Dublin

With the late summer bank holiday weekend upon us we flew to Dublin to check out how our Irish neighbours live. While we certainly saw some pretty countryside and learned some fascinating things about Irish history, our experience with the Irish tourist industry left us a little cold.

First, the good and great things about our trip...which started with a very pleasant drive south of Dublin into the Wicklow mountains, where narrow winding roads linked pretty little villages and some beautiful countryside (plus enough green to make us sane again after London's greyness).

Traffic on the major road through the Wicklow Mountains

A couple of highlights were Powerscourt Gardens and Powerscourt Waterfall. The waterfall is the highest in Ireland and was surrounded by picnic grounds and (since it was a great sunny day) people BBQing, picnicing, swimming in the stream and generally enjoying life. The waterfall was no Niagra, but the setting really made it a nice place to be.

Powerscourt Waterfall

Just up the hill (actually in the same estate) was Powerscourt Manor and its gorgeous gardens. We spent a good couple of hours rambling through the gardens, which had a number of different themes including an oriental-inspired section and an Italian formal style.

The estate from across the formal pond - if you look hard you can see the bridal party at the top of the steps

Powerscourt Estate - it made me want to be a kid again and roll down those grassy hills (other kids were doing it!)

There was a wedding on at the time, but somehow my shorts weren't going to be quite respectable enough to let me sidle up and join in. A couple of other things to keep an eye out for were the pet cemetry (although it felt like the horse graves were impossibly close together) and a tree planted by Hazel Hawke when Bob visited Ireland way back when.

The cows were just some of the animals buried in the pet cemetry

We carried on our merry way to Glendalough, which was the site of a monastery from the 6th century AD onwards - some of the buildings from the 10th century are still around which is really quite humbling.

Sarah on the bridge across to the site of the Glendalough Monastery

Our final stop for the day was Arklow, where we stayed at a B&B and had a very tasty dinner at Kitty's Bar (a gastro-pub where every meal featured potato, instantly confirming every stereotype I've ever had about Irish food).

We got on the road early the next morning and headed along to Wicklow, which was quite a pretty town near the seaside, featuring some quite rugged cliffs (and a golf course).

Stephen on the cliffs near Wicklow

Wicklow again, taken by a 79 year old German couple who complained about being denied a rental car because they were too old... no mention of whether they got ripped off on petrol though (see 1 below)

We moved on to Dublin itself and headed firstly to the tourist information centre to figure out they lay of the land, and then up to Trinity College (Dublin's oldest university) to join a walking tour of the city run by someone from the history department there. It was a great tour and we both learned a great deal about Ireland's troubled past, as well as seeing most of the best bits of the city - even better the day we went it was free (normally about 10 euros, and worth that much at least).

Trinity College grounds were absolutely gorgeous - I wished I could have studied there

We were also lucky enough to stumble across an exhibition of sand sculptures in Dublin Castle featuring Irish literary themes...

Sarah with Gulliver (Jonathon Swift was an Irishman)

By this stage it was getting late, so we headed back to our room at Clontarf Castle, only to be totally stuffed around and end up at an Airport Hotel instead (see 2 below for more)

Monday we slept in and made the most of our Hotel before heading back to visit Kilmaney Gaol, home of many of the political prisoners from the rebellions and the revolution (as the tour guide put it, it was a rebellion when the Irish lost and a revolution when the Irish won) as well as the civil war.

One fascinating thing about the prison (besides the history) was the way that Jeremy Bentham's idea of the Panopticon (where a prison is designed so that guards could always be watching, even if they weren't, but the prisoners would never know and so would behave) seems to have infused every prison we've visited - from Ireland to Port Arthur in Tasmania. Ironically we first learned about the concept in some management psychology theory from Sarah's Masters of Commerce - says something about the modern workplace!

The main cell-block at Killmarney Gaol - note the curved shape to support the Panopticon design (apparently the floor around the cells was lush carpet, so the prisoners never knew if a guard had walked up to stand outside)

We only had time for a quick wander past the Guinness factory (where the smell of roasting hops was almost overwhelming) before we headed back to the airport where we had the obligatory Guiness (Sarah's verdict - much nicer over there!)

In the end, the positives (above) have outweighed the negatives (below) but we've not been left with great memories of Dublin. The history was fascinating, though, and the countryside was very pretty.

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The not so good bits...or companies to be wary of...

1. Avoid County Car car rental - we had rented a car through EasyCar, who normally find the best value deals for cars. Unfortunately this time they had booked us a car through County Car, who seem to be rip-off merchants - on top of the car rental (which was the cheapest we'd seen) they charge 56 euros for the tank of fuel. Not really a deposit, either - if you go over 150km, they will make you pay for the full tank, even if you only use 1/4 (like we did - we were driving a tiny Yaris) and only go 220km.

2. Beware the bait and switch at Clontarf Castle - we paid more than we would usually have and booked in to stay in a castle - where else will you get the chance, after all. About 5 minutes before we arrived we got a phone call to say that there was a problem with the room. We turned up and they told us a story that 'sorry but the people in your room haven't moved out and we can't get hold of them'...so they booked us a room in their sister hotel instead.

This might have been ok, except that their sister hotel was out at Dublin airport (we didn't figure this out until we were driving there and kept seeing signs for the airport and planes flying low). We complained so they threw in dinner, but still - it wasn't a castle...

When we arrived at the (airport) hotel we asked if they knew why they had sent us out there, and they said that they must have over-booked, and that they did this all the time! Then they said to make it up to us they'd put us on the executive floor, we asked if it was non-smoking, and they said that all the rooms on the floor were...except obviously for the room we were in which reeked of smoke and had an ashtray in it!!!

So we finally got a room, something like an hour after we'd arrived in the first place and an absolute mile from the city. The lesson is - beware the bait and switch, and check in early if you can (so you get to be the person with the stuff in the room, and not the person who gets stuffed around)