Dayna here ~~ Tom and I discovered, while in Vietnam, that we make a great blogging team. He is witty and funny when he writes, I am a stickler for grammar and spelling. Like our annual Christmas letter, he writes the draft and I edit + I upload the pictures, caption them, and place them in the appropriate order. Soooo, here is Day #3 of our Ireland/France journey . . . .

The great thing about a B & B is that we usually meet such nice people . This morning we discovered that only three of the five rooms were rented last night. Our breakfast at 8:00 revealed a single lady from Seattle and an East Coast couple who are about the same age we are. The lady from Seattle is a freelance travel writer and will drive around Ireland, clockwise, for the next two weeks before attending a travel conference. The couple is also driving clockwise around the island. We reminded them to stay in their lane (left) because we are driving around the island counter-clockwise and we do not want any mishaps somewhere on the west side of Ireland.



  
A note about B & B breakfasts ~~ they are usually hearty. Eggs, usually made to order, ham/bacon/sausage, a broiled tomato for some inexplicable reason, juice, coffee or tea, the usual condiments, and then bread. Toast today, but 25 years ago the Irish would not have had the concept of TOAST . It is a relatively new discovery along with the internet and cell phones. (My mother can set you straight on the genealogy of toast in Ireland.) The sideboard has a variety of fresh fruit, cheeses, muffins, yogurt, a couple of cold cereals, etc. So, hearty it is! Coincidentally, this is the reason why Dayna and I don't bother with lunch until the later part of the afternoon.

By 9:00 we were hiking off to our fist stop, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the closest stop for the Dublin Hop On & Hop Off Bus.

Nice church. The Catholics (St. Patrick's has been Anglican, or Church of Ireland, since 1537) know how to do churches better than most all other religions. Probably because they have been trading wishful thinking for hard earned $$/€€ longer than most religions. (I watch for lightning when I am visiting churches!) This church is/was heavily supported by the Guinness (beer) family who were rewarded by a number of private pews so they don't have to rub elbows with the masses right up at the front of the congregation . You know, that place you have to sit if you show up too late for any service. Interestingly, the family had better box seats than the Archbishop and better than the Royal box in the early years. Who says money can't buy your way in? All in all, a pretty good self guided tour. Jonathan Swift of Gulliver's Travels fame and his wife are prominently buried in the middle of the church . . . probably because he was the top banana (Dean) of the cathedral for many years.  

We moved on to Christ Church Cathedral which bent to the winds of politics and invasions by the British and is now Anglican. Two points here: 1) The tour is a waste of time and money until one discovers that the church has a really interesting basement. It was, over time, a trading site for grain, a dungeon, a crypt, a treasury, and is now a museum with millions of dollars in silver and gold serving ware on display next to the paper plates for today's coffee shop which is located next to the museum . 2) Handel's Messiah was first performed here with the combined choirs of this Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral ~~ proving that everyone can get together for some great songs. I'll bet it got good reviews the next day in the newspaper!

After getting religion for the day, we were off to visit the criminals of Dublin at Kilmainham Gaol museum, better known today as a JAIL. Tourists flock to it today because it is closed to the criminals. During the great famine in the 1840s - 1850s, clientele flocked to it because they could get at least one meal of porridge a day -- really, I am not kidding! It also held a wide selection of criminals, age five and above (at least the kids couldn't be hung until they were 13), Irish Revolutionaries and, later, the opposition to those in power during the Irish Civil War. You really do need a scorecard to keep all of the players straight here, politically. Needless to say, I eat this shit up and even Dayna enjoyed an early afternoon tour of hell-on-earth .

Lunch, which turned into dinner, was at O'Neill's again. We discovered that they have out-of-this-world fish chowder. Fish chowder, Irish soda bread, and a pint of Kilkenny (the beer, not the town) for me and a little white wine for Dayna is going to carry us through to breakfast.  

A final late stop at the remnants of the Dublin Castle. Definitely not worth the entry fee . . . but lo and behold, it was free! So, we wandered around for about 30 minutes and then sat in a lovely park, enjoying the beautiful fall day, along with many Dubliners who are not used to seeing the sun. It did beat all of the castles in Utah so far. Second full day without rain!!!  

After a good long walk back to our home-away-from-home, we are in for the night. We are each still recovering from jet lag. The pub crawls will have to wait for the neighborhood varieties when we finally get out of town to the rural areas .