|
|
In the beginning
After a busy few months braving the cold of Alaska, we’ve finally settled in Dublin. Our first task in Dublin was to find an acceptable neighborhood not too far away from the university where Dot works. Dublin City University (DCU) is an up and coming school, recently surpassing Trinity College as the highest rated Irish university. Most of its buildings have been built within the last 5-10 years, and grant money is pouring in like boiling lead on an invader through the castle gates. However, DCU is also on the wrong side of the River Liffey, so finding a nice area was not entirely trivial. After much driving around on the wrong side of the road, and a few near misses caused entirely by me, we settled on an area called Drumcondra, reasonably near the city center, close to the fabulous National Botanic Gardens, and within stumbling distance of Quinn’s, where one pint, just to see how the Guinness was, turned into two, to see if the Beamish was as good as the Guinness, turned into three, because the Guinness was so much better than the Beamish and I had to end on a good note, turned into five because the Irish are a hospitable people. In addition, the streets are lined with trees, and we found a great place to live. Dot, who is currently very pregnant, noted that, should we opt for home delivery, the next kid’s memoirs would begin, “I was born in Dublin in the back room of a convent.” Our apartment is in a converted convent, a protected building due to its age, which is very handsome and looks a bit like a castle, especially with the attached and deconsecrated church next door. We even have a big stone wall running around the complex. Of course, people usually leave the castle gate open, limiting the effectiveness of our first line of defense against the pagan hordes. Fortunately, there are three more locked doors to pass through before you are inside our apartment, which would be reasonably large if it were only tipped on its side. As things currently stand, we have a very small apartment with very high ceilings (around 15 feet) and beautiful windows (about 9 feet tall) looking out over the peaceful convent grounds. The remaining grounds, that is; modern apartment buildings occupy a large portion of the original grounds.
Chapelgate, our new home We have had some opportunity for sightseeing, and some time to sit at home and not get out of our pajamas. Dot arranged a self-catering vacation apartment for the first week we were in Ireland. Unbeknownst to us, it was next door to the Hill of Tara, which is the ancient seat of power for the High Kings of Ireland. All that is left now are some burial mounds (passage tombs) and raised ground where early, wooden battlements once stood, as well as a stone that is somehow important to determining something or other. Nearby is Trim Castle, built in the 12th century to fortify Norman power in Ireland. In addition to lead pipes for the water supply, they originally forgot to put in fireplaces. Thus, they spent the next hundred years or so adding on to the castle (the lead pipes stayed, unfortunately, but fireplaces were added) and adding perimeter buildings as well. Approximately half of the original structure remains, and it is quite impressive.
Trim Castle A bit further down the road is Drogheda, where Oliver Cromwell slaughtered 2,000 men, women and children as “a righteous judgment of God upon those barbarous wretches”, which we passed through while searching for the Battle of the Boyne, or, at least, for the field where it took place. This was the battle where the protestant William of Orange defeated the Catholic King James II (William’s father-in-law) in 1690, celebrated every year on July 12th by Orangemen in Northern Ireland during their marching season. We did find the entrance to the field, which was sure to be exciting, but it was closed for winter, so we moved on to see some mounds of dirt where people had been buried. Lindy, by the way, was starting to question our judgment as to what constituted seriously good sightseeing, and asked why we wanted to see mounds of dirt where people had been buried. We slowly explained to her, as one does to a child, that they were very old mounds of dirt, and, besides, you had to pay to go there so it must be good, and, on top of that, we’d heard good things about it. Needless to say, the Neolithic passage tomb of Newgrange, 500 years older than the Pyramids, was fascinating, and came with a top-notch visitor’s center. The entrance to Newgrange is aligned so that at sunrise on winter solstice, and only then, the rays of the sun penetrate into the inner chamber, where they performed their ceremonies for the dead (or so we assume by the cremated remains and artistically carved rock found inside). This was simulated for us with a 40-watt light bulb, but we had our imaginations along, so we were impressed. The chamber itself is really neat and definitely worth a visit.
Decorated stone at Newgrange After settling into our apartment, and taking a few days to catch our breath and explore the city, we took the train to Bray, which is a few miles south of Dublin on the coast near the beginning of the Wicklow Mountains, which are very pretty hills. After a very nice lunch, we walked on the cliff above the coast from Bray to the next town down the coast, Greystones, which was a lovely walk. The hills roll down to the sea, with small beaches carved out below the cliffs, and peek-a-boo views of Greystones around every curve. All in all, and with the notable exceptions of telecommunications and coffee (which is tremendously bleak; I am resigned to just drinking tea), things are going well. Dot started work last week, and Lindy began school this week. She really misses her old friends but is looking forward to making some new ones. Her new school is very small (three classes total for the whole primary school) and the other girl in 4th class was very happy to see Lindy arrive. I am not entirely sure how I will fill my days, but I’m sure the house will be clean and dinner made from scratch every night. |
