Ireland - Dublin

Before Dublin, some thoughts on Ireland in general. 6 Million People and 32,000 square miles. That's it. No more.

There are 37 cities in the world with 6 million or more people. 40 of the 50 States have 32,000 square miles or more. My real home state, Oregon, has 3 times the square miles as Ireland (98,000). I currently reside in Kern County, California, a land mass of over 8,000 square miles, a fourth of the size of the entire country of Ireland.

Now think about it. Think about all of the history that goes with such a small patch of land and a few people.

Books such as "The Irish Saved Civilization" are vey helpful in such an endeavor. But contemplate how many self proclaimed "irishmen" that you know in the states. U2, Guinness, Irish Ales and Setters, movies, poetry, etc.

Think how many Boston Red Sox, Patriot and of course, Celtic fans that you know who all seem to be Irish.

Think of all the lame excuses you have heard people give for their failures of "I can't help it, I'm Irish."

Ok, the last one was a little mean. I'm fairly Irish myself, you know. Couldn't help it.

Anyway, The Legal Pad flew into Dublin a few days ago, spent most of their time finding a place to eat dinner, playing hearts, and generally relaxing. I can't say that we really saw that much other than an irish good time.

The next day, after taking care of laundry and other matters (ahem). . .. Well, ok, i probably can't gloss over that. Other matters would mean tracking down the backpack (along with a significant portion of Seth's travel money, which he can't seem to carry around in small amounts) that I, Blogger, left in an internet cafe the night before (closed before I could get it back).

An aside on Blogger's personal habits. I'm absentminded. I like to think of myself as a deeply philosophical person who lives on a somewhat higher intellectual plain than some people resulting in more difficult than usual time in dealing with the small, almost inconsequential activities of everyday lfe. That may sound somewhat egocentric, but you have to do what you have to do to cope with the realities of life, and one of those realities is that I'm absented minded. Ok. Enough of that. Happy Seth?

The first stop of the day was the famous Guinness Factory. Actually, this was pretty interesting. Guinness put together this incredible world class building (has a view of all of Dublin in a round all windows top floor) to commemorate and explain their drink's history. 249 years ago, Arthur Guinness signed a contract for 9000 years to rent the ground that the factory was built on for 45 pounds a year. Ridiculous.

All sorts of interesting things in there about how the Guinness Book of World Records was started, ancedotes of historical figures and Guinness, etc. It sorted of reminded me of the world of coke in Georgia.

After Guinness, we went and saw the famous Kilmainham Gaol where the leaders of the 1916 Easter uprising were executed. The Easter Uprising against the British is basically why there is a UK Ireland and an independent Ireland. Even though the uprising was unsuccessful, public sympathy was swayed by the execution of many of the leaders. Many of those leaders were very personable and became somewhat legendary for their actions.

One of those leaders was Joseph Plunkett, who married his fiance at the prison three hours before being executed. They had ten minutes (supervised) to talk before the execution and that was pretty much that.

I suppose it could have been worse.

After cheering ourselves up, we went downtown to the Temple Bar area, found some live music, a good meal, and played some cards again. Good times.