In Dublin's Fair City

Geoff started singing the first few refrains of "Molly Malone" as we peddled our Dublin-bikes into the Temple bar area - much to the scorn of the passerbys - some of whom may have been locals. We were to learn that evening that certain Irish folk songs are rarely ever heard outside the tourist areas.

Allan in a little street near Temple Bar

We had two nights in Dublin with Allan and Diedre and decided to spend an evening doing the musical pub crawl. There are two guided pub crawls of note in Dublin - the one with a literary focus - the other with a musical focus. Due to Geoff's interest in music we opted for the latter. It is a great idea whereby a couple of local musicians take you from one private pub to another where they then entertain and inform the group with a selection of local music, tales and explanations of the Irish music culture. Similar to African traditional culture the Gaelic people's culture was recorded via an oral tradition of stories, and particularly song. Musicians would have a repertoire of hundreds if not thousands of songs. Before the conquest of Ireland by the English such music was reserved for the courts and noblemen - however with the English attempts to ban Irish culture the musicians were forced to flee and a culture of performing for the general public - often in pubs became established. A differentiation between performing and sharing was also explained whereby in Ireland you rarely perform, but rather you contribute to a group and you play for each other. Geoff was very moved by the story and has promised to work harder on his campfire repertoire as a result!

The Dublin-bikes are a fantastic public transport system whereby you can hire a bicycle for period of time and cycle to your next destination where you then lock up the bike and someone else unlocks it for their use. The use of the bicycle - once you have registered with them - is free for the first half hour, and then minimal thereafter. The best part of the system is that it is well used. Allan reported that the system had paid for itself within a year of being installed, three times sooner than the business model had predicted! With our south easter and more intense gradients we're not sure the system would take off in Cape Town - just yet!!!

Geoff and his Dublin-bike in front of the Guinness brewery.

Not a Dublin-Bike, but a PediBus.  14 people sit around a 'bar' and pedal with their feet to propel the bus while enjoying beer on tap.

We also did a walking tour of the city to see Dublin from a Dubliner's point of view and it was fascinating to learn about some of the Viking history of the city among other things.

The entrance building of Trinity College

Lucy at St Patrick's Cathedral.

Dublin Castle.  The 'non-original' parts are painted bright colours so that 'you know they're not original'!

The Helipad at Dublin Castle

The Heineken cup final was on the Saturday evening of our stay when the two Irish teams, Ulster (NI) and Leister (RI) met. We weren't too much interested in the result, but enjoyed a sunny evening of big screens and a lot of enthused fans. The Dublin based team won!

We were very impressed with Dublin and would recommend it to anyone who was visiting Ireland. Don't spend too much time there though as the rest of the island has so much to offer - but a couple of nights would be well spent!!!