Woolly says – The morning had dawned with a slightly overcast feel to it our much larger group of five (three who had arrived yesterday evening) meant that I had my work cut out on herding humans, one goes to the loo and they all start!
Jo and I had elected to stay in for the evening whilst everyone else headed out for drinks, so we had made good use of our time and booked tickets for the day’s adventures, we were NOT going to be caught out twice. With everyone finally ready we walked down the main streets towards the Liffey pausing to peer into its murky depths, I had heard that many years ago that the reason that Guiness tasted so much better in Dublin was that it was made from the Liffey itself, not sure I’d have drunk it if that was the case.
I had purposely hurried everyone from their beds with the hope that we might be able to see the world famous Temple Bar area without the thousands that would flock there later today, in fact every day.
Temple Bar is an area on the south bank of the River Liffey in central Dublin and is promoted as Dublin’s ‘cultural quarter’ and, as a centre of Dublin’s city centre’s nightlife. It is thought that the street known as Temple Bar got its name from the Temple family, who built a house and gardens there in the early 1600s, other thoughts are that it was borrowed from the Temple Bar district in London which dated back to medieval times.
In the 18th century, Temple Bar was the centre of prostitution in Dublin, during the 19th century, the area slowly declined in popularity, and in the 20th century, it suffered from urban decay, with many derelict buildings. In the 1970s and 1980s, the state-owned transport company Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) proposed to buy up and demolish property in the Temple Bar area to build a bus terminus, while these plans were in development, CIÉ leased the buildings at low rents, which attracted artists, galleries, small shops, cafes, and other creative enterprises, creating a bohemian atmosphere despite widespread urban decay. Protests by An Taisce, residents, and traders led to the cancellation of the bus station project. Today it is a main tourist hub for the city and famed for its live music.
I’d judged our timings well and we managed to admire some of the lovely pubs as well as take pictures, the most impressive had to be the pub called the Temple Bar with its flowering baskets and vivid red,
The doors were already open, and the supping of Guinness had started as we had a quick look inside before heading a few minutes up the road to our first museum of the day.
The Irish Rock N Roll Museum Experience opened in 2015 as an independently owned visitor attraction and promised us all things musical which was very exciting. As our group squeezed into the first area the guide started the tour telling us about some of the famous that had recorded there in the past including Thin Lizzy, Boomtown Rats, Sinead O’Connor, U2 and the man of Blues himself Rory Gallagher.
Memorabilia lined the walls including some of Mr Gallaghers guitars that the museum had bought at auction when his brother sold off many of his personal items, sadly his most famous guitar had been too expensive for the small private museum so they only had a replica of that one to admire.
The next room gave us gold records and pictures by the hundreds of all of the legends who had once graced the studio to record their hits before we sat down to watch a film about the stars of old and those that were coming through the current music scene. It was great; sadly, however Jo and I needed to skip seeing the actual studio and race off to our next prebooked museum leaving the others to finish the tour and head off to their whiskey tour.
As we flew along Grafton Street dodging the hundreds of people, we arrived at St Stephens Green where we paused to catch our breath and take a quick couple of pictures before racing towards our quarry.
The Little Museum of Dublin is a local history museum situated at St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, located in an 18th-century Georgian townhouse owned by Dublin City Council, it aims to present the “social and cultural history of Dublin through everyday items donated by members of the public”. The museum was the brainchild of director Trevor White being formed in April 2011 and officially opened its doors to the public in October of the same year.
Having been greeted at the ticket desk like long lost family we were directed upstairs to look at the small library and all manner of strange things including one of the worlds ‘greatest’ dolls houses which was indeed impressive with its detailing.
Everywhere we looked there were random things from stuffed birds to political slogans.
Having been introduced to our guide we joined a large group and were taken at rapid speed through the history of Dublin supported by all sorts of items that had been donated to the museum, it was fascinating if a little random at times.
An hour later and we found ourselves heading back down the stairs passing photographs of the famous of Ireland. The whole experience had been brilliant and as we headed back down Grafton Street to collect the whiskey drinkers, I knew that we had got the better deal from our choice of museum.
With everyone reunited we split into two groups to have a wander and to admire the buildings and wonderful aspects that Dublin had to offer including Dublin’s most famous lady of them all.
Molly Malone is a song set in Dublin, Ireland, which has become the city’s unofficial anthem. The life sized statue we stood in front of was designed by Dublin artist Jeanne Rynhart and was unveiled on Grafton Street during the 1988 Dublin Millennium celebration, in July 2014, the statue was relocated to Suffolk Street. The song tells the fictional tale of a fishwife who plied her trade on the streets of Dublin and died young, of a fever. In the late 20th century, a legend grew up that a historical Molly lived in the 17th century. She is typically represented as a hawker by day and a part-time prostitute by night. In contrast, she has also been portrayed as one of the few chaste female street hawkers of her day. There is no evidence that the song is based on a real woman in the 17th century or any other time.
I had one more mission to accomplish for the day and that was to find some live music to have with a Guiness, sounds easy doesn’t it at four in the afternoon! We headed back into the Temple Bar area which was heaving with bodies and music coming from every direction, the first couple of pubs we entered were rammed to the ceilings with people but third time was lucky and we managed to grab a table in a corner of a huge corner pub and settle in to listen to the sounds and enjoy the Dublin nectar.