Athlone Again, Naturally

Time to head out of Dublin and cut across the center of Ireland, with our eyes set on the West Coast, and ultimately, Galway.

But in the meantime, as so often happens as you traverse the highways of Ireland, you need to make an occasional detour to check out some of the smaller villages, towns, and of course, castles, that  rise up out of the landscape with little to no warning.

This particular pitstop brought us to Athlone Castle.

A little bit of history on this particular castle, built around 1210.  Between 1689 and 1691, Ireland was a significant battleground in a major European conflicts, and armed forces would come face to face on the battlefields, marking one of the the most destructive periods in Irish military history.

William of Orange had proclaimed himself King and his supporters called themselves the ‘Williamites’. Having lost control of his kingdoms, James II would look to France for military help. A multi-national army was organized, and James’ military supporters soon became known as the ‘Jacobites’.  Following a decisive win over James for the Williamites, James’ army moved west and would hold the line at Athlone. This was a Jacobite stronghold on an important river crossing.

And yes, those are the same Jacobites from Outlander, and also, quite possibly leaves on the Scottish ancestral trees of both Jackie and Scott.

William was spurned at his first attempt to besiege the town, his initial attack quelled by the might of the Jacobite army and the Governor of Athlone, Colonel Richard Grace. Forced to retreat, King William’s forces under the command of Lieutenant-General James Douglas planned a much greater assault on Athlone for the following summer.

And in June 1691, the Great Siege of Athlone took place. 

In 10 days the Williamites fired off 12,000 cannonballs and 600 bombs during the heaviest bombardment in Irish history. The Williamites made a final effort with a well-organized, surprise attack launched across the old ford. The Jacobite defenders, taken unawares, offered only feeble resistance, and were soon overwhelmed.  No Jacobite counterattack was possible. Athlone had fallen. 

Athlone was the scene of a veritable bloodbath as up to 500 Jacobites fell during the final Williamite assault. Over the ten-day bombardment of Athlone and its stronghold, 1,500 men lost their lives in battle. Following the Williamite victory at Athlone, they would go on claim victory in one of the bloodiest battles in Irish history at Aughrim in Co. Galway. Following the Siege of Limerick weeks later, a truce was finally declared and the Treaty of Limerick signed in October 1691 ended the war in Ireland.

Sounds worthy of hoisting a pint for this piece of history, no?

And where better to do that than literally, IRELAND'S OLDEST BAR?!?!

SLAINTE!

Where's that you ask?
Well it's literally right next door to the Athlone Castle, a little pub called Sean's Bar.

This is a statue of Sean.  And yes, he does bear an uncanny resemblance to our fellow E Streeter Sean Kenny.

Coincidence you say?  Not likely.  We've seen our Sean strike the same pose.

Sean’s Bar, with its woodchip-covered floor and walls made of wattle and wicker interwoven with horse hair and clay, has been in business since the Dark Ages. Located near the ruins of the aforementioned 12th-Century Norman Castle, it is the oldest pub in Ireland, a claim officially certified by Guinness World Records 20 years ago.  But many countrymen, including the current owners and a plethora of Athlone regulars and respected Irish historians, also believe it to be the oldest in the world.  Who am I to question that claim?

According to archaeological research conducted and verified by the National Museum of Ireland, Sean’s Bar dates as far back as around 900 AD! This predates the defeat and decline of the Vikings in Ireland, the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland and the creation of whiskey and black beer themselves, with which the Emerald Isle’s pubs have become synonymous. Now that's a legacy!

Athlone - absolutely a worthy destination to add to anyone's Ireland itinerary.

Galway, here we come!

A Lovely Day for a Guinness

Many of you are familiar with Roald Dahl's children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and undoubtedly most of you have probably watched the Gene Wilder classic film in which the lucky finders of five Golden Tickets are able to tour Wonka's mysterious and previously inaccessible chocolate factory, accompanied by one of their family members, including the ultimate freeloader, Grandpa Joe.

You may also remember the wonder, enthusiasm and general mania that surrounded the children when the doors of the factory were swung wide, exposing the group to all the magical mysteries that lie within.

Rekindled those memories?  Good.  Now perhaps you'll understand how this foursome felt on the morning when we got to tour the fabled Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.

You can practically see us all channeling our inner Augustus Gloop outside the doors, just waiting for our chance to fall into the chocolate river.

Guinness is a stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin, in the 18th century. It's become synonymous with Irish pubs, and indeed, Irish drinkers in general.

Nearly a century ago, in addition to touting its health benefits, an advertising campaign was launched pronouncing that every day was a "Lovely Day for a Guinness."

So, not surprisingly, all of the floors of the factory tour are papered with various iterations of the ad campaign, with the slogan front and center on tee-shirts, bar signs, kitchen accessories and socks, among a plethora of souvenirs.

Just as the self-guided tour began, we were able to pose before the fabled gates of Wonka's factory.

Was it a coincidence to discover a Spence of Dublin commemorative marker on the tour?  I think not.

Raw Power or The Roar of Raw Noise.  You make the call.

On to the samples segment of the tour- served up in tiny shot glasses.

 My fellow U2 fans will recognize the Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World lyrics that accompany this particular piece of abstract art, also part of Guinness' advertising legacy.

Finally, it was on to one of the most critical events of our Ireland sojourn.  The art of learning how to correctly pour a Guinness.  At the end of our class, diplomas/certificates await!
Our pourmeister was Philip who painstakingly and passionately explained the art of pouring to his rapt students.

One of the necessary steps is inspecting your glass before pouring.  My eagle-eyed wife found stains upon her glass, so she got extra brownie points for her sharp inspection.

For those of you who don't have a bonafide Guinness pouring diploma in your curriculum vitae, here's what you need to know:

To begin the pour, hold the glass at a 45° angle below the tap and fills the glass 3/4 full.  On the way out of the tap, the beer is forced at high speed through the end of the tap, creating friction and forcing the creation of small nitrogen bubbles which form a creamy head. (Use the harp logo on the glass to help measure the amount of your pour.) The server brings the glass from 45° angle to a vertical position.  After allowing the initial pour to settle, the server pushes the tap handle back and fills the remainder of the glass until the head forms a slight dome over the top of the glass (or "just proud of the rim").

And yes, we all graduated.  And then got to enjoy the spoils of our accelerated education.  Slainte!

A view of Dublin from atop the Guinness Storehouse.

And unlike Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregard, Veruca Salt and Mike Teevee, this foursome all made it out of the factory intact.  We didn't score our own glass elevator or chocolate factory like Charlie Bucket, but in the end, we felt like we did alright for ourselves.

We weren't able to pay equal time to the Jameson whiskey factory, though we did manage to pass through to pick up a bottle of the highly-coveted and labelled Ryan Fandl whiskey!

Many of you may be familiar with the ballad of fishwife Molly Malone, who wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh! (Fun fact, the song was first published in Boston, somewhere around 1876.)

What you might not be as familiar with is the slightly perverse tradition that has developed in recent years, wherein tourists rest their hands upon the statue of Molly, or specifically certain pieces of her body, allegedly with hope for good fortune.

About a decade ago, tourists began rubbing the statue's breasts, making them appear golden, when actually it's just a result of bronze erosion caused by excessive handling or rubbing.

There's tons of other things you can do to garner some good luck, folks.

In the meantime, keep your hands off Molly Malone.

No trip to Dublin would be considered complete with a visit to the Book of Kells, located in the Trinity College Library.  The Book of Kells is a manuscript containing the four Gospels of the New Testament, crafted in a monastery somewhere around 800 AD.  The book takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, which was its home for centuries before making its way to Trinity.

Photographs of the actual Book of Kells itself aren't allowed, to preserve the sanctity and colors of the book, kept inside a protective glass case under guard in a darkened room.

Next door, however, is the Ultra-Cool library itself, which many of my fellow bibliophiles will immediately recognize, as the famed Jedi library from the Star Wars universe is based on the Trinity library.  Once a geek, always a geek, even in one of the most impressive library settings you'll ever set your eyes upon.

And finally, a visit to St. Patrick's Cathedral, along with a pass by St. Patrick's Well, because, well, you know.  Legend has it that the saint who bears my name used a well on the location 1,500 years ago to baptize converts.  This slab below was discovered in 1901 covering the remains of an ancient well, which might be the same location.  The stone was found near the entrance to Saint Patrick's Park, which is alongside the cathedral (through which Scott and I ran).  The slab is believed to be more than a millennium old.

All in all, I know how I would describe the Ireland experience thus far:

Dublin Down

For most of my adult life, there's been a few places in the world outside the United States that have roosted high atop the short list of locales I passionately wanted to visit - England, Ireland and Scotland forming the trinity atop said list.

With a couple of UK visits already under my belt, it was time to target the Emerald Isle and make a quasi-pilgrimage to the country from where both my and Jackie's ancestors hailed.

Side note - a few years back my family bought me a subscription to Ancestry, and it's a rabbit hole beneath the family tree that I can't stop burrowing into as I trace our lineage over the last 200+ years.    It's become a side passion/obsession, and gleaning any small nugget of information about a descendant triggers a victory dance.

In the days to come I'm going to post some blogs about the recent trip I was able to make to Ireland after years of aiming to do so.  Early warning - if travel blogs or history pieces aren't your thing, don't bother checking in on these pages for a bit.  While it won't be all-encompassing as far as the experience goes, I'm hoping to capture some of the highlights and let loyal readers in on the joy that is Ireland.

By my side, as always, for this unforgettable sojourn was my lovely wife, Jackie, and there's nobody I'd rather see the world side-by-side.  Pro tip: my beautiful bride is one of the easiest people on the face of the Earth to travel alongside.  She doesn't ask a lot, just loves being in the moment, and soaks in all of wonder of the the new images, locales, and locals that she encounters along the way.

We were also joined by longtime friends Scott and Sue Spence, who had also intended to tackle Ireland this year.  We had initially aimed for a larger group, of as many as ten E Streeters, but not surprisingly, the timing of when the trip could actually occur wasn't in alignment with the large numbers and everybody's respective schedules, and with a whopper of a summer work schedule on the horizon for me, Jack and I had to opt for a June trip when the window of opportunity was going to the most manageable.  Here's to the future trips to other locales we're able to make with any of our fellow travelers, whether they be family or friends proper.  There's a whole lot of world out there to explore - let's get to it!

Ireland Day One, after a six hour flight that didn't include a moment of sleep, and we were off to explore Dublin's Fair City.

Our first hotel of the trip, and we stayed about a block away from St. Stephens Green, in the heart of Dublin.

St Stephen's Green is a 22 acre garden square and public park located in the center of Dublin, officially opened to the public in 1880.  The square is adjacent to one of Dublin's main shopping streets, Grafton Street.

Speaking of which, we ventured onto Grafton Street and immediately, one of the first places we stumbled upon was a bar named Captain Americas.  Clearly, this was an immediate sign for this comic book lover.  (Fun fact: it was also a hangout for Dublin's wonder band, U2 in their fledgling days.)

And directly across the street from Captain Americas was Dublin's Disney store!  Again, a sign to these Disney-philes, and one that would bear further investigation.

Because yeah, no trip to Ireland would be complete without slinging webs with New York City's most famous wall-crawler.

Or, of course, some random strormtroopers

And perhaps Iron Man himself

Okay, enough fanboying - time to take a sample of what Dublin is renown for - its unparalleled pubs.

Most of you have probably heard of the Temple Bar.

Not just one location, Temple Bar is an area on the south bank of the River Liffe in the center of Dublin.  It's considered the center of Dublin's nightlife.

This particular pub was built somewhere around 1840.

Truth is, it doesn't matter which pub you decide to stop in for a Guinness or a cider.  You're welcomed equally in any of them, Just make sure you know what sports team the locals are rooting for if the game is playing on one of the public televisions overhead.

In what would prove to be the first in a series of daily imbibements, we lucked upon one of the local football games this first afternoon and sidled up to a corner booth to engage in a distinct function of the trip, one of many to come.

Slainte!