Wednesday, September 4, 2019, Dublin, Ireland
Welcome sign at our dock.
Starting at the Custom House, we crossed the Liffey River to Dublin’s vibrant south side. We passed Ireland’s oldest university, Trinity College, founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I; Trinity’s library is home to the world-famous Book of Kells, a hand-illuminated manuscript of the Gospels. We continued to the famous Georgian brightly painted Doors of Dublin, the National Gallery of Ireland, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin Castle, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Founded in 1190, St. Patrick’s is perhaps best known for its association with Jonathan Swift, who was dean here from 1713 to 1745. On the way to Phoenix Park, Europe’s largest enclosed public park, we passed the famous Guinness Storehouse. Back on the north side, our tour concluded at the General Post Office, which was the scene of the 1916 Easter Rising and birthplace of the Irish nation.
St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Liffey River, famed for only 16 bridges.
Flowers are prevalent on most streets.
Government Buildings.
Bridge built in Netherlands and shipped and erected on site; shape of a harp, Ireland's symbol.
Cargo ship that hauled 200 starving Irish to various parts of the world.
The Great Famine (Irish: an Gorta Mór [anˠ ˈɡɔɾˠt̪ˠə ˈmˠoːɾˠ]), or the Great Hunger, was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1849. With the most severely affected areas in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was dominant, the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as An Drochshaol, loosely translated as the "hard times" (or literally, "The Bad Life"). The worst year of the period was 1847, known as "Black '47"). During the famine, about one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%.
Statues of starving Irish walking toward boats to sail away from the blight.
The event is sometimes referred to as the Irish Potato Famine, mostly outside Ireland. The proximate cause of the famine was a natural event, a potato blight, which infected potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, causing some 100,000 deaths outside Ireland. The impact of the blight was exacerbated by the British government's economic policy of laissez-faire capitalism. The food crisis influenced much of the unrest in the widespread European Revolutions of 1848.
The famine was a watershed in the history of Ireland, which from 1801 to 1922 was ruled directly by Westminster as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Together with the Napoleonic Wars, the Great Famine in Ireland produced the greatest loss of life in 19th-century Europe. The famine and its effects permanently changed the island's demographic, political, and cultural landscape, producing an estimated two million refugees and spurring a century-long population decline. For both the native Irish and those in the resulting diaspora, the famine entered folk memory. The already strained relations between many Irish and the British Crown soured further both during and after the famine, heightening ethnic and sectarian tensions, and boosting Irish nationalism and republicanism in Ireland and among Irish emigrants in the United States and elsewhere.
Extra wide double doors for hoop dresses to fit through.
Bicycling is very popular and important in Dublin. These have monthly fees.
This play-center is a Montessori school.
Outer walls of a centuries old city wall.
Circle K arrived very recently to Ireland.
This Guinness brewery ships to all the world.
The left-facing harp has a world-wide patent; several business has offered millions for it but Guinness has declined.
Phoenix Park, 1,750 acres, is the second largest in the world.
Phoenix Park is an urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying 2–4 km west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its 11 km perimeter wall encloses 1,750 acres; it is one of the largest enclosed recreational spaces within any European capital city. It includes large areas of grassland and tree-lined avenues, and since the 17th century has been home to a herd of wild fallow deer. The English name comes from the Irish fionn uisce meaning "clear water". The Irish Government is lobbying UNESCO to have the park designated as a world heritage site.
There are 300-500 species of trees and numerous soccer fields.
Gate into US Ambassador's residence.
Phoenix Park's Information Center.
Large tapestry on wall of info center.
Huge, odd shaped tree.
Moms out for a stroll in the park with kids.
Gate to Dublin's Mayor's Mansion.
On our way back to cruise ship.
Dublin's Criminal Court.
Weird ad on side of Double Decker bus.
More government buildings.
Next stop: Liverpool and the Beatles!
We received word this evening that due to forecast high winds for day after tomorrow we will not be able to stop at Hollyhead and therefore miss an interesting train rise. Instead we will make a substitute stop at Greenock (Glasgow, Scotland). 😥
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