Our first stop was Croke Park, home of the GAA. The Gaelic Athletic Association is dedicated to the preservation of Irish sports--hurling and Gaelic football, and most of the all-Ireland games are held in Croke. What's really cool is that all 34 teams (all Irish counties, plus London and New York, both of which have a large enough Irish population to play at the top level) are amateur--no one gets paid, and everyone does it in their free time. One of the guys on Galway's hurling team actually works at the organization I'm volunteering with, which is really cool. The park's capacity is something like 82,000 and it's usually filled for finals...so crazy!
The next stop was Kilmainham jail, site of the executions of the leaders of the Easter Rising. Our tour was actually pretty brief and not as thorough as the last one I went on, but it was still so eerie to be there. Of course, when you put a bunch of college kids in a jail with open cells, things like this happen:
After that, we headed to the Guinness factory, which was excellent, as expected. For some odd reason, not everyone in the group liked Guinness...more for the rest of us! We spent a lot of time in the Gravity bar...the views are fantastic!
After that, we had some free time. It was Culture Night in Dublin, so a lot of museums and attractions were open late/ free. We ended up walking around Temple Bar for quite a bit before calling it a night.
On Saturday, we had a walking tour of the city, which was really well done, and then we had the afternoon free. Court, Kels and I ended up on Grafton Street where Court finally got her caramel frappe (apparently the Irish don't do many frappuciono type things) and I finally got my M&S banoffee. We ate in St. Stephen's Green, then went to O'Connell Street, Henry Street, and the Jameson Distillery.
After that, we went to see "The Plough and The Stars" by Sean O'Casey at the Abbey--what an amazing performance!
On Sunday, we headed to Newgrange to see the neolithic passage tombs, which had fantastic views of the Hill of Tara, etc. from the top:
Finally, we went to Clonmacnoise, a monastic settlement literally in the middle of the country.
One of the coolest things there is the Whispering Arch, which was supposedly used by priests to hear confession without risking getting sick--you whisper something on one side of the doorway, and it can be heard perfectly on the other side.
I'm going to end with this picture, from the Gravity Bar at Guinness, because it's so awesome:
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