Chapter 5

Dublin

And 

 Holyhead

April 29 & 30, 2024

Introduction

We are heading a little further south and leaving behind the scenic seashores and chilly winds for the warmer climate of the Republic of Ireland and Wales.  This will involve pubs and castles….  Lots of pubs and lots of castles.   But, before we left the ship, I had a task.  I still had a rather sore throat and definitely did not feel 100% so I thought it a good idea to use one of the COVID self-test kits we had brought with us.  Thankfully, it was negative: otherwise this would be a very uninteresting day.

We are in Republic of Ireland and Wales.

Dublin, Republic of Ireland: Sunday, April 29

Our excursion today would be a “Walk Through Dublin’s Fair City” and starts, as usual, with a bus ride, although a fairly short one this time.  The Sirena is docked in the river Liffey, just on the outskirts of Dublin.  I’ll show a Google Earth view of Dublin below because it is useful but also because you can see the Sirena and where it was docked in the image.  If you look on the right edge and about 1/3 of the way from the top of the image, you can see the Sirena docked close to a bridge. 

The Sirena is docked in the river Liffey in Dublin.

The first points of interest on our tour are ones we could see from our bus, and it was a good thing as there was a light rain falling.  We first passed the ship Jeanie Johnson, a replica of the real Jeanie Johnson that made 16 trips to the US in the 1840s taking Irish people escaping the potato famine to the United States. 

The (replica of the) Jeanie Johnson

The Jeanie Johnson carried as many as 254 passengers escaping the famine and in all the thousands of people she carried, not a single person died on the trip.  We were to hear a lot about the potato famine today and the impact it had on the Irish people.  Even today, the country has not yet recovered from the effects of the famine: for example, there are still fewer people in Ireland than there were prior to the famine.  Ireland lost over half the population of the country to either starvation or escape to the US. 

Another reminder of the famine, very close to the Jeanie Johnson, was the Famine Memorial, seen in the photo below.  When you see this memorial, no one has to tell you what it is.

The Famine Memorial: a striking reminder of the disaster

There are several striking bridges that span the Liffey River and you can see several of them in the photo below, as we crossed one of them.  You can also see the rigging of the Jeanie Johnson and, in the distance, the Sirena.  We continued on the bus as it wound through traffic and narrow streets and finally deposited us in the downtown area.

Fancy bridges, the Jeanie Johnson, and the Sirena

The bus let us out at the edge of Marrion Square Park (the green park almost in the center of the Google Earth image above) and our first item of interest was the memorial to Oscar Wilde.  Wilde was born and spent much of his life in Dublin and apparently Wilde was quite a character, so the creator of the memorial made it very fitting for him.  Besides the rather relaxed pose of Wilde, the direction he is facing and where he is looking is also significant and, no, he is not really looking at our guide.  Just out of the photo to the left is a statue of Wilde’s wife, and he is looking almost directly at her.  Across the street, just beyond his wife, is the house where he grew up.  All in all, I thought it was a very appropriate, if unconventional, memorial to a rather unconventional author.

Oscar Wild is not really looking at our guide.

As we walked some of the streets, there were multiple government buildings, museums, and rather fancy hotels with doormen decked out in fancy uniforms with silk top hats.  There were also pubs, many pubs, including O’Donoghue’s Pub, one of the more famous ones.  We would be checking out another, although less famous, pub later.

Sometimes called the most famous pub in Dublin

Across the street from O’Donoghue’s is a large park, St Stephen’s Green.  It appeared to be a pleasant and well used park with multiple ponds and several statues and memorials.

Inside St Stephen’s Green

We continued our walking tour and came to a series of streets that are mostly “pedestrian only” with lots of shops and restaurants lining them.  Our guide turned us loose here for “free time” which is, as I’ve mentioned, really time for some people to shop for their souvenirs.  Since my throat was still bothering me a bit, we went looking for some place where we could both get a nice cup of hot tea.   I’m sure some people will throw up their hands and cry “Foul”, but that place turned out to be a Starbucks coffee shop.  The people there were friendly, we got nice cups of tea, and I left feeling better. 

One of the pedestrian shopping streets

We met up with our guide and continued our walk through Dublin.  No visit to Dublin is complete without paying respect to Molly Malone, who is represented by a statue of her in her sales-person/hawking role.

Molly Malone

After saying “Hello” to Molly, we strolled to and through part of the campus of Trinity College, which is a surprisingly large campus to be sitting in the middle of a busy city. 

The main square of Trinity College

It was finally time for us to walk a little further to another pub where we could enjoy of the true heart of Dublin: some Guinness.  We walked to Kennedy’s Pub and found seats inside. 

Outside Kennedy’s pub

Once seated, we had our choice of a glass of wine or a glass of Guinness.  Now, I definitely like my wine, but when you are in Dublin, there is no choice, you must have the Guinness.  My only regret was that it was not a true “pint”, only about a 10 or 12 oz glass of the beautiful dark beer.

Inside Kennedy’s pub

After enjoying our refreshment, we loaded back into a bus for the short ride back to the Sirena.  We had another rather late and rushed lunch then relaxed the rest of the day, while I took occasional “medication” for my throat.  This evening we had our usual pre-dinner wine in Martinis, followed by dinner in the Grand Dining Room, then a glass of cognac in Martinis before the entertainment for the night.  The Sirena band and vocalists did a show called “Broadway in Concert” but I still did not recognize many of the tunes.  Perhaps I need to get to Broadway more often.

Holyhead, Wales: Monday, April 30

Once again, we leave the Sirena, although in a somewhat different manner from the deck, and loaded onto a tour bus.  It was a little over an hour ride to get to the Conwy Castle and we enjoyed the green, rolling landscape.

Leaving the Sirena from the deck

We would be touring the Conwy Castle, a fortress built in the 1280s by Edward I and which played a role in several battles and is a UNESCO World History site.  It took six years and two thousand workers to build the fortifications.  The castle has been somewhat reconstructed but is still very “rough”. 

Outside the walls of Conwy castle

The primary castle is only one part of the fortifications.  There is a high wall around the entire town of Conwy, a total of over 1400 yards long, averaging 30 feet high and as much as 15 feet thick.  In the photo below, you can see part of the wall at the other end of the main street in Conwy.

Looking down the main street of Conwy

We entered the castle and had a brief tour of some of the main points of the fortress.  One of the first things we encountered was the wooden statue of a seated “knight” that you can see at the very top-right of this page.  Inside the walls some of the area used to be an open courtyard and are mostly covered with green grass now while the rooms that were roofed over are now also open because the wood timbers supporting the roof rotted away long ago.

The open courtyard in the middle of the castle

After the brief guided tour, we wandered around the castle grounds.  There were tall towers along the walls that would have provided a good defensive position in a battle, or a good view of the local area on a sightseeing trip.  One of the towers had been renovated enough to allow visitors to climb to the top via a rather tight spiral staircase.  Of course, we could not pass up a challenge like this, so we headed up the tower.

We headed to the top of the higher tower above.

At the main level we could look out at a system of bridges leading toward the castle.  The bridge on the left is a modern vehicle bridge, the bridge in the middle is a converted old horse drawn wagon bridge and is now a pedestrian bridge, and the covered bridge on the right is a railroad bridge.

Three bridges leading toward the castle

The first part of the climb was via a large open stairway and lead to a small chapel where we could look around and get another view of the three bridges from a slightly higher viewpoint.

Looking out the chapel windows at the bridges

From that point, the climb got more interesting.  The stairway was a small circular staircase that was apparently made for smaller feet than what I have, as my shoes would barely fit on the stairs.  There was no handrail but instead there was a rope hanging down the center of the tower that you could grab onto for some support.

The view from the top of the tower

Once we got to the top of the tower, we did have a good view of the castle below us and the surrounding area.  After looking around for a while we headed back down the staircase, hanging onto that rope on the way. 

By now we thought that we had seen enough of the castle so we left it and headed into the town for a short walk around. 

Leaving the castle to walk through the town

There were quite a few small shops and cafes in the tourist areas of the town of Conwy and we just walked around for a while.  After walking a couple of the streets, we headed over to the harbor area where there were quite a few small boats moored in the bay.

The Conwy harbor

There was one more “tourist attraction” along the bay that our tour guide had told us about.   This was supposed to be “The Smallest House in Great Britain”.  Now, whether or not this really was the smallest house, or whether it was even really a “house”, I don’t know, but there were people going to see it, look inside, and get their picture taken in front of it.  We saw enough from the outside.

The Smallest House in Great Britain (?)

It was almost time to meet up with our tour group and head back to the Sirena, but there was a large seagull sitting on the top of a piling that just did not want to move as I approached.  The photo below is not a “telephoto” shot, I was as close as it looks to this gull and he never took flight, just watched me.

This was a brave (stubborn?) Gull.

The rest of the day was another somewhat rushed late lunch, followed by recovering from our dangerous climb by consuming a glass or two of wine while relaxing.  We were back to the Red Ginger restaurant for dinner, where we had to search the menu to find something that we wanted to eat and which was not a repeat from our previous visit.  The evening entertainment was Michelle Montuor, another British singer who liked to belt out rearranged and/or unfamiliar show songs.  She is definitely a good vocalist but she tried to talk too much in an attempt to be humorous.  She would have been better off talking less and singing more.

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