Honeymoon Tour: Dublin - Day One

Our visit to Dublin started late in the evening so we didn't really do anything except wander around the hotel and create our plan for the remaining days in Ireland. Unlike Paris, we didn't plan exactly what we wanted to do for every single day, and unlike London, we didn't have a list of things we wanted to do, other than Guinness factory and the Cliffs of Mohrer really. Let's just say we were finishing up planning the wedding and we kept pushing our Dublin planning off. Well, now it was time to figure it out. We had a bite to eat at the hotel and then headed back to our room.We stayed at Clontarf Castle, which was a castle located about 10 minutes from Dublin.

On day two we went on a self-guided wandering medieval church/cathedral tour, which wasn't that hard since there is literally a church every ten feet. Essentially we took a cab into Dublin and then started walking around until we found something we wanted to go inside. On our walk we also saw Trinity College Dublin which was pretty neat. The first cathedral we visited was St. Patrick's Cathedral, the tallest church in Ireland. Interestingly, this is also where students of the Dublin Institute of Technology have their graduation and it was the site of the funerals for two Irish presidents. It was very impressive inside, with towering ceilings and beautifully tiled floors. It also has one of the largest organs in Ireland, with over 4,000 pipes! While walking around inside we also saw the original St. Patrick's gate and carved stones.

The carved stones (photo below) we saw were two granite stones located in the area of the church before St. Patrick's was built in 1192. One of the stones covered an ancient well, which may have been where St. Patrick baptized converts in the fifth century, and the other stone (the one in my photo) was a grave marker of an early Christian. The stones were believed to have been carved between 800 and 1100. 32 of these type of stones have been found and six were at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Where they were quarried is still a mystery. Pretty cool, right?

I wonder how heavy that stone is. Below is a photo of the beautiful interior. Look at those ceiling heights and the stained glass windows! While we were in the church we lit a candle for my husband's Irish grandmother who passed away a few years ago.

We then visited Christ Church Cathedral, also known as The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. The is the second of the medieval cathedrals in Dublin and is older than St. Patrick's. Christ Church Cathedral was founded circa 1030 by Sigtrygg Silkbeard (awesome name!). It is claimed as the seat of both the Church of Irealnd and Roman Catholic archbishops of Dublin, however the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin really uses St. Mary's on Marlborough Street (also in Dublin). Look at it in all of its medieval goodness and glory:

An interesting thing about this cathedral is that it contains a crypt, which you can walk around. Notably, the crypt was used in a television show called The Tudors (which I totally watched) and it had an exhibit of the costumes:

And a less "hollywood" but no less interesting story: you can even see a mummified cat and mouse in the crypt that was pulled out of one of the organ's pipes. This oddity was used by James Joyce as a simile Finnegan's Wake when he described someone as being "...As stuck as that cat to that mouse in that tube of the Christchurch organ..." I didn't want to offend anyone's sensibilities with an actual photo of the cat/mouse but you can google it if you're into that sort of stuff.

Overall, it was a pretty interesting day and seeing all the medieval history tied to the churches was fascinating. We continued to walk around and tour the city but I didn't take very many photos so we'll stop here. Or actually, one more photo:

Since we went to the Guinness Factory Tour the next day and all....