Extroverts Only Need Apply

We did another free New Europe walking tour around Dublin and I'm convinced that the tip-based structure is a winner for these guys. They seem to get a lot of enthusiastic tour guides who are a lot more outgoing and friendly doing the tours and we've had a much better experience from the tours we've taken from them.

Our tour guide was no exception to the personality type you'd expect to be doing something like this and the approved method of describing him involved the words "Epic Hair". He looked like a tall ivory walking stick with an orange wig stuck on the top and would have easily been at home as an extra in Braveheart (yes, yes, wrong part of the UK, bite me)

"You can take our walking tours, but you can never take... our freedom"

We started our tour from the City Hall and made our way round to Dublin Castle which is more of an English manor house now as the original was burnt to the ground and only one original tower remains. The statues over the two gates are also interesting as there is a statue representing Fortitude with a rather wimpy lion curled around his feet and another statue representing Justice. This statue is far more interesting as there are several conflicting stories about it's meaning. According to the Dublin Castle tour the statue is facing the castle to show that it was keeping an eye on the English rulers. According to another story the statue has it's back to the poorer inhabitants of the city, showing just what justice was like in Dublin. Interesting to note is that the statute doesn't have the customary blindfold either.

Following on to the back of the castle we learned where Dublin got it's name from the words "Black Pool" and of Jonathan Swift's stay at the castle and the history behind "A Modest Proposal" in which he suggested that to solve the poor's problem they should sell any subsequent children to the English noble classes so that they might dine on the succulent meat of Irish children.

Dublin Castle from the site that was originally the 'Black Pool'

We headed up to Christchurch which houses the remains of a Saxon lord named Strongbow who I'm pretty sure was most famous for his cider. I didn't really pay much attention to this part of the tour. At some point a crazy caretaker (let's face it, is there really any other kind) was cleaning the pipe organ and found a veritable middle-ages Tom and Jerry. The cat had chased the mouse into one of the pipes and gotten stuck. Instead of hilarity ensuing they both died and were mummified from the dry air. Like any caretaker who was a cider short of a six-pack he decided instead of throwing them out he would get a display case and put them on show in the church.

Christchurch is rather imposing

We headed on around the corner to the cities civic offices where there were remains of the cities Viking inhabitants found. Like all good city councils do when history gets in the way of building a nice shiny new council office they eventually got tired of waiting for the archaeologists to be finished and put a nice glass floor over the foundations and built the office anyway.

We forged onwards over the Liffe river, crossing the bank via the Ha'penny bridge which was built by the company that also built the Titanic (constructed right in Dublin, to be sure). We got a nice glimpse of all the scunners drinking along the waterfront as we walked to the O'Connell Bridge which is another icon of Dublin as it is as wide as it is long. We were treated to a short history of the General Post Office and it's role in Irish independence. We also heard a story about Father Pat Noise, a priest who used to rail against the evils of drinking and was eventually run off the bridge by a beer wagon and was commemorated with a plaque on the bridge. The trouble with this is that there never was a Father Pat and the plaque was placed there by pranksters.

The plaque commemorating Father Pat Nois

We then walked down to Trinity College, a bastion of Protestant education in Dublin where Catholics were not allowed to study until only recently. We were regaled with the tale of a bored student who, instead of studying for his exam, was reading the Universities charter in the library one night and found an interesting passage. Apparently Trinity College still has a section in it's charter that allows anyone riding a white horse and wielding a longsword to be treated to a free meal and a pint when they arrive at the University. He decided to test this out during the exam and was promptly told "no" by the exam supervisor. The supervisor thought this was so unusual he was telling the Chancellor and was informed it was still part of the Universities charter. The student was provided with a steak and a pint during the exam, which probably went some was to helping him not feel so bad afterwards when he was informed that he hadn't quite read the whole passage properly. He also needed to provide a stable boy as his horse had wandered off and ruined the cricket pitch. In cricket season. Explusion time.

Rumour has it that if you pass under this structure as a freshman you'll never graduate

We finished our tour in St Stephens Green, a fantastic park in the heart of Dublin. I quite enjoyed the statue dedicated to Wolfe Tone, and we were encouraged to mimic his preferred method of greeting people. Our last story of Dublin was of the many attempts that Ireland has gone through to achieve independence and the many bitter feelings towards the English, for such terrible bastardry as exporting food from Ireland during the potato blight, and to each other as those who thought a part-Republic was better than nothing and those who wanted a united free Ireland.

Wolfe Tone and his preferred greeting