St. Patrick
Post date: 20-Aug-2009 10:58:26
We took the Dublin hop on and hop off tour today. Naturally, we rode on the upper deck of the double decker bus and took pictures of the monuments of Molly Malone, James Joyce and many other famous fictictious and real people that are part of Dublin's history. It was great to take pictures from above the Guinness storehouse. We plan to visit it later this week!
We visited St, Patrick's Cathdral today. It cost us each 5.50 euros, but was well worth the price, especially since our money goes directly to restoring the church. The phrase "chancing your arm" began in St. Patrick's Cathedral because you had to put your hand through the door to enter the church. The hole in the door was made when when Gerald, Earl of Kildare cut a hole in a door and thrust his arm through it. He wanted to call a truce with another Earl, James of Ormond, in 1492.
There is a statue of Benjamin Guinness outside the church and he looks sad because he's looking at
the receipt for paying to restore the cathedral. The cathedral also contains the most amazing staircase that I have ever seen.It leads to the second level of the church and there is an organ there. Unfortunately, the stairs are off limits for visitors.
We also went to the Writer's museum and the most interesting thing I learned there was about poet Patrick Kavangh. He wrote the poem "The Great Hunger" and his publisher refused to let him publish a stanza about masturbation, so he went to the library and the bookstores and wrote the stanza in himself. Now that is a dedicated writer.
Today was one of the longest journeys around Dublin yet. I left my GPS on as we walked all over the city so that you could see the route we took and some of the sights that we saw along the way, too. Click the blue balloons to see some pics.
And, if you still haven't had enough pictures, the whole lot (289) of them can be found here.