Family Time in Dublin

We took the kids to McDonald's - Keelin's favorite! Ryker was eating the french fries until he discovered the vanilla milkshake! Mmmmmmmmmmmm. He drank it in one big gulp. Really. We also went downtown to see all of the pretty decorations on Grafton Street and to the park where I took him on the big swing.

Free Derry

Andrew was a great tourguide. We walked the walls of Derry (oldest and most intact walled city in Europe). We explored Free Derry (the Catholic end of town) and all of the wonderful murals which depict the history of The Troubles.

Bed!

Every night AVO and T would be so tired and thankful to crawl into a bed at the end of the day that they'd say "Bed!" as a form of goodnight. We stayed at a B&B outside of Derry. It was very cold and we woke to frost on everything.

Hot Whiskey!

It was a VERY cold, windy day at Giant's Causeway. We trudged up behind this Polish woman. We got AVO up the hill by telling her she could have a Bushmill's hot whiskey at the top. The distillery was closed for the holiday but the pub served us well.

THE LEGEND OF FINN MACCUMHAIL LYRICS - DROPKICK MURPHYS

THE LEGEND OF FINN MACCUMHAIL LYRICS - DROPKICK MURPHYS

Posted using ShareThis

Giant's Causeway

Ryker's middle name, Fionn, is in honor of Fionn MacCool (Mac Cumhail in Gaellic). One of the first posts in this blog tells the legend so I won't repeat it. Giant's Causeway is on the coast of Northern Ireland. It is a natural rock formation dating from the Paleogene Period (65 - 23 million years ago). It is a Unesco World Heritage site and appears on the cover of the Led Zeppelin album Houses of the Holy.

This was Tara's favorite part of the trip - even if we had to do a quick hike back because we got there a bit late in the day (after all, we did Newgrange earlier!). Ryker was getting over being sick and was still a bit under the weather. Fortunately, we could put him in the pack and carry him.

Newgrange

Just north of Dublin is a VERY old passage tomb. It is 1,000 years older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Giza. It is the oldest domed roof structure ever discovered. It was designed so the rising sun on the Winter Solstice shines deep inside the tomb and lights up the back corners. The waiting list to see this is 10 years long and over 40,000 people apply for the lottery every year. Maybe 20 people (and that would be incredibly tight) would fit inside at any given time.