Travelling Ireland; Saturday, 07 August, 2004

Saturday morning and I caught the open top bus out to Kilmainham Jail. The Jail is only viewable by going on one of the guided tours, but are well worth waiting for as it gives a very moving insight into the state of conditions that prisoners where held in right up until the countries independence in the 1920's.

After the Jail I got the bus back into town and the DART out to Dalkey. Located almost due south of the Howth Peninsular the town is most famous for the number of castles it had. Until the building of Dún Laoghaire harbour slightly closer into Dublin the town was the main port for Dublin and so had to have protection for goods being off loaded and the main street at one point boasted 7 castles. Today only two remain, and only one of those is open to look around.

Goat castle contains an exhibition on the rise, and subsequent decline of Dalkey from a powerful port town to a quiet suburb of Dublin. The castle also offers good views from it's roof over the town and harbour.

From Dalkey I got the DART back into Dublin and caught the bus up through Phoenix Park to the Jameson's distillery, just to check that the tour was still as good as it had been when I visited in 2001, and it was!!

After a walk along the side of the Liffey I wandered through Temple Bar and had dinner before taking advantage of the late opening at the Guinness Storehouse to reassess it against my 2001 visit. It's still as good as it was and the Guinness in the Gravity bar at the top is still good. As it was so late I was able to watch sunset (if there hadn't been so much cloud it might even have been impressive!)

After finishing my free pint I wandered back into the city centre and got the bus back to the hotel.