Mike Tayse and Family Visit Dublin

Mike Tayse and Family Visit Dublin

This is a view of what we saw looking out our bedroom window/front yard at the house we stayed at in Kilarney.  It was often shrouded by fog and mist, neat looking. 


So we left our house in Kilarney and made our way to the big city of Dublin.  We stayed at a place my sister researched and found, called the Albany House.  It was located downtown within walking distance of a lot of the city's attractions. It was done in a Georgian style, which for me translates into "wow, look at that fancy woodwork!"  It was built about 100-150 years ago, so it was considered to be a newer building.  


So Mom, Liz and myself grabbed a taxi, and made our way to Christ Church Cathedral, about 6 blocks from the Albany House, where we stayed. It was started in about 1060, and has been through various stages of construction, the next being, most likely, work on the one wall that is leaning quite a bit inward. 






Above are just more pictures of Christ Church, none doing even remote justice to the grandeur that is.  It was just amazing.  I've got some more pics of the crypts and I'll eventually post those too.

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After we left the Church, we got in a cab and made our way through the town by the Liffey river.  The bridge above is called the Ha'penny bridge, and was cast in sections, in Great Britian, in 1816.  I wish I could have taken more shots of the river and the area around the river.  Not only was it very pretty, but in 1916, or thereabouts, there was this Irish rebellion, of sorts, and the British sailed gunboats up this river and shelled the Irish parliament and other buildings, within shooting range! Pretty crazy to imagine gunboats in such a, what is now,  a genteel urban setting with lots of pubs, cafes, and such. 



This is a pic from a restaurant called Avoca, I think that is spelled right.  It was trendy sort of place where Liz had some sort of fish dish, mom had a hamburger, and I had beet cured, wild Irish salmon(I've never had that before!),followed by a great coffee Americano, which is really just a large espresso to  me.  I should have taken more shots of Dublin city streets, but did not.  All the food I had in Ireland was great!  I enjoyed it all.  A pint of beer usually cost less or about the same as pop, so I really liked that!
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The top shot is the domed entry to the gift shop of the Museum of Ireland. The other shots are looking into an exhibition area.  The trusses were these great huge cast iron and bolted in place monsters, what an accomplishment!  The part of the museum we saw was artwork from 2000+ years ago, jewelry, boats, sculpture and actual people removed from the peat bogs.  The skin, clothing, hair, etc, were preserved in the peat, due to magic and chemistry, and look very lifelike and it was quite the experience to view.   It would be hard to walk out of there unaffected on an emotional/spiritual level. The same could be said about the Christ Cathedral mentioned above.  Not to sound to new age, but it was a very emotional/moving place to me, as I walked around.  The history and all the people buried there, and the beautiful emotive comments on the stones were compelling, at the very least. The place exuded meaning, whatever that means. 






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