Eileen Lockwood is a long-time travel and business writer in St. Joseph, MO. Her travels have taken her to all 50 states and 40 foreign countries. Her work has appeared in more than 40 travel, business, corporate and association publications, including three in-flight magazines, several metro newspapers, Wisconsin Trails, Wisconsin Business Magazine, Corporate Report Wisconsin and Entrepreneur. She is currently a contributing editor for Destinations magazine, published by the American Bus Association. Said Hal Drucker, “Eileen, her husband George Lockwood and I worked cheeks-to-jowls in the Hellbox of Syracuse University’s Daily Orange as editors. No person I know has greater facility with the written word, nor more expertise in travel, which will become apparent to you, once you read her The Spunk of the Irish.” 

 
Dublin Sightseeing
www.dublinsightseeing.ie

Dublin Sightseeing is one of two companies offering tours. We used both on different days. The other, CitySightseeing Dublin, offers two slightly different routes with commentary in eight languages, the tradeoff being canned commentary through ill-fitting ear plugs. A driver interacting with passengers a la Dublin Sightseeing adds real Gaelic flavor to the trip. We were also reintroduced to two other charms of the always-free-spoken Irish -- humor and sarcasm. At the lord mayor’s residence, with its ornate entrance, our driver informed us that the previous official was “half a sandwich short of a picnic.” The inventor of the crossword puzzle rests in peace in St. Patrick’s Cemetery. The cemetery-side quip: “He’s 6 down and 3 across.”  

The once-over-easy ride introduced us to famous and quaint landmarks -- House of Parliament, National Gallery (art), Trinity College (home of the illustrious ancient Book of Kells), the Abbey Theatre, the former St. Patrick’s Hospital built in 1745 with a Brobdingnagian £7,000 bequest from Jonathan Swift, and now a modern art museum, City Hall, the Ha’penny footbridge which once cost pedestrians half a penny to cross, and the 18-acre Phoenix Park (not part of Dublin Sightseeing’s itinerary), Europe’s largest publicly accessible park, was originally developed to impress a visiting King Charles II in 1662. We doubled back later for an in-depth experience.

Throughout the city the determined independence of the Irish was on brilliant display, thanks to the upcoming vote to approve or reject yet another European Union treaty, this one called the Lisbon Treaty for its city of origin. Wary of a repeat defeat like the one meted out by French and Dutch voters the last time around, the 26 other EU countries restricted voting to their parliaments. Not Ireland. On June 12th, the Irish definitely told the rest of the EU what it thought of proposals, among others, that would force them to raise their corporate tax rate and force the Sons of Hibernia to compromise their military neutrality. (Ireland’s lower corporate tax is credited with much of today’s unprecedented prosperity.)

Government banners and ads urged a yes vote “to make Europe work better.” Others promised, “What’s good for Europe is good for Ireland.” By the time we reached Dublin after a week of savoring the natural wonders in County Clare on the west coast, we found that the treaty opposition had mobilized, with a vengeance. Banners, signs, volunteers and whole sides of buses begged to differ with the “Vote Yes” crowd. Said one banner sporting pictures of three monkeys, “The new EU won’t see you, won’t hear you, won’t speak for you.” More militant: “We fought for our freedom; don’t throw it away.”

They didn’t. Back home by June 12th, we eagerly followed the foreign news coverage. The vote in Ireland: 47% yes, 53% NO, NO, NO!

Dublin visitors quickly learn about Ireland’s brushes with freedom. What needs to be understood is that the Irish fought for this precious commodity for almost 200 years before their country finally became fully independent in 1962. Heroes of the uprisings and “troubles” are memorialized in statues, street, bridge and building names, but none more prominently than Daniel O’Connell, “The Liberator,” whose persistence as a member of the British Parliament finally wore down the “conquerors,” who granted full citizenship to Catholics in 1828.  O’Connell’s bronze sculpture, atop an ornate high pedestal, “oversees” Dublin’s widest, most important thoroughfare, named for him, as is the bridge that takes the street across the River Liffey, the city’s great north and south watery separator.

Kilmainham Gaol
www.heritageireland.ie/en/Dublin/KilmainhamGaol/

The popular image of Ireland, and especially Dublin, may be jollity and camaraderie in the pubs, but a walk through the notorious prison offers a comprehensive history that stays in memory a lot longer than the last pint in O’Neill’s crowded confines.

While waiting for Eamonn, our tour guide, we inspected the proclamation that sparked the 1916 Easter Sunday uprising. To wit:  In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland has summoned her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.  Photos of 16 patriots executed at the jail testify that the fight was lost.

Surely a “fugitive” professor, Eamonn mixed in a liberal amount of  essentials as he led us through dingy corridors where disease and dampness attacked prisoners shivering in winter winds that blew through open window spaces. Later renovations would bring Kilmainham into the Victorian great age of prison design that incorporated “two great principles” -- constant surveillance and contact only with prison staff and chaplain. (No more bad influence from fellow guests of the state.) Nameplates identify dingy cells of various rebels whose very names have the darlin’ boy lilt of O’Casey’s Joxer – Padraig Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, John Plunkett and Eamon DeValera, who survived the experience to become president of Ireland. One privileged character, Charles Stewart Parnell, was an exception. Although jailed for instigating protests of Irish land laws in the 1880s, being a member of the British Parliament had its rewards. That translated into parlor furniture, fireplace, meals brought in from restaurants and, once, a temporary “furlough” to attend a wedding. (New York jailers gave similar “breaks” in the 1890s to the infamous Boss William Marcy Tweed.) A mural of Parnell imprisoned in luxury surroundings is on the wall of his cheery cell.

For the “well-oiled,” Dublin offers two options besides pubs – tours, not only of the renowned Guinness Brewery and Storehouse but also the Old Jameson Distillery. The wily Arthur Guinness, with typical Irish adroitness, conned city fathers in 1759 into a 9,000-year-lease for a paltry £100, after which he built an empire in the city, including, as our tour bus driver chortled, “every kind of industry but undertakers.” Having toured our share of breweries while living in Milwaukee for 30 years, we passed on this top tourist attraction, as well as the distillery, where we were told that about six lucky visitors actually could win sips of the fine whisky. (Been-there-done-that a few years ago in Scotland.)

Dublin Writers Museum
www.writersmuseum.com

For two hours we immersed ourselves in 300 years of “an undue number of the world’s greatest writers.” From room to room in a renovated mansion on Parnell Square, off O’Connell Street, we followed the Irish literary “trail” as far back as Edmund Spenser, the Englishman who wrote “The Fairie Queene” under the influence of time spent on the Emerald Isle. Among original manuscripts and early editions is Jonathan Swift’s famous chronicle with its first title:  Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.  Most of us know it as  Gulliver’s Travels.  Among sections titled “Romantic Ireland,” “Irish Nationalism” and “The Road to Independence” (“the dawn of Ireland’s greatest generation of writers”), we found  “Masters of Sensation,” including one Abraham Stoker, a.k.a. Bram, who looked more like a businessman with trimmed beard than the creator of one of the world’s enduring menaces, Dracula. (One opportunist operates The Bram Stoker Dracula Experience in a mall “10 minutes from the city centre” and about a block from Stoker’s birthplace. www.dracula.ie.)

For our daughter Audrey, our avid-reading, red-haired colleen, we found a copy of Castle Rackrent, in the well-stocked gift shop. The first novel about Ireland, written by Maria Edgeworth in the early 1800s, it chronicles the fall of landed gentry juxtaposed with the rise of the servant class, as related by a crusty gentleman’s retainer, one Thady Quirk.  

Book of Kells
www.tcd.ie

Our culture quest continued at Trinity College, just a few blocks from the hotel. Its library is the final resting place of the famed Book of Kells, the monumental icon produced by artistic monks in a world lit only by candles. Lines of waiting visitors are supposed to be axiomatic, but, on a weekday morning, we walked in after a mere 15 minutes. As one text block writer opined, the famous book “demonstrates the Irish reverence for words in a visual way.” It’s an experience in awe to view this great work in its hushed, darkened room, but we decided the interpretive exhibits in several other rooms were equally inspiring. Huge illuminated “manuscript murals” (other Kells “look-alikes” also date to the same era) clarify symbolisms, and videos instruct in the art of  transforming sheep hides into paper, laborious ink-making processes and, finally, intricate binding in leather. We came out of the rooms with a new admiration for those long-ago, often unheralded artisans.

National Museum of Ireland
www.museum.ie

A once-in-a-lifetime experience awaited at this collection of decorative Irish arts housed in the old -- and huge -- army barracks named for patriot Michael Collins after the British departure.  The Way We Wore features 250 years of Irish clothing (men’s and women’s). Period Furniture dates from 1690 to the present. Fascinating videos feature the not-so-easy processes of flax making and lacquer making.

But the highlight of our day was the drama I titled: “The Boat That Went to Heaven.”

The boat is a recently built replica of a 1042 Viking vessel actually constructed in Dublin. The Sea Stallion of Glendalough, so christened by the queen of Denmark, with a crew of about 60 oarsmen, was about to begin the voyage back to its home museum in Copenhagen. It had been on display on the parade ground for the last year. Seven workers spent a couple of hours strapping the boat to hooks that were then connected to a monumental crane. By the time we had toured the museum and lunched in its tearoom, the lifting was about to begin. Up, up, up it went -- 150 feet -- high above the old barracks, then to be lowered to a parking lot where it could be transported to the nearby River Liffey. By now the sturdy modern Vikings must have delivered it to its final resting place. 

 
Gate Theater
www.gate-theatre.ie

Determined not to leave town without “tasting” Ireland’s liveliest form of high culture, we joined a sellout crowd at the Gate Theatre, not far from the Writers Museum, for the Irish premiere of Terence Rattigan’s  The Deep Blue Sea,  reinforcing our understanding that the good Irish fairies have blessed their country with superb actors. The theatre celebrates its 80th anniversary this year, only slightly younger than the more famous Abbey Theatre. Its brochure listed a three-play season plus an annual Lincoln Center Festival in New York. This year Liam Neeson was to star in three Samuel Beckett dramas.

Dining Experiences

Pub food and tearooms have indisputable places in Irish (and English) culture, but luck, and a few recommendations, led us to the cuisine of La Belle France for three fine dinners and one superb lunch.

Eamonn O'Reilly's One Pico
www.onepico.com

Our Davenport Hotel concierge, Wayne, highly recommended this elegant but cozy refuge on a lane off the busy Grafton Street pedestrian shopping mall. He had made reservations for himself the following night. Everything is perfect, from solicitous maitre d’ and waiter and meticulous table service to appetizers such as crab, avocado and roasted red pepper appetizer, followed by superb pan-seared sea bass and roasted salmon. (Be prepared to enjoy more than your usual diet of salmon -- and lamb -- while in Ireland.) And do let the heaven-sent parmesan rolls take a little of the edge off your hunger before the appetizers arrive.

The Mermaid Café
www.mermaid.ie

Don’t be misled by the casual atmosphere in this “storefront” eatery in the “nightlife district” of Temple Bar. In fact, its façade is so nondescript that it’s easy to miss. (We asked the obliging bartender from a nearby bistro.) Here we were offered seldom-seen skate, with its long skeletal bone structure, and hake, both beautifully prepared. The accompaniments were almost as offbeat. The skate came with a grouping including grilled Roma tomatoes, cauliflower, spinach, capers, bacon bits and a potato cake. Hake “auxiliaries” included spinach and horseradish-flavored shredded beets.

The Blackboard Bistro
From the U.S.: (011) 353-1-676-6839

This tiny gourmet haven near Trinity College actually lists its address as The Basement, 4 Clare St. We saw its poster on the street-level fence and took a chance. The luck of the Irish was on our side. From a limited menu, we chose tender lamb shanks with a rich sauce, a smart selection. Once again we encountered a cordial, friendly French waiter (married to an Irish girl, we learned in a typical extensive Irish conversation). As they say on the Emerald Isle, a grand evening entirely!

Peploe’s Wine Bistro
From the U.S.: (011) 353-1-676-3144

On our last day, we lucked into yet another basement bonanza, this one tucked among a string of ivy-covered Georgian townhouses across from St. Stephen’s Green, imparts the feeling that you should be reading a book instead of eating Brie in Filo with Prurieaux D’Agen or razor-thin carpaccio from what surely must have been triple-prime beef.