Returning to where it all started.... part one

Ireland.

So the morning we left Bath I woke up to find this outside:

So if you were to make a stereotype of what would happen at the beginning of a journey to Ireland, seeing a rainbow would probably be on the top of the list. I followed it and it led to Ireland, wherein I found a leprechaun and a pot of gold. Even cooler still, it turned into a DOUBLE RAINBOW.

While getting on the airplane noticed this bank ad, just a noticeable difference on the way things are approached over here.

And then there we were, the Emerald Isle...

That's not the whole island, I swear.

We met up with our lovely friend Alison who led us to our hotel and then took us to jail.

For you people who tend to watch movies and things like that,  In The Name of the Father with Daniel Day Lewis was filmed here.

This is Kilmainham Jail, the jail that housed leaders from the 1916 rebellion. Not knowing much about Irish history, the place fascinated me. The amount of repression and injustice put upon the Irish people from the English was pretty staggering. The people housed here, the "rebels," were mostly scholars, poets and teachers. All of them just trying to fight for justice in their country.

Through one of the cell peep holes. If you looked at the back of the door, the hole looked like a pupil in an eye carved in the wood so they felt like they were always being watched. Which they were.

The jail was a proper introduction to a city whose history was far more fascinating and deep than I had anticipated.

We drove around and happened upon a beautiful church along the way...

Behind the church they had a grotto based upon a real grotto, Our Lady of Lourdes in France. The whole thing was strange but quite beautiful. Especially in black and white.

The rest of the day was spent just simply going into the city and getting a bite to eat Dublin's oldest pub, founded in 1198 I believe by the Vikings. To be able to eat somewhere that is roughly 600 years older than my home country was pretty sobering.

Here's a group of guys in the corner of the pub, playing music loud with everyone singing along. And this was a Tuesday night. Any night in almost any pub, especially in a district called Temple Bar, there's music every single night. 

The night ended at this pub in Temple Bar. It was filled to brim with people, an Irish man sat in the corner belting out ballads, and there were drinks all around. Now what could be better than that?

PS: It seems that the pictures for this one won't enlarge. Is this happening for anyone else?