St. Patrick's Cathedral

St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland

This trip to Morocco and the subsequent trip to Ireland have checked off tons of boxes on my life's to do list. Many of which were not on the list until I got to Morocco, like going to the Hammam, visiting the Hassan II mosque,and  riding the Kanguroo. The spring break trip to Ireland, however, let me check off things that have been on my list for a very long time. Visit St. Patrick's Cathedral: Check. St. Patrick's was not what I expected, but it was still very cool and very interesting. 

The building(completed in 1192) was not originally a cathedral, but was elevated to cathedral status in 1224. This cathedral is one of two Church of Ireland(very similar to the church of England, all beliefs are the same as Catholicism except that the Pope does not have universal power) cathedrals on the island. St. Patrick's was originally a Catholic cathedral, but after the English Reformation it became part of the Church of England around 1535, even though a majority of its constituents remained Catholic. It is located directly next to the spot where the "well of St. Patrick" was supposed to have been. St. Patrick used this well to convert and baptize the native Irish people. 

There are many famous and important people of Irish history buried in St. Patrick's. One of the most important being Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels. Swift was dean of the cathedral from 1713-1745 and many of his writings were delivered in the church. 

A fantastic church choir was practicing in the church when Tiffany and I arrived. It made the whole experience a little surreal. Surrounded by beautiful stained glass, historic artifacts, and angelic music is exactly my idea of a good time in a cathedral. 

All the keys to the cathedral for the past 100 years or so.

One really interesting artifact was a book encased in glass containing the names of the 50,000 Irish men who died in World War I. The information panel said that "from time to time, the Cathedral staff turn the pages of the volume so that all names may be seen." 

The Doyles: Richard, Robert, Stephan, Thomas, Vincent and William (a good 20 of these are Thomas and William)

Legend has it, that a Romeo and Juliet-esque family feud was going on in Dublin in 1492. Both parties were getting quite sick of the warfare however. Seeking respite, Gerald the King of Kildare and his men found shelter in the cathedral. He was of course pursued by his rival, James of Ormond, but he promptly shut the door in his face. After an amount of time, trying to wait it out, and realizing that James was not going anywhere, Gerald cut a whole in the door and stuck his arm through in order to shake on a truce. This is supposedly the origin of phrase "chancing your arm" as in taking a risk. 

National Leprechaun Museum

After the Irish Writer's Museum, Tiffany and I made our way over to the National Leprechaun Museum. This was a very entertaining, little museum. The atmosphere is definitely geared towards children, but I think its something that everyone can enjoy. It reminded me a little bit of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. You begin in this little anteroom filled with Leprechaun memorabilia and "facts." I learned that leprechauns are shoe makers to the fairies. Fairies are not like Disney fairies, they are tall, beautiful people-like creatures who love to dance. They dance so much that they always need new shoes and so the leprechauns have a lot of business and in turn a lot of gold.

After a brief introduction to the history of leprechauns by our guide, the first order of business was to shrink us to the size of leprechauns.

Then we got to experience the difficulties of being so small.

After that, we all sat around a pot of gold and our guide told us leprechaun tales.

We then passed through a forest and learned the story of Tom Fitzpatrick and how he almost got a leprechaun's gold.

 We emerged from the forest and found ourselves returned to normal size and in the museum gift shop. It was a fantastic little adventure.

Irish Writer's Museum

We got into Dublin at around 12:30 in the morning after a very long train ride from Kilarney. We were exhausted  so the goal was to just find a hostel, good or bad, and just stay there for the night. If we really didn't like it, we could move on the next day. After getting directions from some locals, we found our way to Paddywagon Hostel. It is very close to the bust station in Dublin. We actually ended up staying there for the rest of the trip, because it wasn't that bad of a place and it was just easier. They had a mix up with room bookings so Tiffany and I ended up with a private room for the same price as a 4 person room which was pretty sweet.

Statue commemorating the war for Irish freedom

We were really worn out so we ended up sleeping until like 10:30 that morning. The plan for the day was the Irish Writer's Museum and the National Leprechaun Museum. Neither of which took very long and were easily done in one afternoon.

We arrived at the Irish Writer's Museum just in time to watch a small performance. An actor, who works for the museum, acts out a few excerpts from popular Irish writer's works, such as James Joyce's Dubliners, Seamus Heaney's Digging, and my personal favorite of the hour Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest. It was very entertaining to see this mid-40s man portray two or more characters, with different voices and mannerisms for each. He also gave a small amount of background information about each auther and their works.

The Irish Writer's Museum is appropriately enough in the house that used to belong to the Jameson family, of alcohol fame. It is very ornately decorated to show the family's wealth and good taste. In the room where the performance was done there are four doors, each with a mini series of paintings around the theme of time. One shows months of the year, another shows the four seasons, one shows night and day, and one is astrological signs.

The museum was very informative and had a great many artifacts of Irish writers. I learned a lot about different authors and have added quite a few books to my reading list. For someone who likes to read or who is into Irish history, this museum is a must.