Dublin was plastered with posters both for and against the upcoming vote to repeal their 8th amendment, which was voted into law by a referendum that passed by 67% in 1983, which had the effect of outlawing all abortions in the country. We didn't talk a lot to the locals about the vote, although everyone we mentioned the signs to agreed it was pretty amazing that it was coming to a vote at all in largely-Catholic Ireland. (In an interesting coincidence, on May 25th the 8th was repealed, also by a referendum, and this also passed by 67% of the vote).
We took another amazing historical walking tour in Dublin. Our guide, Tommy Graham, is their co-founder; also founded and edits History Ireland magazine; and runs a history roundtable discussion podcast called Hedge Schools. He was mesmerizing, and presented Ireland's history with a subversive acknowledgment of the many things that politics gets wrong and the bit that it gets right. He reminded Colleen of David Byrne. We learned a lot about Dublin and Ireland before lunch - it was more like a mobile history class than a sightseeing tour. We would have happily spent the rest of our time in the pub with Tommy discussing Irish-UK-US history.
If you've seen Office Space, you know the quote Brian though of when we saw this guy's business... "Why should I change? He's the one who sucks!"
We first saw signs of the Irish literary sense of humor in the South, but during Sunday's historical walk it really came into focus. So many great puns that simply had to be turned into businesses...
"We sentence the defendant to a night of excellent sleep"
All street and road signs are in Irish (and Irish first!) and English. We didn't hear any spoken Irish, although we did listen to a Gaelic radio station during our car travels. A beautiful, fluid language to hear spoken.
Our guide from this morning pointed out that Irish is mandatory in schools, and that her citizens are worried that not many people speak it today; in contrast, the law didn't respect Welsh as equal to English until just a few decades ago in Wales, and there are now counties in Wales where Welsh is more widely spoken than English. So, if you want to make sure a language and culture survive, make them illegal.
Our historical walking tour touched on the 1916 Easter Rising and the complex developments that came from it, that eventually led to Ireland's independence from Britain. This memorial is one of dozens in the city to the members of the Provisional Government of Ireland, who surrendered after the uprising to prevent more civilian deaths, and were then publicly executed. These executions played a large part in turning the movement for independence from something that many Irish citizens didn't support, into the overwhelming election of Sinn Féin to Parliament and Irish independence in 1919. (Apologies to you history buffs if we scrambled some facts. Please read more about it!)
Powerscourt Center was a beautiful history reuse project, saving a building that had been used as parking garage and turning it into a bustling courtyard full of shops; it was hard to photograph from the inside, so here's a photo of the before and after.
How was the weather in Dublin? Mild, but not cold. Spring was only 2 or 3 weeks ahead of Iowa, but the palms seem to handle the winter OK. This year Dublin, like Wales, received a few inches of snow and it shut the city down for days just a few weeks before our visit!
After our awesome tour came to its end, we grabbed a few pints at the Brazen Head on Lower Bridge St, which is half-covered in emergency services patches from around the world. Apparently, there are a number of firefighters, peace officers, and EMTs whose family history extends back through Ireland. Do you see your hometown behind Coco?
What are the chances? Somehow, our next stop was also in a pub. We sampled a few more pints and stuck around for this Irish flute, banjo, flute, banjo, flute, and accordion jam band in the front of the house.
Another great business name! Brian was having a great time. Colleen may have sprained one of her eye-rolling muscles. Also, Brian would honestly love to have this store closer to home.
We headed to our final dining experience of the trip, located in the beautiful former Belfast bank and (not surprisingly) called The Bank on College Green. Their impressive menu started with "This site has been occupied since Viking times."
Our last night out echoed our first, way back in London 2 weeks earlier, with a great spread of local meats, cheeses and pickled everything. The long day got to us this time and we didn't make any notes about our favorites here, but we both remember the bacon being otherworldly, and the cheeses kept one-upping each other.
Not pictured: The Masters Tournament was live on all of the TVs in the bar, and there was as much commentary and interest in the game - and countryman Rory McIlroy - from the crowd here as there would be for a college game on TV in the U.S. Part of this may have come from the number of wagers we heard were riding on the outcome, but there was definitely love for the sport, too. (It was pretty neat to read coverage of the US tournament in the Irish Times the next day too). It was a nice glimpse of home from our perch at the bar, 6 hours ahead of the action on TV, realizing we were heading out to our hotel after dark while the afternoon sun was still shining in Georgia.