Dublin: Home of "The Black Stuff"

Yeats' original copy of
The Countess Kathleen
O'shea

"The Famine"

So far I have had one day in Dublin with dad, and one day by myself. I will do one more day here before heading off to London on Thursday.

Dad and I started our day in Dublin by leaving our hostel and heading towards Trinity College, the prestigious stone campus which is the bustling center point for downtown Dublin. We did a lot of ambling down busy streets and drinking lattes, we strolled through both Merrion Square and St. Stephens Green which are both wonderfully landscaped and include ponds and statues of famous Irishmen.

Yeats' tools for the Order
of the Golden Dawn.

The highlight of our day was when we stumbled upon the W.B. Yeats exhibit located inside the National Library of Ireland. Here we learned all about Yeat's childhood and his involvement with the Irish theater and the esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn. The exhibit included many letters and original copies of his poems including the first copy of Countess Kathleen O'shea which he wrote for his muse, Maud Gonne. The exhibit also included his personal set of tarot cards. and hand crafted tools symbolizing earth, fire, water, and air that he used during ceremonies with the Golden Dawn. Dad and I wrapped our day up by walking to the Temple Bar district, a touristy area but worth visiting. We ate at an Italian restaurant because the idea of any more bangers' N bash sounded, well, horrible.

The Temple Bar

The next day was my first day in Ireland as a solo traveler and I did what I'd been yearning to do but couldn't with dad around....sleep in! After getting plenty of beauty sleep I set off to do another girls only activity, shopping! Dad was surprisingly patient about popping into random stores during our time together (I'll thank Michale Ann for that one!) but I wanted to really browse, try things on, compare prices, all the good stuff. Dublin is much colder than I expected and I'm planning on London being the same so I got a few extra layers to keep warm including a black faux leather jacket and a few long sleeved, silky traveling shirts.

The tomb of a Knight
and his lady, St. Audoen's

Church of St. Augustine
and John

I wandered further west than dad and I had gone, through the Temple Bar district and into the Viking/Medieval area. This area was crammed full of  medieval cathedrals and castles. Most of the museums in this area had pretty expensive entrance fees that I didn't feel like dishing over so I instead chose to pop in and out of the beautiful, and free, Cathedrals. The first one I explored was St. Audoen's. From the sidewalk, I turned right down an unmarked path with a stone archway and flowering beds. Little did I know that at the end of the path sat one of the oldest, continuously used, medieval churches in Dublin. The highlight of the tour was a tomb of a knight and his lady. The next church I entered had stained glass windows and vaulted ceilings for days. I sat for nearly 10 minutes just interpreting the images that swam above my head. Hundreds of pews, beautifully detailed stations of the cross, ornate wooden confession booths and panel upon panel of stained glass windows completed the angelic scene.

Where the magic happens

I left the cathedral and turned right, making turns wherever the buildings looked most interesting until suddenly I was standing in front of a very interesting sign indeed: "Guinness Storehouse" it read. I followed signs to a visitors entrance where I learned that for 17 Euros (a little over 20 dollars) I could go on a self-guided tour of the plant, wrapped up with a pint of Guinness in the "Gravity Bar" overlooking all of Dublin. I signed up faster than an Irishman could say "blarney".

The inside of the Guinness storehouse

The Guinness Storehouse was a fermentation plant from 1904 to 1988 but it's now a seven story visitor center designed in the shape of a giant pint of Guinness (it would theoretically hold 14.3 million pints!) The first two levels focus on the creation of the porter and its four key ingredients; barley, hops, water, and yeast. The two most interesting things I learned are that 1) all of the water used in the Guinness recipe comes from the nearby Wicklow mountain range and 2) because this source of water is so important, in 1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease on the land that the storehouse now sits on. When the city of Dublin complained that he was using too much water, Arthur took up an axe and stated he was prepared to defend Guinness' water source to the death. Luckily he didn't need to, and the recipe continues to use Ireland's Wicklow mountain water to this day.

Guinness has been wildly successful with its advertising campaigns and for years they convinced the people of Ireland that Guinness is actually good for you. The visitors centers contains dozens of letters from doctors saying that they recommend the porter to patients, and Shane O'Connor, our wildflower guide in Ballyvaughan, told us that he feeds a gallon of it to his dairy cows after they give birth. Perhaps there is some truth to it, when I left the tour I definitely had an extra spring in my step.

Another thing I learned, and maybe I'm the only person in the world who didn't put these two together, is that the Guinness Book of World Records was actually created by the people at Guinness. They created it so that bartenders around the world would be able to have a reference during all the drunken bar conversations regarding "fastest hunting bird" and the sort.

"The Black Stuff"

The tour wrapped up in the "Gravity Bar" located on the 7th story and highest point of the building. With a 360 degree view of the Dublin skyline it was the perfect place to enjoy a glass of "The black stuff."

My final stop on the way home was a quick walk around the gardens of Dublin Castle. The perfect circle of manicured grass is located where a large black pool of water originally stood during the time of the Vikings. It was for this pond that Dublin was named: "Dubh-linn" which means "Black Pool" in Gaelic. Brick pathways create a Celtic knot when seen from above.

The  grounds of the original "Dubh-linn"
or black pool.