Irish You Were Here: Dublin Day One: GAA/Croke Park, Guinness Storehouse, and Book of Kells (Trinity College)

Now that my weekend in Dublin is over, I get the pleasure of sorting through over 1,000 pictures and picking which are worthy of sharing. Instead of make one giant post, I'm going to split it up for each day I was there. While the whole trip was fun, I could not be happier to be back "home" in Galway-- Dublin was not my scene! I'm not a big city person anyway, but Dublin was dirty, crowded, and way more expensive than Galway. Also, it didn't feel that "Irish"; for most of the weekend I felt like I could have been in any big city since it did not feel unique. And I got pooped on my a bird. So, I mean, that's just a permanent strike against the entire city forever. In all seriousness though, I came back tonight with a much better appreciation of the city I am living in. Dublin just didn't do it for me, but I will be going back in October to meet some visitors so maybe the second time around will be better. Galway is much more culturally rich, despite its small size, and I need to start taking advantage of all that it has to offer. A big thanks to Dublin to opening my eyes to how lucky I am!

My first day consisted of a stop at the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) Museum at Croke Park, the National GAA stadium. The GAA is the governing organization for six amateur sports: Gaelic Football (men), Women's Football, Hurling (men), Camogie (women), Rounders, and Handball. Croke Park is where all the national championship games are held. We received a tour of the whole stadium, including the locker rooms, press box, luxury suites, players' lounge, and the museum. Since the Park is a neutral field all the locker rooms have the same accommodations, as there is no home-team advantage. One other interesting thing I learned was that the players are not paid at all, and most have full-time jobs on top of their training. They play for the pride of their counties, not for a paycheck, which I think is refreshing. Because of that, they are all technically "amateurs" but what they do is pretty professional! We got to try Hurling and Gaelic Football and it was really hard. The perfectionist in me could've stayed there all day working at my swing with the Hurley (hurling stick) but we had other places to head off to!

Giving Gaelic Football a try! The ball is softer than a soccer ball and stitched like a volleyball.

The locker room-- one jersey from every county hangs when it is not in use.

The GAA club from New York is allowed to hang as well!

The pitch at Croke Park from field level

The VIP seats and the trophy presentation area are above the tunnel from the locker room.

The pitch is 144m x 90m! If you include the sidelines, you could fit two soccer fields side by side.

Up in the press area!

The different stages of making a hurley

The trophy case

The chandelier in the Players' Lounge is lit with the winning team's colors after a game. It is made up of 32 Gaelic footballs to represent the 32 counties, and 70 hurling balls to represent the 70 minutes of play in each game.

Next stop, Trinity College to see The Books of Kells! When I saw that we were going to get to see a very cool Medieval illuminated manuscript in Latin I had a huge nerd moment, until I realized that for obvious reasons I wouldn't be allowed to leaf through it for hours, or take pictures. So even though I don't have photographic proof, trust me, it was really neat to see something that old in the condition it is in today. The art work was incredible (if you haven't seen what the illustrated pages look like, you should check it out at the Trinity website!) Unfortunately, it is such a heavily trafficked area that you can only see the manuscripts for a few minutes before the guards make you give way to other viewers. BUT, the nerdy-fun doesn't stop there because I got to exit through The Long Room of the Old Library. Books, books, books! Also, for any Star Wars fans out there, the Long Room is also allegedly the inspiration for the Jedi Archives in Attack of the Clones but I guess there's some controversy over that. I'll post a picture below for you to compare them for yourselves!

We happened to pass a house once occupied by Oscar Wilde, so I snapped a picture.

Blown up image of one of the more well-known Book of Kells pages

The beautiful winding staircase in the Long Room

Lots of busts line the sides of the room

The Long Room at Trinity College Dublin

The Jedi Archives from Star Wars (not my picture, from an Irish News site). The resemblance is uncanny.

The last stop of the day was to the Guinness Storehouse, which was massively larger than the only other brewery I've seen, but at Saranac we got more free beer so I guess it's a trade off. The whole storehouse is shaped like a giant pint glass, ending at the top floor with 360 degree views of the city. The lines were too long to do the taste testing, or the perfect-pour workshop, which I would've liked but the advertising floor was great because I got to see all the ads from over the years. Then we all got our free pints and went on our merry way.