Ireland trip report, Saturday

Saturday was one of those days that we sort of thought "where did THAT day go?" which I always forget to factor in when planning. We got up and enjoyed a nice Irish breakfast in the downstairs pub; we were quite alone because all the other guests were part of the hen party from the night before and I can only presume they were sleeping off their hangover. We only saw a couple of them before we left. We headed straight to the train station and headed back to Dublin.

We arrived in the early afternoon and since we were very close, we decided to put our luggage in storage and walk over to the Kilmainham Gaol. It was a very interesting guided tour, because the jail was in the center of some of the biggest events in Irish history. After the 1916 rebellion (the Easter Rising) in Dublin, many leaders of the rebellion were jailed here and several were executed. The public response to the treatment of these prisoners really changed the sentiment of the general public and led to the development of Ireland as it's own country. There's a really nice museum in the jail as well, with several artifacts and exhibits regarding Irish history and freedom and ethics worldwide.

Unfortunately there's not much else around there. (well there is a big museum but we weren't in the mood for a museum.) So we walked back to the train station and had a sandwich for lunch, then took the light rail to another train station where we could catch the DART out of town.

Unfortunately, we hadn't planned on the fact that as the day got later, the frequency of the DART trains got less and less. So we just barely missed one, and then had to hang out for about an hour before the next one. THEN we happened to hit a particular train station right when the Ireland v. Scotland rugby match was letting out, and so we just sat on the tracks for almost half an hour. It was raining, but we were able to see some of the beautiful scenery south of Dublin, and we were excited about checking it out, but by this time it was like 7:00 at night and so we were just looking for a place to sleep. The main area we wanted to see in the morning was the area between Dalkey and Killiney, and the places I'd seen on the internet in Dalkey were really expensive, so we got off in Killiney, only to find out that there wasn't SQUAT in the way of B&Bs or hotels in Killiney. Mind you, we had just gotten off the now-only-hourly-or-even-less-frequent DART train. So we had to decide whether to go further south to Bray, or backtrack and go back towards Dublin. I was worried about finding accomodation the closer we got to Dublin because of this giant rugby game, but the train going back that was was coming sooner (mind you, we still had to wait half an hour or so). So, we waited in the cold for the train to come, and we took it back up to Dun Laoghaire. By this time it's almost 9 p.m., it's freezing cold, raining, windy, and I'm more than a little cranky. And of course I have some names and addresses of a couple of places but no phone numbers. So, we start walking up into the town from the train station, and we stop at the first place that says "hotel" and doesn't say "no vacancy." We head into the downstairs pub and I proceed to wait for like 20 minutes for someone to come to the hotel desk. (Yes, I took that as a bad sign but what are you going to do? :)) We got the keys to a room for 80 euros, which didn't include breakfast. Took our stuff up to the room and tried to get something to eat in the pub, but the kitchen was closed. At least the bartender was nice enough to recommend a place a few blocks away that had good food. We went off walking in the rain to finally get some dinner (and it was good, too), and we of course had another Polish waitress. :) Headed back up to the room, collapsed into the bed and fell asleep despite the thudding of music from the partying downstairs. Long day.