Round Dublin

by Meghan Stubbs (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

A leap into the unknown Ireland

The library was closed apart from their Yeats exhibition. He was quite an incredible man, he had a cult as disproved of the catholic regime, supported the IRA peacefully, and was a slag. His literature alludes to Irish folk tales which are quite extraordinary. We then decided to hunt down Oscar Wilde's statue and we found him at the edge of the park with a crowd of people swarming around him, wanting to get a picture with the lounging idol. We checked in at the hostel where we were addressed by quite disagreeable hostel workers, they were quite grumpy and blunt and not at all welcoming. They were evidence that good manners cost you nothing!! The pub crawl entailed speeches and acts from famous playwrights. One of them impersonated Oscar Wilde and told the fact that Wilde thought Trinity College was full of drunks and shallow people. He got invited to America in the deep south to do a lecture on literature to the miners. The miners were not too keen on WIlde as they thought he was a dandy, posh and too clever. For revenge, they decided to try get Wilde drunk and trap him in a mining shaft. However, they underestimated his drinking abilities and it ended up being Wilde who saved them from the mining shaft. And that concludes Day 1. Luckily for me, Gabs is not an early riser so we got up at 9. We went to Trinity College Dublin for the tour. The tour was good but a bit too long and it was a lot of standing and walking. He mentioned that because of the amount of Polish catholic migrants in Dublin fought against secularisation. Homelessness and drug abuse is a major issue in Dublin and he mentioned this. He ended his tour discussing the IRA and Britain and how there was a civil war in Dublin due to different attitudes regarding the treaty in Ireland. He said Trinity College was established because Elizabeth I did not want the Irish getting educated abroad during the catholic reformation in Europe. Therefore, the college became a symbol of Proestant and Unionism and many catholics eyed it suspicioulsy. We had a classic fish and chips lunch. The emmigration Museum was our next stop, it won leading tourist attraction in Europe. It discussed the potato famine and diary entries of people leaving Ireland. However, the museum got a bit far fetched when they said so and so had Irish ancestry which is basically everyone. Many people also fled Ireland due to the harsh catholic regime. The penal laws restricted the rights of catholics completely and unmarried women had to migrate as they felt uncomfortable in that strict regime. That evening we went to a pub where James Joyce went to and wrote Ulysses in and we decided to have a Guiness. I do not reccomend Guiness as I find it quite bitter, I then washed it away with a nice apple cider. Our final day. Gabs wanted to go to some art gallery and trinity college library so we decided to part ways briefly. I went to the National Museum of Dublin which was located in old barracks. There was a whole exhibition of the 1916 rebellion and it highlighted that due to the executions of the leaders this led to more sympathy and support to the IRA. Also I discovered, not only were the detention camps in Kenya to the Mau Mau, after the 1916 rebellion, the British imprisoned rebels at camps in Wales. However, other rebels were serving in the Briitsh army learning tactics and miltiary skills. There was then a corridor of information from 1600- 2000. I went to the 1900 section and saw some artifacts of people smuggling weapons to the IRA. One woman had cut off some of a book and put a small pistol within it. I then met up with Gabs at a Burrito Bar where I had a chilly beef burrito. Gabs and I were feeling quite flat and mentally exhausted, it was a lot of information and walking in 3 days so we went to the aiport early so we could plop on leather chairs with our books.