WEDNESDAY
DUBLIN
WEDNESDAY
DUBLIN
| I was the only guest at the Azalea Lodge at the time. It was a bit before season. Things would start to pick up next week for St. Patrick's Day. |
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| Back down the Drumcondra Road. |
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| The Garden of Remembrance is dedicated to those who, oh heck, read it for yourself. |
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| And there it is. |
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| The Lying-In Hospital, which opened in 1757, was the first purpose-built maternity hospital in Europe. |
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| A memorial to Charles Stewart Parnell, an Irish nationalist hero, on O'Connell Street. |
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| Fine Gael just won a big election victory weeks before my trip. Apparently they have a five-point plan. It seems that point #1 is has something to do with jobs. |
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| Also on O'Connell Street is the General Post Office building. |
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Is it just me or does this statue of trade union leader Jim Larkin look a
little gay? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but he just looks a
little "Hello, sailor". That giant metal spike behind him is the Spire. There used to be a column there called Nelson's Pillar, erected in 1808 in honor of Admiral Lord Nelson. That was blown up by republican activists in 1966. |
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| The River Liffey. |
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| You know a lot of these 18th century neoclassical buildings start to look the same after a while. This is the Customs House. |
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| Not far from the old Customs House is this brand spanking new Samuel Beckett Bridge, opened in 2009. It looks a bit like a harp. I wonder if that's what they were going for. |
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| Okay, Big Jim Larkin may not have been a poof, but Oscar Wilde certainly was. The British government even convicted and imprisoned him for it. |
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| That statue is in Merrion Square across the street from this house where he lived from 1855 to 1878. |
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| A walk through the park at Merrion Square. |
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| It was a coincidence that I happened to go by Leinster House on the day that the new Dáil was being seated. This is a socialist rally close to the gate. Really, honest to God socialists. Red flags and signs and everything. |
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| Here are others in front of the gate welcoming their newly elected representatives. The Enda being congratulated on that sign is Enda Kenny, the leader of Fine Gael and the new Taoiseach or prime minister. |
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| There was of course a good deal of security at the gate. |
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| There are some TD's and others on their way into the building. |
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| I saw a few of these signs around town. They reference Fianna Fáil, the party that got ousted in the last election. |
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