Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland
Glendalough, Powerscourt, Avoca and
Wicklow tour today.
Meant to get to 27C in the mountains. What the?!
Tour started with our driver pointing out
some of the landmarks in Dublin as we made our way out of the city. He pointed
out where the Duke of Wellington was born. Now he’s known as a famous
Englishman and he wasn’t proud to have been born in Ireland. He said “just
because I was born in a stable doesn’t mean I had to grow up to be a horse”
Donald O’Connell (famous Irishman of the day) Said “that may be true,
but it won’t stop you growing up to be an ass!”
Another fact ... most people have heard of
the potato famine in Ireland but the devastation to the Irish population was massive.
Before it started there were 8 million people living in Ireland. At the end
this was halved to 4 million. Over 1 million starved and the rest left the
country - to England, Canada, America and Australia. The
population today is still under 5 million people. That’s kinda mind
boggling.
On our way now and we have Irish music as featured in the movie
“PS I love you” playing.
A lot of the scenes in that movie were filmed (or
fill-emd as they pronounce it here) in country Wicklow, which we will visit so
it’s a nice tie in.
First stop was to Powerscourt which has an amazing formal garden. Really beautiful with different themed areas
- the Towers, Japanese garden, Italian garden, dolphin pond, walled garden and
even a pet cemetery compete with proper headstones for dogs, ponies, horses and
even a couple of cows! Powerscourt has been used in 30+ films including some
scenes for Black Beauty and there actually is a headstone for Black Beauty here
though its highly unlikely it’s for THE Black Beauty.
After walking around the gardens I sat at the outdoor terrace and
enjoyed a scrumptious pear and almond scone with a pot of tea while admiring
the vista and guarding my food from the watchful black birds.
Next stop was the small village of Avoca
which is famous for its weaving mill. Was able to watch some of the automated
looms in action, making scarves in bright colours and rugs in more sedated
hues.
I did succumb and purchase another throw rug here. Whoops.
At least it’s nice and light to transport back to Australia.
As we had an hour stop here I went for a
stroll through the village for a look around. Beautiful sunny day and a lot
warmer than I expected. I stood on the bridge watching someone fishing for a while
and received friendly smiles from drivers of the no less than 5 tractors that
crossed the bridge in the space of 10 minutes. Ireland. You will see tractors
haha.
Down more winding, stone wall edged lanes to Glendalough
(pronounced Glendaloch) for a walk around the twin lakes and the monastery of
St Kevin. St Kevin received his sainthood for performing a miracle of
turning water and bones into wine and meat. Seems fair. These days the
monastery is mostly ruins but St Kevin is still providing sustenance to
visitors in the form of ice creams from “St Kevin’s Cones”.
And if you ever told me it would be 27C
today and I’d be eating an ice cream I would have given you the horse laugh,
yet here we are and it happened.
The ruins here included a graveyard with
more Celtic crosses and a tower with a very high door. Apparently the
foundation depth is only 1m therefore placing the door at ground level would
have weakened the structure too much, so instead it’s several meters up. Was
also a defensive tactic to protect the harvest from invaders.
St Kevin’s cross stands in the graveyard
and took the monks 20 years to carve it from one solid piece of stone.
The
story goes that if you can circle the cross with your arms and manage to touch
that you’ll have a wish granted. I tried my hardest but was 1cm short. Damn. No
free wish for me.
The walk to the lake was quite nice, via a tree shaded path on
the way there and a wooden boardwalk on the way back. The lake water was very
clear and the stones had a real shine to them and were very flat and light in
weight. Scenic though early morning or evening would be the time for photos.
After this we drove through the Wicklow mountain area, rolling
hills covered by low laying vegetation, more stone walls along the side of the
road. A fair bit of peat gets cut here and you can see the rectangle
depressions in the vegetation all along the road where peat had been cut and the plants had grown back over it.
Driving along and we crossed the bridge used in “PS I love you”
where she meets the love of her life. The landscape here is very serene
and reminds me a little of Glencoe in Scotland and some parts of New Zealand.
Made a brief stop at a lookup high over
the “Guinness” lake. I forget it’s actual name but it’s called that as the
water is dark brown from the peat and the white beach at one end looks like the
froth on a pint of Guinness. Also the land is owned by the Guinness family which may some impact on the nickname.
Back into Dublin and back to the hotel to
dump some of my things then Cathal came to meet me and we went for a walk and
found a nice place for me to have dinner next to the river. After this we went to a more local pub (ie
not packed to the gills with American tourists) and had a drink together.
Went for another last stroll around near
the river, saw where Cathal works and then ventured into the wall of green (kak
shop) to buy a couple of things and then ever the gentleman, Shuggy walked me
home.
Was kind of weird saying goodbye. I have promised to make a pavlova when he
comes to Australia and show him around too.
Was really great knowing someone here and being shown around by a local.
Hard to believe my trip is nearly
over. Just the long flights back to
Perth to face tomorrow now.
Slán go fóill Ireland, until we meet again
one day.
2025-05-22