Kilmainham. There are no glass windows. It was built on top of a hill so that the wind would whip right through it – the though being that would also kill many of the germs.

Each cell is small and creepy. Each cell has a peep hole so that the guard could watch the prisoners at any time of the day or night. (In the museum they have a demo cell with a peep hole. When you look through it you see a prisoner who seems to interact with you. I’m pretty sure that was the cause for the nightmares last night. It was eerie!)

The Victorian Wing (the newer wing) was built above the kitchen so it was warmer than the old wing. Silence was maintained and the prisoners never saw each other but they figured out a way to tap to each other (using Morse Code?) over the water pipes. This part of the prison has been used in several films, including In the Name of the Father and Michael Collins.

Patrick is not allowed to choose our Sunday destination for at least a month. Although I must admit I found the jail very interesting.

Had a great time out on Saturday night at the Palace Bar. We met up with John Newcombe, who I know several blog readers will remember. Also met up with Karina who worked at the café where I worked for a short time (15 years ago in Dublin). She is working at a bookstore in Dun Laoghaire. It’s a perfect job for her as she’s a voracious reader.

We tried to get into some fancy night club. They took one look at Patrick and just shook their head no.

Today was the Christmas Fair at the girls’ school. Actually it was a combined effort between Johnstown’s girl’s and boys’ school. It’s a holiday party and fundraiser. We had been waiting for it all week and it was fun.

Our day started with Lily and me going to Tesco to get our treats for the bake sale. (And no I didn’t remove the grocery store wrapper to try to pass them off as my own.) Then we delivered the items to the school. The hard thing is that I swear we were walking into a hurricane as we did it. We both had an umbrella; we both got soaked from the knee down.

Luckily the rain stopped before the big party. In fact we saw a rainbow on our way.

Here are the games/activities:

Manicures – I think one of the mom’s must have been a professional. I think we have a picture of Kate’s nails. They are amazing.

Wheel of Fortune – you buy a raffle ticket and hope that the wheel rolls to your number. We must have played a dozen times; we won nothing.

Game room – It looked like a lot of video games so we didn’t really stick around for it.

Tea room – Everyone got a sugary treat.

Books, Gifts, White Elephants – All places to buy new and used “major awards”. I think we bought a dozen Barbies.

Santa – Yes, the man was there and he gave everyone an advanced present. Aine is playing with her Winnie the Pooh stickers now.

The Fair lasted from 1:30 to about 5:00. We knew it was time to go when AIne had a complete meltdown. (I think we have some pictures.)

The girls decided to answer some of the questions that have come through the blog via video:

Today we went with Patrick’s mom and Fearghal to the National Museum at Collins Barrack. Patrick really wanted to see the Sea Stallion, a reconstruction of a Viking ship. Apparently the original boat was found in Denmark in 1962. They believe it was built in 1042 in Dublin using Scandinavian ship-building methods.

The reconstruction was built in 2000 – without modern tools. (We saw a video.) It was very cool – once completed the boat sailed to Dublin and now it sits in Collins Barrack.

Collins Barracks is a former military barracks in the City Center. Housing both British armed forces, and Irish army garrisons through three centuries, the barracks were the oldest continuously occupied example in the world. (Got that snippet from Wikipedia.)

We saw two other exhibits while we were there. We saw an exhibit on the 1916 Easter Uprising. Here’s a brief description – again thanks to Wikipedia – The Easter Rising (Irish: Éirí Amach na Cásca) was a rebellion staged in Ireland in Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was an attempt by militant Irish republicans to win independence from Britain. Up until that time the British had been ruling Ireland.

Organized by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Rising lasted from Easter Monday April 24 to April 30, 1916. Much of the violence happened in front of the GPO (Post Office.) The next time we’re there I’ll try to take a picture of some of the bullet holes in the walls.

After that exhibit we saw Soldiers Chiefs – which was kind of an extension from the 1916 exhibit. It shows how soldiering and war have affected the lives of Irish people. There’s a lot of information on the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and how folks who appeared not to have a role inthe army covertly helped the effort. It was pretty cool.

And thanks to the fact that I didn’t see the no camera sign until we were leaving, I have lots of good photos. 🙂

This weekend has been windy – very windy in Ireland. Rumor has it they took all of the boats out of the water on the West coast and they’d asked people to keep away from the coast. It’s not quite that bad in Dublin – but it is windy.

We had planned to go ice skating today but Kate decided that we shouldn’t because certainly we’d all break an arm. So we went to the Blackrock Market and to have lunch in Blackrock.

Blackrock isn’t very far from Cabinteely. We took a bus. The market wasn’t very busy – probably because of the wind and rain. The market has about 20 stalls and you can buy a wide range of items – from dream catchers, a red secondhand leather jacket that was only €15 (I add that in case Patrick is reading this and wondering what to get me for Christmas), books, records, candles and lot of other things.

Blackrock is on the bay so I took some pictures of Patrick and the kids – but as you’ll see the wind wasn’t too impressive here.

At night Patrick and I went to a pub called the Silver Tassie. Really we just went to any pub that was less than 3 bus stops away. It was pure luck that this pub has a singer with a drum machine and we could hear every female-sung song from 1982! Plus it was someone’s 60th birthday so there were tons of people dressed up.

On Friday night Patrick and I went to see Bad Manners. They were great! I’m pretty sure that the last time I saw them was in Dublin almost 15 years ago.

Bad Manners is a fun ska band. The lead singer is Buster Bloodvessel. They’re big songs include My Girl Lollypop and Lip Up Fatty. I’ve learned that some bands do not weather well – but that’s not the case with Bad Manners. They were as good now as they were years ago. I wish I had my camera at the show – I think I was the only person who wasn’t taking pictures or videos.

I staked out room right in front of the stage. Patrick spent more time in the moshpit. We left hot and sweaty – but that was good because it was very windy outside.

On Tuesday, Patrick and I went to the Project Arts Center to see any art exhibit – Blackboxing. It was a pretty modern exhibit – so I liked it and Patrick didn’t.

After the show we went to an Italian restaurant. It was good and not too expensive. One good sign was that we were one of the few tables in the place not speaking Italian.

After the show we stopped by the Porterhouse Pub where we ran into someone from Patrick’s class. So we had a fun time and a good Tuesday night.

Today we went with Fearghal to the Phoenix Park. We were in the Phoenix Park a couple of months ago to go to the zoo but we didn’t much time to walk around. This time we took time to climb up the Wellington Testimonial (not to the top). Then we took off to see the Papal Cross.

The Papal Cross marks the place where the Pope said mass in 1979. Both Patrick and Fearghal remembered waking up early to go to see the Pope. I think pretty much everyone in Ireland (certainly Dublin) at the time remembers going to see the Pope.

We didn’t see the Pope – but we did get to see the deer. There’s a herd of deer that apparently hang out at the park. The park is huge – almost 1800 acres. Anyways back to the deer – Aine nearly caught a deer. She was very, very sad that she didn’t catch one.

The weather was amazing. It was cold on Friday – but the weather bounced back for us over the rest of the weekend.

Here’s a map from Cabinteely to Phoenix Park. We rarely go to North Dublin, so I thought it might be interesting to see:

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