Filed under: Dublin
The girls were off school today. We’re not sure why – but that was OK. We don’t get as many random days off here as back home and we miss it. We had planned to go into town on Saturday but that didn’t work out so we decided to do it today.
House of Lords
First we went into the House of Lords. Well it used to be Ireland’s parliament but now it’s a bank. There used to be 2 parliament buildings – but when they were sold to the bank they were under instructions to raze them. I’m not sure why this one wasn’t but the other, larger building was. (The bank guy didn’t know why either.)
Anyways the bank/parliament is across the street from Trinity College. It is a bank but they keep the main room and several other artifacts out for folks to see.
Christ Church
Then we went to Christ Church. We used to live very near to Christ Church but I don’t think I had ever been there before. It’s very large and was built around 1030. The stained glass is amazing, the size of it is amazing – but the most amazing thing is the crypt under the church.
The crypt is a super old, open basement. Apparently in the 16th and 17th centuries, it was a pub. There is even a stockade in it. The girls thought it was very creepy. I thought it was cool.
Filed under: Dublin
Sunday afternoon we headed to Johnnie Fox’s in Glencullen. It’s the highest licensed pub in Ireland; it’s about a 20 minute drive from the house. It was established in 1798. It’s huge.
We didn’t realize when we decided to head there that we’d be seeing live music over lunch – but it was fun. The food was good – even the girls ate their whole meals.
Filed under: Dun Laoghaire
Sunday we went to the People’s Park in Dun Laoghaire. They usually have a market on Sundays but on Sunday they had a winter festival – the recharge festival. It’s held on the gloomiest day to try to perk up everyone’s mood. It was a good idea and a good little festival.
There were bouncy castle types of equipment for Aine. We had a sad benchmark when Lily looked at the bouncy castle slide and said, I think I’m too old for those rides. Fortunately she wasn’t too old for the laser tag. Or the face painting or the craft projects where they made T-shirts.
Filed under: Wicklow
Sadly Patrick went to a funeral on Saturday. It was for the mother of a friend of his.
At the funeral Patrick ran into friends of his who have not actually immigrated or who have returned from immigrating. Subsequently we went out Saturday night with his friends in Greystones, which is an outer ring beachside suburb of Dublin – although it might be in Wicklow.
So we met up with David & Andrea Kelly and Paul Jordan. I remembered Paul and David from years back – Andrea is David’s wife, from Checkoslovakia. It was fun to talk to them. We had a great night.
Paul picked us up, we met friends at the pub, it was kind of like being at home.
