10-02-2014, 07:57 AM
Kilmainham Gaol
One of the things that is making me the crankiest is trying to find time for me to do the things I want to do. Then I remember that this is my parents trip and I am just here to carry the bags and help my mother get out of the car. Which only makes me crankier since it should be all about me, right?
I got up early to have a nice walk along the canal in the dark. This would be the same canal I was going to follow to the Roxford Lodge. It would have worked perfectly since the road met the canal about a block away from the hotel.
The other reason to follow the canal was that it led to Kilmainham jail, one of the sights I wanted to see while I was in Dublin. I originally envisioned a long leisurely stroll along the canal which led to the jail. I would tour the jail and then I would have a long walk back through the center of Dublin to take pictures.
Yeah, no. My parents had a lunch date south of the city in Naas. We needed to be there by 12:30, which meant leaving Dublin and it’s traffic by 11:30, which my father then changed to 11.
With those stipulations in place, I couldn’t find a way to have the walks, tour the jail and still make it back to the hotel in order to pick them up on time. For some reason my father was not keen on the idea of sitting outside the jail in the car for two hours while I did the tour.
So, it was an early morning walk along the grand canal, followed by a quick drive to the jail for a short tour. The walk took over ninety minutes and I never made it to the jail. But the trip in the car looked very straight forward. Does everyone laugh or cringe when I say things look straight forward?
It was supposed to be a straight shot along the canal. Towards the end, I would just see the Jail on my right. The hotel clerk gave me a tip about parking at the Hilton across the street.
The jail was supposed to open at 9. The tour was to take an hour. This would give me an hour to get back to the hotel.
Turns out the road along the canal, Parnell St, is a very popular route to drive out of Dublin. We crept along the road at an almost motionless pace. This was the route to the Long Mile Road and I think everyone in Dublin wanted to use it.
I was making myself anxious constantly staring at the clock and doing the math. I have ten minutes to get to the jail. I have five minutes to get to the jail.
Finally, the traffic eased up when we passed the junction with Long Mile Road. I roared ahead and sped quickly to my first wrong turn. According to the map, I should keep to the left. I did. I shouldn’t have.
As the road veered away from my intended direction, I realized my mistake. But I couldn’t find a way to get back to the right road. Then I’m in the line of parents dropping their kids off to school. If I made it to the jail now, I would only have fifty minutes for the tour.
I drove back to the point where I zigged instead of zagging. The jail had to be really close by. I should see it. Or at least see the Hilton where I was supposed to park.
I admit it. I let my temper free and started swearing to everyone with in the confines of the car. I slammed on the steering wheel to show how wroth I was with the injustice of the driving in Dublin. There was a lot of screaming to be heard.
I knew I had missed the jail when I drove over the Liffey. Of course, there wasn’t a simple way to turn around and retrace my steps. If I got to the jail right now, I would have forty minutes to do the tour.
After a couple of roundabouts and illegal turns, I was back on the road. I shortly spotted the Hilton and I made the turn. Across from it was the jail that looked more like a castle, which was probably why I didn’t spot it.
Thankfully, the tradition of really tiny parking spaces was carried out at the Hilton. But at least, I didn’t have far to go for Kilmainhman.
Why Kilmainham Gaol? Well, it holds a pivotal role in Irish History. Every hero of the republic who was jailed by the British, except for two, ended up in Kilmainham. It was the first prison of it’s kind, a reform prison, when it was built in 1796.
If you have seen the Daniel Day Lewis movie ‘In the Name of the Father’, you have seen the inside of Kilmainham. All the leaders who were caught after the 1916 uprising were executed in the jail, including one man who was so badly hurt during his capture, they gave him a chair to sit in when they shot him.
My mother tried to come with me on this journey, but I scared her away with stories of lots of stairs and by the fact we were getting up early.
I raced across from the Hilton to the jail, only to find the front door still closed. A check of the sign showed the jail didn’t open for another ten minutes at 9:30. More math in my head. If the tour lasted an hour, then I would finish with 30 minutes to get back to the hotel. I was praying the tour lasted an hour.
I wandered away to take some snaps in a complete change of pace to what I normally do. When I came back about ten people were already in line. I joined them
The museum docent came out to start guiding us in. The line was informed that we would go in at 9:30 and the tour would start at 10. What? That doesn’t work for me. I asked if I could just wander the jail for ten minutes? Nope. You only get to see the jail if you are on the tour.
I didn’t swear. I wanted to. The docent did say we could leave the tour early if we had to. I had to. I could walk with the tour for about thirty minutes before I would depart.
For the thirty minutes before the tour started, I wandered around a nice museum that gave the history of the Gaol and all of it’s historic prisoners. There were even personal effects and letters written by the executed leaders of the 1916 rebellion.
I was hoping the tour would get right to the good bits. Again, no. We were in a room Parnell might have stayed. Parnell the Irish patriot, the namesake for the road I couldn’t find.
We toured the chapel and talked about how women and men were in this prison but kept separate, a shocking innovation at it’s time. The best feature of the chapel was the door behind the altar where the prisoners were led to be hanged by having a noosed looped over a beam tied to their necks. The prisoners were then pushed out a second story window, so the people outside could witness the execution.
There was no hurry in our guide as we passed cells that held the prisoners including one female leader of the rebellion. Time was ticking away. I was calculating how late I could be with the parents. I reminded myself it was their trip.
We finally got to the iconic half circular area with the giant steel stairs in the middle of the room. I fired off shots as quick as I could because as soon as the docent paused in his tour, I was going to tell him I was leaving.
I was going to be leaving before he got to the infamous spot where the firing squad did it’s work. I wanted to see this spot, too, but what could I do. I satisfied myself knowing I had at least seen the famous interior part.
I raced back along the canal, mournfully looking at the beautiful cloudy sky. I was moments from pulling the car over and taking pictures of the canal and it’s locks and it’s swans. Screw the lunch date
In the most egregious of moves, I snapped a shot out the window with my cel phone camera of some swimming swans who were in this little lagoon near one of the bridges. I so wanted to stop, but there was no place to pull over on this road. There is something about missing an opportunity for a great picture that really scrapes at my soul.
I got back to the hotel about fifteen minutes late and quickly started to load the car. My parents made there way down. They didn’t seem too concerned about my tardiness. I even managed to find my mother’s lost coat which she had left hanging in the closet in her room.
Taking the road back to the motorway was the reverse of how were were to come in, without all the drama of the wrong turns. It was remarkably straightforward. I saw the places were i should have made the turns. No problem. How did I get so thoroughly lost? Grrr. Oh, yeah. No street signs.
When my father was getting directions to Naas on the phone, I figured we would be doomed. They were typical Irish directions like look for the giant ball at the second roundabout and make a right turn there. You should go past the Woodies DYI store.
My father assured me he had been to this place before and would be able to recognize the house when he saw it.
Only a few weird turns that didn’t quite match the directions and we pulled up to the house in Naas. It was a beautiful house with a beautiful garden under deep blue skies. The TV was on showing the Ryder Cup which made my father very happy.
There were two big events snaring every Irishmans’s attention this weekend in Ireland. There was the Ryder cup which pitted the European golfers against their American counterparts and Irish Senior Hurling final. This was the third go round for the Hurling Championships as the first two times Kilkenny and Tipperary played, the matches ended in ties. What they do is if the game ends in a tie, they come back in a week and play another full match.
We had a great lunch in the very hot solar room. I was a bad guest since I didn’t eat fish which looked beautiful but still, not for my palate. Our hostess was ready to find my anything else to eat in the house. “ Are you sure you don’t want this, Greg?” or “Could I get you some cold cuts?” She had a very typical sense of Irish hospitably where every avenue was explored to find something to make the guest happy.
Clouds and sun continued to mock me with their beauty as I drove back to Limerick. I figured if we got back to town in a reasonable amount of time, I could go to one of my favorite spots, Quin Abbey and take some sunset pictures.
Which could have been easily done, until my father decided to take the long way through town and stop at our old house in Castletroy I could hear the clock ticking towards sundown. Once again, it was there trip.
The sun was still a good distance above the horizon when I kicked the folks to the curb at the Strand Hotel. I slammed the car into gear and raced out the Ennis Road to Quin, a place I was very familiar with.
Should have taken that extra second to check a map. That way I would have know to go through Six Mile bridge rather than make the left turn towards Newmarket on Fergus. Thankfully, the sun is slow. Six Mile Bridge is named that because it is the bridge six miles from LImerick. Very literal my Irish forbears. Thats why there is Two Mile Inn and a Jack Russel Terrier named Jackie.
I got to make my favorite hairpin turn under a railway bridge where I always meet a truck coming the other way. This time was no exception. The roads were small and I wasn’t going very fast so I had a lot of cars on my bumper. The cows moving down the road from one field to another didn’t help either. I was torn between getting out to take pictures and making the sunset at Quin.
I finally pulled up. I was right on the knife edge of good pictures. Sadly, the big puffy white clouds had all vanished to the east. A line of mist was making the sun dimmer than I would have liked but I was at Quin taking pictures and that makes for a pretty good end to the day.
I found the wedding party in the Strand Hotel bar when I arrived back. They had just finished their rehearsal and had come by to grab some dinner. I sat with my father’s friend and father of the bride Brendan and had a very good pizza. I know. I should be eating stew or banger’s and mash, but I had a pizza, a really tasty pizza made with Limerick ham.
One of the things that is making me the crankiest is trying to find time for me to do the things I want to do. Then I remember that this is my parents trip and I am just here to carry the bags and help my mother get out of the car. Which only makes me crankier since it should be all about me, right?
I got up early to have a nice walk along the canal in the dark. This would be the same canal I was going to follow to the Roxford Lodge. It would have worked perfectly since the road met the canal about a block away from the hotel.
The other reason to follow the canal was that it led to Kilmainham jail, one of the sights I wanted to see while I was in Dublin. I originally envisioned a long leisurely stroll along the canal which led to the jail. I would tour the jail and then I would have a long walk back through the center of Dublin to take pictures.
Yeah, no. My parents had a lunch date south of the city in Naas. We needed to be there by 12:30, which meant leaving Dublin and it’s traffic by 11:30, which my father then changed to 11.
With those stipulations in place, I couldn’t find a way to have the walks, tour the jail and still make it back to the hotel in order to pick them up on time. For some reason my father was not keen on the idea of sitting outside the jail in the car for two hours while I did the tour.
So, it was an early morning walk along the grand canal, followed by a quick drive to the jail for a short tour. The walk took over ninety minutes and I never made it to the jail. But the trip in the car looked very straight forward. Does everyone laugh or cringe when I say things look straight forward?
It was supposed to be a straight shot along the canal. Towards the end, I would just see the Jail on my right. The hotel clerk gave me a tip about parking at the Hilton across the street.
The jail was supposed to open at 9. The tour was to take an hour. This would give me an hour to get back to the hotel.
Turns out the road along the canal, Parnell St, is a very popular route to drive out of Dublin. We crept along the road at an almost motionless pace. This was the route to the Long Mile Road and I think everyone in Dublin wanted to use it.
I was making myself anxious constantly staring at the clock and doing the math. I have ten minutes to get to the jail. I have five minutes to get to the jail.
Finally, the traffic eased up when we passed the junction with Long Mile Road. I roared ahead and sped quickly to my first wrong turn. According to the map, I should keep to the left. I did. I shouldn’t have.
As the road veered away from my intended direction, I realized my mistake. But I couldn’t find a way to get back to the right road. Then I’m in the line of parents dropping their kids off to school. If I made it to the jail now, I would only have fifty minutes for the tour.
I drove back to the point where I zigged instead of zagging. The jail had to be really close by. I should see it. Or at least see the Hilton where I was supposed to park.
I admit it. I let my temper free and started swearing to everyone with in the confines of the car. I slammed on the steering wheel to show how wroth I was with the injustice of the driving in Dublin. There was a lot of screaming to be heard.
I knew I had missed the jail when I drove over the Liffey. Of course, there wasn’t a simple way to turn around and retrace my steps. If I got to the jail right now, I would have forty minutes to do the tour.
After a couple of roundabouts and illegal turns, I was back on the road. I shortly spotted the Hilton and I made the turn. Across from it was the jail that looked more like a castle, which was probably why I didn’t spot it.
Thankfully, the tradition of really tiny parking spaces was carried out at the Hilton. But at least, I didn’t have far to go for Kilmainhman.
Why Kilmainham Gaol? Well, it holds a pivotal role in Irish History. Every hero of the republic who was jailed by the British, except for two, ended up in Kilmainham. It was the first prison of it’s kind, a reform prison, when it was built in 1796.
If you have seen the Daniel Day Lewis movie ‘In the Name of the Father’, you have seen the inside of Kilmainham. All the leaders who were caught after the 1916 uprising were executed in the jail, including one man who was so badly hurt during his capture, they gave him a chair to sit in when they shot him.
My mother tried to come with me on this journey, but I scared her away with stories of lots of stairs and by the fact we were getting up early.
I raced across from the Hilton to the jail, only to find the front door still closed. A check of the sign showed the jail didn’t open for another ten minutes at 9:30. More math in my head. If the tour lasted an hour, then I would finish with 30 minutes to get back to the hotel. I was praying the tour lasted an hour.
I wandered away to take some snaps in a complete change of pace to what I normally do. When I came back about ten people were already in line. I joined them
The museum docent came out to start guiding us in. The line was informed that we would go in at 9:30 and the tour would start at 10. What? That doesn’t work for me. I asked if I could just wander the jail for ten minutes? Nope. You only get to see the jail if you are on the tour.
I didn’t swear. I wanted to. The docent did say we could leave the tour early if we had to. I had to. I could walk with the tour for about thirty minutes before I would depart.
For the thirty minutes before the tour started, I wandered around a nice museum that gave the history of the Gaol and all of it’s historic prisoners. There were even personal effects and letters written by the executed leaders of the 1916 rebellion.
I was hoping the tour would get right to the good bits. Again, no. We were in a room Parnell might have stayed. Parnell the Irish patriot, the namesake for the road I couldn’t find.
We toured the chapel and talked about how women and men were in this prison but kept separate, a shocking innovation at it’s time. The best feature of the chapel was the door behind the altar where the prisoners were led to be hanged by having a noosed looped over a beam tied to their necks. The prisoners were then pushed out a second story window, so the people outside could witness the execution.
There was no hurry in our guide as we passed cells that held the prisoners including one female leader of the rebellion. Time was ticking away. I was calculating how late I could be with the parents. I reminded myself it was their trip.
We finally got to the iconic half circular area with the giant steel stairs in the middle of the room. I fired off shots as quick as I could because as soon as the docent paused in his tour, I was going to tell him I was leaving.
I was going to be leaving before he got to the infamous spot where the firing squad did it’s work. I wanted to see this spot, too, but what could I do. I satisfied myself knowing I had at least seen the famous interior part.
I raced back along the canal, mournfully looking at the beautiful cloudy sky. I was moments from pulling the car over and taking pictures of the canal and it’s locks and it’s swans. Screw the lunch date
In the most egregious of moves, I snapped a shot out the window with my cel phone camera of some swimming swans who were in this little lagoon near one of the bridges. I so wanted to stop, but there was no place to pull over on this road. There is something about missing an opportunity for a great picture that really scrapes at my soul.
I got back to the hotel about fifteen minutes late and quickly started to load the car. My parents made there way down. They didn’t seem too concerned about my tardiness. I even managed to find my mother’s lost coat which she had left hanging in the closet in her room.
Taking the road back to the motorway was the reverse of how were were to come in, without all the drama of the wrong turns. It was remarkably straightforward. I saw the places were i should have made the turns. No problem. How did I get so thoroughly lost? Grrr. Oh, yeah. No street signs.
When my father was getting directions to Naas on the phone, I figured we would be doomed. They were typical Irish directions like look for the giant ball at the second roundabout and make a right turn there. You should go past the Woodies DYI store.
My father assured me he had been to this place before and would be able to recognize the house when he saw it.
Only a few weird turns that didn’t quite match the directions and we pulled up to the house in Naas. It was a beautiful house with a beautiful garden under deep blue skies. The TV was on showing the Ryder Cup which made my father very happy.
There were two big events snaring every Irishmans’s attention this weekend in Ireland. There was the Ryder cup which pitted the European golfers against their American counterparts and Irish Senior Hurling final. This was the third go round for the Hurling Championships as the first two times Kilkenny and Tipperary played, the matches ended in ties. What they do is if the game ends in a tie, they come back in a week and play another full match.
We had a great lunch in the very hot solar room. I was a bad guest since I didn’t eat fish which looked beautiful but still, not for my palate. Our hostess was ready to find my anything else to eat in the house. “ Are you sure you don’t want this, Greg?” or “Could I get you some cold cuts?” She had a very typical sense of Irish hospitably where every avenue was explored to find something to make the guest happy.
Clouds and sun continued to mock me with their beauty as I drove back to Limerick. I figured if we got back to town in a reasonable amount of time, I could go to one of my favorite spots, Quin Abbey and take some sunset pictures.
Which could have been easily done, until my father decided to take the long way through town and stop at our old house in Castletroy I could hear the clock ticking towards sundown. Once again, it was there trip.
The sun was still a good distance above the horizon when I kicked the folks to the curb at the Strand Hotel. I slammed the car into gear and raced out the Ennis Road to Quin, a place I was very familiar with.
Should have taken that extra second to check a map. That way I would have know to go through Six Mile bridge rather than make the left turn towards Newmarket on Fergus. Thankfully, the sun is slow. Six Mile Bridge is named that because it is the bridge six miles from LImerick. Very literal my Irish forbears. Thats why there is Two Mile Inn and a Jack Russel Terrier named Jackie.
I got to make my favorite hairpin turn under a railway bridge where I always meet a truck coming the other way. This time was no exception. The roads were small and I wasn’t going very fast so I had a lot of cars on my bumper. The cows moving down the road from one field to another didn’t help either. I was torn between getting out to take pictures and making the sunset at Quin.
I finally pulled up. I was right on the knife edge of good pictures. Sadly, the big puffy white clouds had all vanished to the east. A line of mist was making the sun dimmer than I would have liked but I was at Quin taking pictures and that makes for a pretty good end to the day.
I found the wedding party in the Strand Hotel bar when I arrived back. They had just finished their rehearsal and had come by to grab some dinner. I sat with my father’s friend and father of the bride Brendan and had a very good pizza. I know. I should be eating stew or banger’s and mash, but I had a pizza, a really tasty pizza made with Limerick ham.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit