Titanic Belfast

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Belfast, Northern Ireland Thurs Jun 9, 2022

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Crumlin Street Gaol

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CONCERT: Christ Church Cathedral

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We visited in the afternoon to get a sense of the acoustics and learn the history of the place.

Royal Archeology Museum

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Rhoda asked me if the mounds reminded me of the ones we’ve seen in Chillicothe, Ohio and in fact they did

The museum building itself was full of so many beautiful architectural details.

This dugout canoe made from a single oak tree was strikingly large: it filled the whole room!

They don’t seem to know where all the gold came from but these lunula necklaces reminded me of Egyptian ones. I didn’t realize Irish history went back to 5000 BC

I have photos of 4 bodies found in Irish bogs but am not posting them here. So we’ll preserved they looked like they’d passed away just recently rather than thousands of years ago.

Dublin Jun 8, 2022

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O’Connell bridge

Book of kells

This is not the only pub I saw with a monkey or ape theme

Loved the fanlights over the doors

Merry Ploughboys dinner Dublin Jun 7, 2022

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One of the things I quite liked was group dinners arranged for us the first night we arrived in a city. The Merry Ploughboys was purported to be the best of supper clubs in Dublin featuring traditional music, owned and operated by 2 of the 4 guys who’d been singing together for 30 years. They let Neil come up and sing Danny Boy and we all joined in.

Dinner was surprisingly good - I had a delicious starter of goat cheese, leg of lamb, and the unusual apple tart for dessert. We stood up and sang The Parting Glass. But I’ll never forget the Irish singer talking about Ukrainian refugees or the look on his face as he sang “A Nation Once Again”

Later, in spite of all the British flags I saw flying in Belfast and Bushmills, it seemed to me a foregone conclusion that the island is a nation of Irish once again.

Dublin arrival Tues Jun 7, 2022

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Dublin feels long and narrow to me along the River Liffey. Lots of mass transit: buses including double-deckers, the Lues (streetcar), and many people walking and riding bicycles. 

It’s artsy (Kinsale natives said they were the 2nd best art city in Ireland next to Dublin)

Youthful. Apparently companies like Google and LinkedIn employ thousands here. Lots of construction cranes, which reminded me of Denver. New buildings mixed in with the old.

Lunch in Port Laoise Ireland Tue Jun 7, 2022

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Bob Rogers Travel rocks! Liam (left) and Adrian (right) are knocking themselves out to make sure we have a great time. Case in point; After our morning on the Rock of Cashel, they arranged for us to have a good lunch at a carvery (buffet) at a hotel on our way to Dublin.

You could get anything there from just a scone or a salad to a full hot lunch. I had steak and kidney pie and a delicious lemon tart and felt much better and ready to tour around Dublin on our bus until we were able to check into Samuel Hotel, just opened in April

First glimpses of Dublin and the River Liffey from the bus. Today we learned someone in the group tested positive for COVID via self test and was getting an official PCR test

I liked the Georgian architecture of Dublin, and details like these wrought iron street lamps

Liam took us through Phoenix Park, twice as large as Central Park in NYC. Hundreds of thousands of people came here to see Pope John Paul II (cross marks the place where he spoke)

The US Embassy moved into Phoenix Park, near where the President of the Republic of Ireland lives

Gates to the US Embassy

Presidents house (White House)

IMPROMPTU CONCERT (Flash Mob): Rock of Cashel

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Wow, we’re climbing up there?

It was actually a pleasant and pretty walk up with sheep grazing and bleating below.

Liam gave us a terrific tour, as always. We could see Hore Abbey in the distance

“Put log holes” when the long poles of wood that were the scaffolding for building this rot away, the holes are left

You can feel all the history of this place resonate as you stand here. It started with this round tower and the rest kept getting added on

Lots of crows, rooks, ravens, magpies (I can’t tell the difference). “Sheep May safely graze” below; beautiful 360 degree view you can see for miles and miles

St Patrick converted Celts to Christianity using concepts and symbols familiar to them, like the circle. Thus these Celtic crosses that I like so much

You can see the passageways where monks once walked

Destroyed in the sixteenth century when Henry VIII had all the abbeys seized, looted, and burned. Yet here this still is today, telling its story

The window to the “secret room” where unclean (lepers) could join worship without contaminating the others

This was my first ever flash mob (impromptu performance) with a Linda Gartner group, something she’s done for years all over Europe. It was fun! The acoustics were amazing and I thought we sounded pretty good. Judge for yourself: a video is on the Rock Of Cashel Facebook Page!