Dublin, Ireland

Dublin is a contradiction: medieval architecture against steel and glass. I think it doesn’t know what to be. It wants to be modern, yet it doesn’t know how to hold on to its roots. Dublin had been inhabited centuries before the Vikings settled it into a real city in the 9th century. Again, like the rest of Europe, the history is complex and convoluted.

My tour took us on an overview of the city, with stops at a Jewish Museum and Cemetery. The tour guide and the docent from the museum gave us quite a history lesson on how Ireland was named – obviously there was a Jewish connection, which is so convoluted that I can’t even begin to tell you the what and why; but he did make the point and even my fatigued brain got it. Way back in history five Jewish merchants came to what is now Ireland to see the king about doing some business. Since the five weren’t beheaded and did return home in one piece, the hypothesis goes that this opened up Ireland for some minimal immigration of Jews from the continent. There never was a large Jewish population in Ireland except for the 1950s; today, there are fewer than a thousand. Being a tourist is like being in school again!

The largest and most popular fair in Dublin is called the Puck Fair. The origins of this come from an ancient Jewish ceremony to honor God by sacrificing a goat by throwing it down a hill and killing it. When leaders decided that killing a goat this way was cruel, they instead decided to lower the goat over the hill using ropes, and then let it go run free. Our Catholic guide was astonished to learn that this very Catholic tradition has Jewish roots!

I found the Georgian buildings to be beautiful and charming. These were mostly four story row houses with basements. The number of chimney pots (on top of the roof) indicated how many rooms you had, so the more you had, the richer you were. Dublin is famous for its doors. Front doors were painted bright colors and were framed with side lights and half round windows on top. This tradition came about because there were no house numbers and the only way to recognize your house was by the color of the door.

Of course, we talked about the potato famine of 1849 and mass migration of the Irish to Australia and America. Australia has more Irish descendents than Ireland! St. Patrick’s Day used to be a very religious holiday in Ireland, and today they celebrate it for one week – more partying less religion -- like America does.

Our final stop was to the oldest Jewish cemetery in Western Europe. It was very tiny and the huge stone markers were mostly dated in the 1800s. The cemetery was not very large, and the grave sites were overgrown with a certain weed that they cannot get rid of. The caretakers are not allowed to disturb the graves in any way so they cannot pull the weeds as the roots are wound around the caskets and weed killer doesn’t work. The caretakers are very old and frail and get no money to care for the cemetery. They have had to build walls around the site and install security cameras because there are still – in this day and age, in addition to vandals -- grave robbers and body snatchers.

After returning to the ship and having lunch with Michael, my intention was to go back to the city and look for a nail shop. We sat down on some comfortable deck chairs while having an ice cream cone and I laid back and just shut my eyes for a minute. An hour and a half later, Michael was gone on his second tour and it was too late for me to go into the city and find a place. I am starting to count the days until we return home. I am exhausted and desperately need some rest. Soon…..

Michael:

Well, I was a very busy boy today, escorting not one but two tours through Dublin. Dublin, home to one million people, is not a particularly attractive city, but has some incredible history. I was last here in the early eighties when it was in terrible economic condition. In the nineties, Ireland boomed, even more than most of Europe, and it became known as the Celtic Tiger. Today, it is in dire economic straits again, but they are, as always, hopeful. I was amazed at how much I remembered (I did spend the better part of two years here) but also how much it had changed during the boom. Areas that had been immense ghettos were turned into modern office and technical areas to house the banking and financial industry that was at the heart of the boom.

My morning tour took us past most of the major sites in the city, followed by a one hour boat ride on the River Liffey. Some of the sites we saw included the ornate customs House, the Ha’Penny bridge, Trinity College, the four major squares of Dublin, St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Phoenix Park where the Pope held mass for one million people in 1979. In the afternoon I went to the Jameson Distillery for what I thought was to be a tour. Not so, it was a private reception for senior Jameson and Crystal Cruises executives, and for some of their largest travel partners. Oh well, free booze!