Camec Valley Camp Ground, South Dublin, Leinster

This evening we have taken back control of what seemed a very out of control situation: too many places and things to see with no real plan of attack. We have now set a schedule of our time in Ireland and booked two weeks forward. This is still bound to cause problems and I am sure when we arrive home to friends and family who have themselves travelled parts of this country, they will point out our omissions; so be it.

This morning we headed back into Dublin by the same mode of transport as the previous day, this time having a clear plan as to where we were heading. Stepping down from the bus on the North Side of the city we checked out two spots called at the day before but then mostly ignored because of the pouring rain.

We wandered about the Moore Street market brought to our attention recently whilst reading about comedian Brendan O’Carroll, aka Mrs Brown, and gazed up the length of the Spire, a curious structure in the middle of O’Connell Street. This 120 metre stainless steel needle, known locally as the “Spike”, was designed by Ian Ritchie and is easily the tallest structure in the city centre. Its base if three metres wide while it tapers to a mere 15 cm at the top.  Our guide book raises the question as to what James Joyce whose statue stands across the street would think of such a bizarre structure.

We set off for the parliament, the Oireachtas, in Leister House in Kildare Street to see if we could join a free tour. After providing our passports for identification purposes we were added to a list and asked to return in time for the 11.30 am tour.

We popped in next door to the National Library, and after divesting ourselves of backpacks were allowed to make our way upstairs to the Reading Room. What a beautiful room this is, with its ornate ceilings and hushed atmosphere. We wandered about careful not to disturb those intent on their research, in awe of the space.

Next door we joined a group of less than twenty like-minded tourists to be led through the halls of Ireland’s government decision makers. The lower house  or House of Representatives, here the Dail Eireann, is not nearly as impressive as those in other countries we have visited, but still has a sense of formality, pomp and purpose as such a place should. The upper house, the Senate, or here the Seanad Eireann, is currently located in a spare room while their correct location undergoes major renovation.

In fact the Dail Eireann was being attacked by cleaning and technical staff today because the TDs, or members of parliament, are currently on recess until the middle of September, so it’s an opportunity for a spring-clean. Our guide was a delightful young chap, who took over the job of guide and chamber dog’s body from his father, obviously a case of who you know when it comes to employment in the Oireachtas.

Given the mirror like status of the buildings next to each other, we should have twigged that there was a tie-up. And this was soon revealed to us by Iain, our guide, in his very Irish accent.

Since 1924, Leinster House has been the seat of the two houses of the Oireachtas, Dail and Seanad who meet here a total of ninety days a year. Designed in 1745 by the architect Richard Cassels, (who was incorrectly given credit today for having designed Washington’s White House), it was built as a town residence for the Duke of Leinster on what was then known as Molesworth Fields, adding character to the area that has remained to this day. In 1814, the building was sold by the Duke to the Dublin Society and for the next hundred years it was used as their headquarters. In 1877 the National Museum and the National Library were built on the North and South sides of the forecourt. The two Houses of the Oireachtas first occupied the building in 1924.

After returning to the Library and lunching on the porch, we took in the one exhibition available to the general public on a lower ground floor of the building: that all about the poet W.B.Yeats to whom I alluded yesterday. It would be so much better if there were more light, but peering into display cases to read the small writing in the dim darkness soon takes one’s enthusiasm for the subject away.

Keen to find out more about the more modern history of Dublin and Eire in general, and unable to identify any of the national museums holding the appropriate material, we decided to head to the Dublin Museum, named the Little Museum of Dublin. Arriving at the door, we were met by two charmingly dressed leprechaun-types who explained that we would have to wait for the next tour, and then it would cost us €8 or some such amount. We decided against it and headed back to the Museum of Archaeology where we had noticed a poster in the window which suggested we might find out more there. Certainly this museum, housed in the opposite building to the Library, is full of history dug up from the bogs of Ireland, and we did learn much about the two hundred year Viking occupation and the Battle of Brian Boru in 1014 which was more of an internal battle for power between family, albeit connected by marriage,  than a Vikings versus Irish that it has become in legend. 

The general consensus regarding the Viking “invasion” and subsequent occupation was that a new society emerged from that time, neither Viking nor Irish, but a melding of the two, the term Hiberno-Norse often used to describe the culture of the inhabitants of the Viking towns in the 11^th and early 12^th centuries and that the impact on trade and art had generally been positive.

But apart from a little about the coming of the Normans and the immediate years that followed, we were left in the air.

We had also seen something about an exhibition in the General Post Office that might fill in the gaps of the strife of the early 1900s, but when we arrived there, we found we would need at least three quarters of an hour to do the tour which again would cost us in the vicinity of €8 each, and besides we had a bus to catch.

Inside the post office itself there were several interpretative panels, the first explaining how over the next year there were to be major changes, from the traditional art deco interior to something looking more like a space ship. Both Chris and I thought these changes and the loss of this heritage fit-out would be criminal however the matter is fait accompli and our opinions are of no consequence.

We did learn a little about the history of the post office, and its role in the troubles we were keen to understand more about. On Easter Monday 1916, the GPO became the headquarters of men and women who sought, through armed rebellion, to win Irish independence from Britain. The Post Office controlled communications at the time and GPO staff played a prominent part in both sabotaging and restoring the telegraph and telephone lines which helped determine the outcome of the insurrection. Here independence was declared in the words of a Proclamation read by the leader of the rising, P H Pearse. Of course this is the subject of the exhibition which we did not visit today.

The General Post Office was constructed between 1814 and 1818 under the supervision of Armagh born architect, Francis Johnston, and is one of the oldest working chief post offices in the world. Severely classical in style, its fine façade and portico are all that remain of the original building which was much smaller than the GPO which emerged after the destruction of 1916. 

We also spent about an hour wandering about the Temple Bar area, the streets mid-afternoon on a Thursday packed out and so very vibrant. Buskers of all kinds entertained the passers-by and today with the rain having stayed away, I was so much more impressed with Dublin than I had been the previous day. As we sat in McDonalds with our paper cups of coffee, we examined our city map and pondered over the plethora of attractions on offer to visitors of this capital city. One could fill a fortnight of days with things to see and do and then probably not see everything, but where do you draw the line? We have decided we will come in again one day before we leave but not try to see everything else that might have been included on the two day Hop-on-Hop-off Bus tour we had been contemplating.