Another delicious Irish breakfast, this time with beans! Instead of wasting time walking, we took a cab to O'Connell Street, the main thoroughfare through Dublin.
We caught our tour bus out of town Northwest towards Tara, which is where the ancient seat of power was sometime near 2500 BC. Our tour guide was named Michael, and honestly, he sounded just like a Leprechaun. He sprinkled a few "if ya like!" interjections into the conversation, and was a wealth of local history and knowledge.
One thing the Irish love to remind us of is the Uprising of 1916. It's like every Dubliner is born with that chip on their shoulder. You can read about it here: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising) He must have mentioned it at least 4 times today. I'm glad I didn't tell him part of my family comes from England. It did eventually lead to Irish independence in 1922. They like to remind us of that a lot as well.
Anyway. When we arrived at Tara, we walked around a bit, heard a few myths and some history about the area including how Saint Patrick was involved, then were allowed to wander a bit. One hill had this important stone called The Destiny Stone which I wanted a photo of, but there were about five folks wandering about on the hill, circling it as if in some sort of ritual. Incense, a lantern, a video camera... Naturally I had to be nosy.
As I got to the top of the hill, one older lady was reading some ritual, and three of the remaining four had surrounded her in semi-bodyguard fashion, looking all solemn while she read on. The last gentleman was the videographer, but as she read he stood off to the side solemnly as well.
I listened in from about a distance of 15 feet or so, and managed to get the gist of what she was reading. I'm paraphrasing of course. She went on about renouncing the government, the banking system, the dna record keeping system, rebuking numbers, etc. She called upon the four elements and the local fairies, but then proceeded to remind the mystical powers that be that in calling out to them, she was not, in fact, giving them dominion over her soul, she just needed a little help. She repeated basically the same phrases reworded a few times.
Great, Irish Hippies.
If you've ever heard of Sovereign Citizens, it sounded an awful lot like that, only with the added mumbo jumbo about Fairies and the elements. They concluded after a few minutes, and I interjected briefly to get my photo and leave them to their mysticism. I wonder if the irony of her driving to the government supported sight of Tara on the government built roads dawned on her.
A quick cup of tea, a few postcard purchases for a friend back home, and it was off to Newgrange.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange)
Newgrange is a seriously ancient burial monument, even older than the pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge. Their best guess is at least 3200 B.C. We went inside which was very tight but was an engineering marvel. No pictures allowed inside, but I managed to sneak a couple (posted with this entry). It rained like cats and dogs. Did I mentioned that it rains in Ireland a lot? An umbrella is like gold out here: well worth its weight. I liked Newgrange. It's age was visually apparent and felt as heavy as the rocks that were precariously balanced over our heads. If you go, I hope you're not claustrophobic.
We ate lunch at the Visitor's Center Cafe, then left to visit a few more towns along the coast before heading back to Dublin.
One of the the coastal towns was Sutton. Sutton, near Howth Head (Northeast Dublin), unbeknownst to me, is the burial place of one of Ireland's most famous rock star exports: Phil Lynott, lead singer and bass player for Thin Lizzy.
Michael the bus driver / tour guide allowed us to stop and get some really great coastal cliff photos while heading back to Dublin.
We finally got back into Dublin proper around 5:30 with enough time for a quick pint before our dinner engagement at The Brazen Head, Ireland's oldest pub (est.1198).
We were there for a special dinner and storytelling event called Food, Folklore and Faeries. We had a three course meal interspersed with fun and entertaining stories of the Irish love for the potato, their respect and fear of fairies, and song as well. Our storyteller was Helena, and she did an awesome job of keeping a rowdy crowd entertained with laughter and singing. Oh, and the meal was great as well. I had chicken salad, salmon, fudge cake and Guinness of course. And as you can imagine, the potato was a part of of each meal in some form or fashion whether you had soup, salad, salmon, fish cakes or stew.
We finally arrived back in our hotel rooms, weary and worn, but pleased with the day.
Tomorrow is a free day of sorts, but we leave Dublin for good and head southwest towards Kilkenny.
Today's funny moment was definitely the hippies at Tara.
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