In Navan, we got up at 6:00 am, ate a hearty breakfast and left our luxurious hotel. We had to drive to back to Dublin and wanted to get our rental car back early. The traffic wasn’t too bad, so we arrived at the Hertz rental at the airport by 8:30 am.
We rented a taxi to the Aparto Binary Hub, our home for the next two days. We were early but our room was ready. All of our other accommodations in Ireland were booked by a travel agency, Go Irish Tours, and Deborah Feery from that agency did a fantastic job.
I decided to book our room in Dublin because the rates Deborah quoted us were high, and I knew we were going to be going full bore to see the most and wouldn’t be in our room much. The price at Apart Binary Hub was great, and I cleared it with Go Irish Tours and they thought it would be fine.
It turned out to be a hostel with spartan accommodations, but it worked well for us because we were on the run the whole time.
Lin and I got settled in our room and started a walking tour, heading to downtown Dublin. We went by Christ’s Church, took pictures and wanted to tour it but decided to wait. The sad part is we never got back to tour it.
Walking to downtown Dublin was full of sights and sounds. We went by a tribute to the 1916 Rebellion.
On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, a group of Irish nationalists proclaimed the establishment of the Irish Republic and, along with some 1,600 followers, staged a rebellion against the British government in Ireland. The rebels seized prominent buildings in Dublin and clashed with British troops. Within a week, the insurrection had been suppressed and more than 2,000 people were dead or injured. The leaders of the rebellion soon were executed. Initially, there was little support from the Irish people for the Easter Rising; however, public opinion later shifted and the executed leaders were hailed as martyrs. In 1921, a treaty was signed that in 1922 established the Irish Free State, which eventually became the modern-day Republic of Ireland. http://www.history.com/topics/british-history/easter-rising
I saw evidence of this rebellion at many of the places we toured. It was a pivotal moment in the history of Ireland.
On our trek we found the statute of Molly Malone, made famous in the sing of the same title or some know it as “Cockles and Mussels.” We watched many men take a photograph with Molly touching her voluptuous endowments.
It started to rain so we ducked into a coffee shop and enjoyed some scones with hot coffee and cocoa. At this point, we decided the best way to maximize our time in Dublin was to use the bus, so we purchased the Hop On, Hop Off ticket for two days.
We ended up back in the downtown area we had visited over a week ago and toured the Dublin Castle. The castle was massive. We toured the outside and the inside.
Our first day in Dublin was complete. We ate dinner in the O’Shea’s Merchant pub. Across the street was The Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin, established in 1198. We stuck our heads in the door of this famous pub, but it was packed, so we added it to our list to visit for the next day.
We had a delightful walk home in the early evening and came up to some sort of race with lots of participants.
At this point, we realized that our hostel was right across the street from the Guiness Storehouse, so we decided to tour it in two days, the morning we would be flying back to London.
All in all, our first touring day in Dublin was jam-packed and fun!
Next week will be more of Dublin and the sights there!
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