Dublin - Mayhem and Magic

Mayhem - This morning was a comedy of errors that all combined to end up at a perfect conclusion. The first thing that had to be done was a quick trip to the airport to pick up our hire car. Three reasons why it had to be the airport - this rental company was the only one that didn't charge extra per day for an extra driver, it only has GPS available at its airport location and it's cheaper to pick up and return a car from the one location - all very good reasons for us to get up, quick coffee and shuttle bus to the airport.

As we were driving out, I remembered on our taxi ride in the other day, we asked the lovely driver why a lot of the houses had different coloured doors, all bright colours. He told us - with the disclaimer that it may or may not be true - that it happened many moons ago when the fellas would come home drunk from the pubs and if they went into the wrong house and ended up in someone else's bed - "whoops, I thought it was my house..." So all the women painted the doors different colours so they couldn't use that excuse!

We arrived at the airport quite early as we followed the hotel concierge's advice that it would take 50 minutes - it only took 20. Our car wasn't ready yet so we decided to get a coffee and Danish instead of going straight out to the rental place. This was the first error as when we got to the rental office at 10:00, there was a massive queue. If we had gone straight there when we arrived, at 9:00, we would have been to the front of the queue by 10:00.

We had to get a courtesy shuttle out to the rental section and driver didn't notice us about to get on and as Alison stepped onto the bus, he took off and closed the door onto her. He stopped as soon as he realised, opened the doors so I could get on, but not a word of sorry or even an acknowledgement to Alison, which was exceedingly rude!

Get to the rental section, and into the massive queue. It moved fairly quickly but still took half an hour. When we finally got to be served, the guy told us we were in the wrong queue - this was the queue we were in...

This was the one we could (should) have been in...

Half an hour standing in a queue when we could have gone straight to the front of the line! Never mind, all good and we have our car.

Just to top of the comedy of errors, the GPS would not work - I was trying to type in Kilma... Got that far and what actually typed in was Kjup--mm-m-mjutmmm, which wasn't right! So we exchanged that and finally keyed in Kilmainham Gaol and we were off, driving through Dublin. 

It was only a 15-minute drive and we were there, found a park, walked into the Gaol, had time to find the loo and into the room as our tour begun. So the comedy of errors that was time-consuming and annoying actually worked out perfectly in our favour!

Mayhem (in its day) - Kilmainham Gaol was opened in 1796 and it was intended as a prison of reform - with three S's - separation, silence and supervision, so the idea was that the prisoners were kept separate and silent, one per cell and under constant supervision. This didn't last for long when the potato famine struck and people turned to petty crime to survive.

The prison shows the progression of architecture for prisons as the years went by - the early section had no glass windows, just open air, as they believed disease was spread through bad odours and the lack of glass windows allowed the air to move through. Would have been pretty cold and miserable.

The doors also opened outwards in this section - not a good idea as the prisoners could bang the door open and hit the guards. The cells also had low doors so the prisoners came out bending over - easy to hit them down if they were causing trouble.

After the potato famine, the numbers in the prison swelled considerably - up to 9,000 a year instead of 1,000 a year. Some people deliberately caused crime so they could go in as conditions in the prison were sometimes better than outside. Men, women and children went in - the youngest was a boy of five whose crime was riding a train without a ticket, he got seven days or similar.

There were many political prisoners from the various uprisings - the most famous were the men from the Easter Uprising, they were all executed here. 

The last section was the one that was designed so the guards could see all the cells at once. This one has been used in a lot of movies, which helped raise money for the restoration of the prison once it was no longer used as a prison.

This was our guide, David, he was excellent - told the stories well and had a big, booming voice.

After the main tour, we went through the museum, full of interesting stuff, including a letter from one of the condemned (only 18 years old), written to his mother the night before he was executed.

Mayhem - the drive back to the hotel - actually not real mayhem, just a bit - the GPS wouldn't charge properly and kept trying to shut down. Alison had to hold it in place while I drove. As we got into Dublin, it was very slow going, then GPS wanted me to turn in a lane that said it was just for buses and taxis, so had to manoeuvre around a bit. Then I cut someone off, not badly, just annoyingly. Finally back to the hotel for coffee and a sit.

Magic - we walked to our next spot along the Liffey River and the Ha'Penny bridge - which I was very keen to do.

We then arrived at the Leprechaun Museum for our tour...

Into the foyer to wait for our start time, this has displays of interesting leprechaun things...

Our guide, Caitlin, welcomed us and gave us a brief introduction, including the fact that Walt Disney's grandfather was Irish and used to tell him stories of leprechauns all the time, which must have helped his imagination! 

There is a map before we go in, of all the areas we are going to visit...

We go first into the magic tunnel, through the giants causeway, and into the giants room, where we can play for a while.

From here, we go into the map room where they show a video of fairy life through Ireland, then through to the rainbow, where hundreds of coloured streamers hung down for us to walk through, into the room with the pot of gold, for stories of leprechauns and their mischief making.

Bit hard to tell from the photos, but it was very cool and fun. Then through to the fairies room for stories of the fairies, who are not at all nice. Through to the forest room for more stories and then outside and then the ubiquitous gift shop! Lots of fun!

Mayhem among the magic a we asked a guy to take our photo with Seamus McShamrock, the museum's resident leprechaun and he couldn't focus. Thankfully, the photo with me in a leprechaun hat and beard was totally out of focus!

Then back to the hotel for a quick nap and coffee before heading out - we are being daring and going out tonight!

Magic first up - we find a lovely place for dinner and I wish I ate meat coz they have a traditional Irish stew.

Then we stumbled on more magic - walking past a pub, music came spilling out and we went in to investigate. There was a girl on an Irish fiddle and a guy on guitar, singing, telling stories and joking with the crowd and they were fantastic! One old guy got up to sing a chorus with them. The singer encouraged a lot of the crowd to get up and dance a jig and the whole thing was fabulous and quintessentially Irish.

Then it was on to mayhem, with some magic thrown in - we went to a Dublin institution that has been running for years - drag queen bingo with Shirley Temple Bar - hilarious! We had a bit of a wait, I had a Guinness - when in Ireland... The show started and there were five performers who all did a number, this was one of the best...

Then four of them did Lady Marmalade, which is such a great number.

Then it was time for bingo. This was great fun and the lovely guy we had been chatting to won the first round, which was excellent and we cheered as much as if we had won ourselves.

Bit out of focus, but here is Shirley Temple Bar calling the bingo - hard to get her as she is so animated and funny.

After the bingo, there were some more numbers, including a very funny Little Mermaid sequence. 

Then we headed home and it's a very late night! And there was a bit of mayhem as I tried to write this and it kept crashing... Hopefully it's magic though...