Bloggo Buon Viaggio: Ireland in the Spring: I Dublin & Day Trip to the Wicklow Mtns, Glendalough & Kilkenny

Ever since Dottore Gianni returned from Spain in early October of last year, he has been yearning for another foreign adventure. He examined Mexico in some detail, nearly booking a birthday trip there, but became nervous about finances and decided against it. He investigated several European possibilities - a trip that would begin in Switzerland, pass through a bit of France and end in Italia, but that became far too expensive; Croatia again, as he really wants to get there, though it is quite distant, a bit tricky to get around, and more expensive than he'd have guessed; and a river cruise on the Rhine, as he'd like to be reminded of his first time ever abroad, but cruises of any kind are prohibitively expensive and it would have severely "fixed" his fixed income.

Then he (and I) discovered the offer of a rail journey through Ireland on the Kayak website, which has some rather intriguing suggestions for travel. He did some research and found that the air fares were more reasonable than to any other country on which he focused. But the trip as advertised was a bit regimented for his taste, and as Aer Lingus was the carrier, the closest place he could fly from was Atlanta - which meant a separate and all too expensive ticket for the short hop from Greenville to Atlanta.

But we (you see how I meander into first person narration?) began to realize that it could be done by booking independently. The combination of reasonable prices, a country that, but for Dublin I had never seen, and the relative ease of traveling around an English-speaking country were too appealing to pass up...sooooo...away we go!

Friday, 15 May 2014: My flight to Dublin arrived about on time, between 8:30 and 9 am. It was easier and quicker than I imagined to get through passport control and onto an Airlink bus into the center. The bus dropped me literally across the street from my hotel. There was a funny moment, when after exiting the bus I was looking at my reservation and saying to myself, "Now how exactly do I get to that ho...OH!" as I looked up and see the name in large letters dead ahead of me. Wynn's Hotel it was, on Lower Abbey Street. I was met by a very pleasant reception staff, who took my bags and handed me a map of the city. I walked out rather energized despite jet lag to see what I remembered of Dublin. 

Lower Abbey Street is on the north side of the River Liffey, only a few blocks from it. While there are many interesting sights on the north side the brunt of tourist trade takes place south of the river, and that's the way I headed, crossing O'Connell Bridge - the only one, I have been told, that has the distinction of being as wide as it is long. I had known for some time what my first stop would be, as I had given it short-shrift on my last visit: 

The imposing entrance to Trinity College

Trinity College! A 30 minute tour of this prestigious institution is given by its students which ends at the Old 

Library and the exhibition of the Book of Kells. The tour (entrance to the exhibit included) costs 10 Euros - Book of Kells entrance alone is 9 Euros, so I saw it as a bargain, and we had a delightful tour guide, a PhD candidate whose focus is history, and who resembled uncannily a recent former student, the also delightful Max Lorn-Krause. The quid books that I read noted that if you take this tour you also skip the substantial line at the exhibition. The books were wrong, and those of us on the tour waited I'd say 20-25 minutes, in a bit of a drizzle, to enter.

Just beyond the entrance to Trinity, academic buildings and several shades of green

Upon entrance to the exhibition I was not disappointed - even Dottore Gianni approved! Of the ancient book itself not much is to be seen, but there is a wealth of information on the walls of the rooms adjacent to the big payoff, with beautiful enlarged illustrations from the Book of Kells, excellent descriptions and history of it and other similar books, earlier and later than it.

Another courtyard in Trinity, with a Calder statue decorating it. The Old Library is on the right, the entrance to the exhibit just out of view

Speaking of which, what do you know about the Book of Kells? Not much? Less at least than you'd like to? Well, allow Dottore Gianni to enlighten you!

The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript that contains the gospels of all four of the evangelists that penned the New Testament of the Bible. But the gospels can be had in any 

Window of the Old Library decorated
with a page from the Book of Kells

standard version, whereas the illustrations in the Book of Kells, to use a phrase over-used but in this case literally true, are priceless. Its exact history is not known, but many educated guesses have been offered. In the sixth century, one of Ireland's most famous saints, Colm Cille or Columba, was exiled from Ireland and with twelve monks founded the Iona Abbey on a small island off the west coast of Scotland. It is here that the book may well have been written, at least in part, probably in the late eighth century. Why is it not called the Book of Iona? Because the island was ravaged by the Vikings in 806, St Columba's monks retreated to Ireland, to Kells exactly and the Book of Kells, remained there until the seventeenth century. At that time, in order to protect it from The British troops of Oliver Cromwell, the Book was moved to Dublin, ending up at Trinity College, where it remains today.

The room where the Book itself is housed was packed with people when I was there, it is in a glass cabinet with another illuminated manuscript slightly less famous than itself. So all one can see of either book is the page that they are opened to, and that amid elbowing and jostling - but you can view it on line, and it is worth the look, every page an artistic masterpiece.

The Great Hall of the Old Library, stacks on two levels,
exhibit in the middle

So! that was worth it and then some. But I also remembered that one should not miss the Old Library itself, up a floor from the exhibition. This, for me, was every bit as stunning and beautiful as the Book of Kells. You enter a long gallery, stacks on either side, and in several glass cabinets in the center you can see a variety of examples of books from the library and learn a bit about the library itself. 

One of the stacks in the Old Library with a very nice staircase
and guarded by none other than William Shakespeare

One of the most worthwhile visits in Dublin! Less worthwhile was my next move, to hop on an open-top tour bus in order to really see the city. Why less worthwhile? Because Dublin is 

Crossing the River Liffey on the open-top bus tour

one continuous, traffic jam. James Joyce famously said "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake," but oh, if he, who explored so fully in real life and so famously in his great novel, Ulysses, could see Dublin in its current state, on sidewalks overrun by tourists shopping for all they're worth, many of them inebriated by the delicious and world-famous brew of Dublin, Guinness, on the roads overwhelmed by buses, taxis, all manner of traffic that makes it dangerous to cross any street, even when the "walk" indicator is on...I think Joyce might revise the statement: "DUBLIN TRAFFIC is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."

We did see several sights:

Christchurch Cathedral, with the bridge modeled on Venice's Bridge of Sighs on the left

St Patrick's Cathedral

Guinness!

To make a long story short - something Dottore Gianni is ever  loathe to do, but he wants his readers to keep reading - the tour bus was more often stuck in traffic rather than moving, and the driver was so behind schedule and I'd guess so frustrated that, after cutting the important Kilmainham Jail stop, he cut the tour short after the Guinness stop - actually he made one more, at Heuston Station, where I had planned to get off anyway, then high-tailed it back to the center of town - though high-tailing might well be quite the wrong word to use as the traffic continued to crawl along at a pace a snail could beat.

Where the Guinness tour ends - atop its plant, tasting - what else? Guinness!

I was headed to Heuston Station to collect the ticket I'd pre-booked for my trip in two days' time to Cork. It was simply enough done via a machine, and while I was almost debating getting back on the next tour bus to arrive I luckily came upon the LUAS system, one of the most efficient ways to get around Dublin, as it is a trolley system that avoids much of the impossible traffic in the city. It costs but 1.70 Euros to be taken anywhere in the center, and I was headed a mere five stops away, back to my hotel - a pleasant journey, the antithesis of the open-top bus tour. Any of you who are reading this would do well to avoid an expensive fee and a real waste of time in Dublin.

Brief sidebar: I am usually a real advocate for open-top bus tours of cities I'm introducing myself to, as I tend to get a feel 

An entrance to St Stephen's Green, with a memorial
to Irish Patriot Wolfe Tone, on the bus tour

for the particular city during the course of the informed ride around it. And you generally learn something of the city, whether the tour is given live or whether you plug in to a canned narration. When I ran annual tours to Edinburgh the first thing we'd do is take the tour, so the students will have a sense of that lovely city. Some city tours are better than others, but very sad to say I have never encountered one as useless as this one in Dublin. Oh! I should add that I almost never use the hop-on, hop-off aspect of the tour - once around is all I need, and I have found that tourists spend more time waiting for the next bus (and god forbid that one should be full) than in riding from place to place on one.

Back at Wynn's Hotel they were more than ready for me, so I ascended on the lift to my hotel room and immediately took a long shower, before I slept for two or three hours to develop a second wind. Unfortunately, strain as I might to do so, I remember almost nothing of the room itself - not even the shower stall! There was a safe, into which I could barely maneuver my laptop - but nothing more. That may be a good thing, as I am not remembering anything bad about the room - I just cannot picture it! But what matter? It was mine for just two nights and I'd be out and about as much as possible...still, a bit odd...

The Liffey's most charming bridge, called The Ha'penny Bridge for the toll that it cost at one time to cross it

Up I got from my nap and out of the door I went, that evening, to further explore the town. First I set out to find the place at which I would meet my tour bus in the morning - 

Temple Bar - packed with tourists

more on the tour soon, but the meeting point, I was very pleased to find out, was closer to my hotel than I'd imagined, a very easy walk. So, I got on with my evening, headed back across O'Connell Bridge to the south of the river and attempted to stroll up Grafton Street, the main shopping street in Dublin, and a pedestrian zone, fortunately, except for the fact that there were far too many pedestrians, 

Crowd spillover from a pub on a pedestrian street
just off Grafton

and walking it was less than pleasant. It was even worse when I slipped over to the Temple Bar District, this area MOBBED by what I'd guess were mostly tourists - what Dubliner in her/his right mind would attempt to wade through that mass of humanity, especially on a Friday evening. Temple Bar IS a bar, one of the many, many bars that line the small congested streets, disgorging drunks who cannot hold their Guinness. It actually felt a tad dangerous, particularly to stray off the main, semi-pedestrian zone. 

Tacky leprechaun on Grafton Street

I was also by now very tired, and fairly hungry. I'd had a mediocre sandwich in a mediocre and tiny cafe across from my hotel just after the abandoned bus tour. The lovely blonde Eastern-European woman who served me was, however, 

Stained-glass poets at the Poet and Peasant Bar

anything but mediocre, so I didn't mind the cuisine as I tried not to devour HER with my eyes. That evening there were any number of places I might have entered to eat, but I decided that heading back to the neighborhood of the hotel was best, given my fatigue. And then I DID remember something about the room! There was a hotel directory, through which I looked and discovered that there was a pricey restaurant in it, also a not so pricey and very convenient pub, called the Saints and Scholars Bar. I took a seat at the bar, ordered a Guinness (my first of the trip - damn! it was fine!) and a salad. All I needed.

A Guinness-eye view of the world at the
Poet and Peasant Bar

And with that I returned to my nondescript room and fell soundly asleep.

Saturday, 16 May: The directory in my room (I begin to picture parts of the space, now that I'm writing this - a desk, where the hotel directory was located, dark wood, a small bathroom caddy-corner to it - I think an armchair, but am not certain...) reminded me that if I wanted to be served quickly I should be up early. That is no problem for me as I am always up early. So I went down to breakfast the minute the restaurant was scheduled to open. Problem is it was nearly full already! So much for quick service. I did not want the hot breakfast, but the rather haughty waiter did not give me the chance to explain that. I seem to have been the only person in the dining room (which doubled as the restaurant later in the day - very old British hotel style, many of the men wearing tweed jackets and tie - if you receive my meaning. 

I waited and waited - all I wanted was coffee, but you had to order it, and my waiter would not come - if only he'd have realized how easy my order would be. I grew tired of waiting, got up and poured orange juice from a full-to-the-brim glass pitcher into a small glass, so of course some of it spilled. This may be what finally drew my waiter's attention for as soon as I had got the juice and a scone and got back to my table he appeared. I gave him my order, eventually got my coffee and toast (which I hadn't ordered) enough for six, and began to relax into my breakfast, when an old British fellow was seated opposite me by the other waiter in residence. Not really a problem, as the room was filling, just a surprise. 

I discovered upon chatting with the fellow that many of the men in the room - he and the other waiter assumed I was one of them - were in the same boat he was. They had all come from England for a tour of Ireland by antique train. But before they were able to start it, they were informed that the train had broken down (so much for antique trains, says Dottore Gianni) and that they'd have to spend at least part of another day in Dublin. Thus, I realized, the overcrowded dining room! The hotel was packed, as many people who were to have left the day before were still here. Ah! He was a decent chap, from a small place on the eastern coast of England - I want to say Whitby, but I know it's someplace other than that, just not remembering - that general area, in any case. He was trying not to seem disappointed, but was clearly worried that the tour might be even further delayed. I more or less enjoyed our brief conversation, but ate quickly to leave him to himself. I bid him farewell and good luck, went back to my room and shortly after took my walk to the tour bus meeting point at the low end of Lower Gardiner Street.

After a bit of confusion about who was going where - there were at least three different tours leaving at just about the same time - I boarded the bus, along with perhaps fifteen 

Our tour bus

others and, after two more pick-ups at hotels in Dublin, tedious because with the traffic (remember?) it took a very long time, also adding I think six more to the number of passengers, we were off!

This first of several tours I had pre-booked was to an area south of Dublin, and included the Wicklow Mountains, Glendalough (actually in those mountains) and the city of Kilkenny. The tour company, cleverly titled Paddywagon Tours (do you see the double-entendre? No? Well, I'll explain - sorry, wait - Dottore Gianni orders me not to!), had built a good bit of time into the pick-up stage, so we were on our way out of Dublin in plenty of time to see all the promised sights, our driver, a witty feller named James, assured us. 

Daniel O'Connell monument, Dublin - note the pigeon on his head

As he took us out of Dublin he pointed out a number of interesting spots IN Dublin (more certainly than the open-top tour bus had). Some of what I learned included the bullet 

Look closely at the bullet hole on this angel

hole in the right breast of one of the four sculpted angels on the Daniel O'Connell monument. He was a major Irish patriot in the early nineteenth century, attempting to allow Catholics to sit in British Parliament, and working for repeal of the "Union" - that union forced on the Irish by the British, more a tyranny over a subject people than a union of two peoples (thus the monument, the bridge, the large and lengthy street on which his statue sat, all named for him). The bullet hole came well after O'Connell's death, 

The Post Office - many more bullet holes in this building

during the bloody Easter rebellion of 1916, centered around the Dublin post office, only a block or two from the statue. James also pointed out what he called "daylight robbery" - the British overlords imposed a tax on light (!) in Irish public buildings and private ones. The more windows you had the more you were charged. There are still several examples today of spaces clearly meant for windows that are all walled up. He noted too the beautiful primary colors of 

Brightly colored Dublin doors

Irish doors, painted thus because of a notoriously poor postal system. There were street names but no numbers on the houses, so the colors were indicators to the postal workers of who lived where on a particular street. James took us through the very fashionable Leeson Street, which he insisted had once been the red-light district of Dublin, prostitutes ensconced in the basements of those lovely Georgian houses! He instructed us in the meaning of the term "donnybrook," an agreement to meet at a certain place and settle arguments by a fistfight. It was named for a now very posh neighborhood, site of several embassies, named Donnybrook, in particular for the fight-site outside a pub that still stands in that area. He even explained the origin of a word I just used - posh - as "port out, starboard home" - which refers to...what? Oh! I must get on with the tale of our tour, insists Dottore Gianni, so no more on that for now, even though James is quite the story-teller!


We gradually left the city and suburban areas behind us and climbed into the mountains. James, as well as the driver I would have on the tour to Connemara (stay tuned), protested, perhaps too much, that compared with other countries there were no real mountains in Scotland, instead merely hills of some height. To me, the areas of high altitude in Wicklow and Connemara looked like mountains. To each his own. James pointed to the first of these mountains, named Sugarloaf. In the village near that hill/mountain he showed us a pub which claimed, even though the Wicklow Mountains are not the tallest in Ireland, that it is the "highest place to get high" in the country!

From the bus window (thus some glare - lower left - the face of the woman sitting behind me!) - the highest place to get high!

And then we reached Glendalough (pronounced like the woman's name Glenda with "lock" attached, first syllable gets the accent), an area whose name means "the valley with two lakes." In this valley is situated an ancient monastery of the same name, founded by St Kevin and other monks in the sixth century. It survived Viking raids, but not the British, who destroyed much of the place in the fourteenth century. The existing structures date, most likely, from between the eighth and tenth centuries. 

The Tower at Glendalough

James had given us some good information about Glendalough on our way to it, but his remarks had not prepared me for the sheer beauty of the place. I marched immediately to the remains of the monastery. The Tower is the iconic sight, certainly the most photographed, but here I saw it in context, alongside the remains of the church and 

The site from a distance

outbuildings, and an ancient cemetery. As I took it all in I imagined Kevin and the monks at work, the Viking raids - it nearly made me dizzy, in part because as I looked beyond the site itself I took in more of the context. Just beyond the cemetery a group of sheep and lambs grazed in a lovely meadow backed by mountains and the lower lake - lush shades of green, a 

Sheep, lambs, mountains and the lower lake

bucolic feast for the eyes. I left the site and started walking briskly along the path to the upper lake, the larger of the two. It's a 15 to 20 minute walk through forests, streams and small waterfalls. There are more extensive and difficult walks to be had in the area, but we were on a schedule - a downside to any tour, but for me the

A stream on my walk

information from a fine guide trumps the tight schedule. So having spent all too few minutes at the upper lake I walked as briskly back to the area at which our bus was to pick us up. Still having time I wandered around the site again, then looked through the souvenir stalls nearby - a woman was playing what I think were Irish pipes, plaintively, quite beautifully. One other person from our tour, a young Asian woman, was traveling solo, so we agreed to take one another's photo, then it was time to be on our way. But it was a truly memorable place and an experience I'll savor for years to come. As the bus pulled out I realized I'd not got to the visitors' centre, but I have no regrets that I spent all my time there wandering through a beautiful mountain setting filled with history.

The larger, upper lake at Glendalough

Tombs with Celtic crosses and more buildings at Glenalough

Ruins and mountains

How many shades of green? Johnny Cash saw 40 - a bit of the site and much of
the greenery at Glendalough

We headed on the bus towards Kilkenny, but on our way stopped once or twice in far less lush, much more rugged 

Site of the wedding scene from Braveheart - note the
cars - diehard fans of the film?

looking mountains. In this area James explained a large patch of green, filled with beautiful conifers. The government oversees the farming of these areas for the sale of the fir trees at Christmas time, all over the world. And he offered us a brief view of the site chosen for the wedding scene in Braveheart. While the film is set in Scotland, it was shot mostly in the "highlands" of Ireland! Then a bit later we paused at a bridge where the couple first meets in the rather dreary film P.S. I Love You. (Dottore Gianni does his research, tedious as it sometimes is!).

One more semi-stop before Kilkenny - a tiny village in this part of Ireland is called - well, let's let the sign proclaim it:

Hollywood???

And guess what they've put in one of their fields?

First look at Kilkenny

And then we entered the rather charming town of Kilkenny. This was our lunch stop, quite late in the day for it, but also a place where we'd have time to stroll through the grounds of

My meal at Nostalgia Cafe

Kilkenny Castle, or to take a tour of its interior, and to visit the small but lovely cathedral. I think that many in the group chose simply to eat and stroll the High Street, perhaps shop a bit. I too ate, in a delightfully appointed place called the Nostalgia Cafe. Nostalgia in fact covered the walls in the form of old signs with clever sayings on them, old advertisements, statues and figurines, and so forth. I ordered the special - 

Nostalgia at Nostalgia

bacon, cabbage and potatoes. We in the U.S. would call that bacon ham, as it is served in wide, thick slabs, and while there was little cabbage in evidence there were plenty of mashed potatoes, supplemented a large serving of mashed carrots and I think turnips - hardly what one could call delicious, but not bad, and substantial. I washed it all down with a very tasty pint of Kilkenny beer and was quite pleased with my choice. 

One of the many old signs on the walls of Nostalgia

But my favorite was on the men's room door

Kilkenny's Cathdedral

Next I made for the part of town farthest from the castle, where the cathedral was located, set appealingly on a not too difficult height to climb, via a few sets of steps. It is small in terms of cathedrals, but then Kilkenny is small when put against most cathedral towns. It was quite lovely inside, and very well cared for. 

The small but lovely choir in the Cathedral

But I had little time to spend there, and unfortunately no time to tour the house built in the Tudor era, which looked

Tudor house in Kilkenny

imposing from the street view, and which I'm sure was interesting on the inside. Across from that was the Old Jail and Courthouse - not, I think to be visited, but an interesting if somewhat dull and gray building to look at. I would never have had time to make the third I'd have liked to, that of the Smithwick's Brewery, which as luck would have it was closed for renovations anyway. 

Smithwick's - closed!

Quick sidebar: Smithwick's was a beer I first tasted and very much enjoyed on the last day of my visit to Dublin in 2005. I'd not heard of it before, though it's now on sale in the U.S. in many places. I drank it at an out of the way pub, very local in nature, but not unfriendly to this stranger - aaahhh, memories!

Pleasant street paralleling the High Street

So I photographed the place instead, and walked down a street parallel to the High Street, but set lower than it, which was filled with restaurants of all sorts. I found myself thinking that, while not of tremendous touristic significance, 

Sculpted gardens at Kilkenny Castle

Kilkenny might have been a nice place in which to spend a night or two. My goal was the gardens of the castle, and I attained it. There are sculpted, English-style gardens at the end nearest the center of town, and on the other side a wonderful and quite huge "garden" that had long since become a public park. As the day was beautiful there were any number of Kilkennians enjoying themselves outdoors - a lovely way to end a short but sweet visit.

The castle from the rear, with some of the lovely public park, once its private grounds

Then back by bus into Dublin, which took some time as we hit it on a Friday rush hour, probably one of the worst times to drive into a city already overcrowded with vehicles. While we were going in the wrong (or right) direction, there were

Guinness?

still a few longish slow-downs. But James remained witty and told us more tales of Kilkenny, the Wicklow Mountains and Dublin. I remember two in particular. I had asked him about the local Kilkenny brew and he recommended it, though over the loudspeaker once we were all back in the bus something to this effect: "Smithwick's and Kilkenny are two well-thought of beers, but do you know what we who drink Guinness call them in Dublin?" (Pregnant pause) "Foot wash!"

Or Kilkenny? You be the judge

And another, about the road on which we traveled back toward Dublin. It was a new-ish freeway and had cost a good bit to build. It also trepassed upon farmers' lands and in order to placate them when their fields were literally cut in half by the road, overpasses had to be built so that the cows could get from a grazing field to the barn! James called them "cow-passes." He hoped we might pass one while it was in action, so to speak, but alas, no such luck today.

It had been a very very good tour, and I could only hope that subsequent tours would be nearly as fascinating. Most were, as it turned out, only one, really, wasn't. But for that, dear readers, you'll have to read another blog post!

Back in Dublin I had another wander through the city, which offered no more charm than had yester-eve’s walk. I don’t mean to diminish Dublin, but it is an overcrowded mess and is only in places pretty enough, or history-filled enough, or even architecturally interesting, to appeal much to one passing through. So I wasn't overly interested in further exploration. Part of my time was spent trying to find the Leprechaun Museum. There were one or two signs pointing in the general direction, but I walked and walked down a street on the north side of town, and as I walked the street became less and less a place a tourist wanted to find himself in at night. So I turned back, never having found the museum, which may have been every bit as imaginary as those "little people" for which it is named.

Then back to the hotel, the Saints and Scholars Bar to be exact, for another Guinness. I had eaten so much so late in the afternoon in Kilkenny that I didn't need supper at all, just munched some overpriced, over-spiced peanuts at the bar.

I found myself seated next to the same woman I had sat next to the night before. A shriveled, wizened little soul, she was, as she had been yesterday, reading a newspaper, her eyes only four or five inches from the text, as she obviously had eye problems. She had, as she had had yesterday, a small, empty glass in front of her. I found myself feeling sorry for her (also, somewhat frighteningly, picturing myself as I might be seen as I grow still older with worsening eyes) as I thought she was a poor, lonely old lady whom the bartenders watched out for, and allowed to sit for some time to at least feel the social vibrations from the pub. However, when I was about halfway through my delicious Guinness - it really does taste better in Dublin - another small woman approached her - recognized her, and both of them started cackling with pleasure and chatting - old friends! The newcomer offered to buy my the old lady a drink, asked what she'd like, and she said, "My usual - Jameson's of course!" Her friend bought it, and one for herself as well - neat, a rather substantial pour too. Good for her, I guess...in better shape, particularly after the Jameson's, than I'd surmised.

I took myself back up the stairs and spent the rest of the night in my room, looking over photographs of the lovely day trip I'd just been on. I'm still not picturing all of the room, but am remembering a bit more of it - not its most important feature for a weary traveler - the bed - but for the view from the windows. Rather dull, of Lower Abbey Street and a few bars across the street, with a view to the right of the LUAS stop so conveniently close to Wynn's Hotel.

 Short dramatic sidebar: The theatrically astute of my readers might guess that a street named Lower Abbey Street may well be near the fabled Abbey Theatre - and you'd be right if you did. My hotel was one block away from it. But this trip was not meant to be theatrical in nature, and I'd been to the Abbey before, in 2005. Still, it was nice to see it again, though there was a lot of construction going on and the street in front of it was a bit of a mess. 

Dottore Gianni, Doctor Jack, the good doctor, just plain old Jack -
what you will, as you like it
at the Abbey in 2005

And at Glendalough in 2104
tempos fugit! La vita e troppo breve!

Thus ends the story of my first two days in Ireland - next stop (in the next blog post) Cork!