Dublin Day 3
August 10
Our day started early with breakfast at our hotel. The breakfast buffet was good and included something we’ve never seen, a full honeycomb that guests could scoop out and use for topping on their freshly made pastries.
Our tour of Dublin started at the EPIC Museum, a museum dedicated to Irish Emigration. We had a guided tour though different rooms that talked about when and why people left Ireland, and many of the contributions made by Irish emigrants. I learned some things about why some of my ancestors ended up where they did. Five of my eight great grandparents were 100% Irish and one came to the US though Canada. Irish were beaconed to Canada with the promise of free land. Australia, where some of my other relatives ended up, welcomed women of marrying age to help build the population of Australia. Between the encouraged emigration and the potato famine in the mid 1800’s, Ireland lost millions of citizens. Today’s Irish population is still less than it was prior to the start of people emigrating to other parts of the world.
From the museum we boarded our bus and headed to the Teeling Distillery which is an active distillery where we learned about the distilling process and got to see the liquor in all stages of production.
Teeling started as a small Dublin distinery in 1782. They moved operations to the current facility in 2015. The Teeling family still owns and operates the company.
At the end of the tour we did a tasting of 3 different Teeling whiskies paired with 3 different pieces of chciolate. For those under 18 and those who didn’t want to drink any alcohol, there were mocktails available. The chocolate was outstanding and it does change the flavors in the whisky. I could appreciate the different tastes of the whiskies and enjoyed one of the samples more than the other 2, I don’t think whisky will ever be my favorite drink however. The whiskey drinkers among us said the whiskies were all good, they had their favorites, and everyone enjoyed the experience. As with pretty much every tour, this one ended in the gift shop where a number of people purchased something to take home.
It was almost noon when we left Teeling and people were starting to get hungry. Everyone was glad to hear that our next stop wold be lunch. Lunch was served in an Irish pub where we were treated to the music of 2 local musicians who played a mixture of traditional and modern music. They played a number of Irish instruments including a 4 string banjo and an Irish bagpipe that must be played sitting down. The musicians engaged 2 people in our group to accompany them on the tin whistle. Irish children begin learning this instrument when they start school. I spoke with one of the participants afterwards who did a great job for never having played the tin whistle. I thought she must be a musician. She said she knew music but didn’t play an instrument which surprised me. She said the tin whistle was pretty difficult to get the correct notes out.
The musicians asked for 2 more volunteers and Charlie happlily volunteered, Each of the 2 volunteers got to accompany the musicians on a small hand drum covered in goat skin. Everyone had a great time at lunch. The traditional Irish pub food was great as was the entertainment.
After lunch were dropped off back at our hotel. Ruth and BJ went off in search of more vintage clothing stores. Charlie, David and I went over to Trinity College to let Charlie run off some of his never ending energy and to let him play on the the lawn with his new mini Irish football. On our way back we found the statue of Molly Malone and had to stop for a photo.
For dinner we decided to have something a little different from the last few days, Ruth found a dim sum restaurant in the Temple Bar district. News stations in the US often show photos of the Temple Bar on St Patrick’s Day. It was a few minutes from our hotel . The food at the Lucky Tortoise, our chosen venue for dinner, was very good and very inexpensive.
After dinner we took a short walk around the Temple Bar district whih gets very crowded at night. There are many bars and pubs in the area and most have live music. We headed back to the hotel after walking around for a bit and returned in time to watched a little of the Olympics while packing up for the next part if our tour,
Tomorrow we are off to Kilkenny and the Rock of Cashel with a stop to learn about the National Sport of Ireland - Hurling.