Dublin

After my conference in Leeds, Mom and I flew back to Dublin to spend a few days in the city.  As I suspected, two full days were enough to tire us out and make us glad for a move to the country.  But while we were in town we made some fun discoveries.  The first was that we arrived in time to see Dublin mark the centenary of the Easter Rising revolt, which marks the beginning of the modern move to Irish Independence.  Copies of the 1916 proclamation of independence were plastered all over the city, our hotel was just down the street from the post office that served as the revolutionaries’ headquarters, and a national gallery was filled with images of the revolt (and Britain’s armed response).  The devastation to Dublin’s downtown looked very much like the pictures of WWI bombings in London that I am used to seeing in my work.  Below is a view of the National Library of Ireland, from the steps of the National Museum of Ireland–Archaeology, which holds several bog bodies that date back to roughly 800 BCE.

Another surprise was just how lush the city parks were.  Compared to Kentucky (which likes its grass, and even that must be golf-green short), the parks in Dublin seemed almost jungle-like!  We wandered among several of those during our city strolls, enjoying rejuvenation from the green before we headed back out to traffic.  Yes, apparently high rain fall really does mean different plant life, to which the parks attested.  Everything was in bloom, too, and they had a lot of variety of trees and flowers.  I have also, apparently, not entirely forgotten my maternal instincts.  I was quick to note playgrounds everywhere we went.  In a former life, those would have been a big help in getting my kids through a long day out and about.  But now, not only did I not have my kids in tow, but even if I did, they would be too big to get much out of the equipment!  Apparently I’m slow to make the mental leaps needed as life rolls on . . .

Erin