We left Ireland today with a lot of good memories and some surprisingly good weather. Our waiter a lunch joked that the two sunny days we have day was what the call 'summer'. It was funny because he was only half joking.
We visited Dublin Castle on our way out of town which was pretty cool. We didn't get to see all of it because the Prime Minister was having a conference but did get to see the interesting parts of the old viking and norman city buried below the current castle. Turned out Bram Stoker worked there while writing Dracula.
There is a really cool little chapel there. I think it probably has the same details as all the others but since it is so small everything is really close and you can get a really good view of it all.
It was a bit weird though hearing the history of everything there. Hard to believe that Ireland has been a country in its current state for less time than Oklahoma has been a state.
The one thing that will stick with me the most from the trip, is a bit of sad Irish history. I am sure everyone has heard of the Irish potato famine, but I never had a real understanding of just how signigicant it was. Before the famine.in xxxxx there were something like 8 million people in Ireland. The most recent census puts todays population around 4 million. To think that there are roughly half as many people here now as there were xxx years ago is mind boggeling. I would venture a guess that there are very few places in the world which have not grown in population over that same period, let alone declined.
I've said before how the sun is always up in London in the summer, Dublin took it to the next level. 300 or so miles further north and another hour or so of extra daylight. Took this picture at 10:15 at night. Took it with my BB so no funny camera tricks going on.
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