Some weeks ago I was a whole day in Dublin walking through the streets, shooting some colorful doors and having lunch at Temple Bar.
Dublin is amazing every time I walk through the streets of this very cosmopolitan city. Nowhere I have seen so many nationalities together, and they all look like they feel home here. It’s an open city yet full of traditions and history.
I was with my boy-friend and one of my best friend to have a look at the main cathedral, to show my man Temple Bar and the Irish feeling, to have a look at the famous Book of Kells and of course the library at Trinity College and smell the sea at Blackrock.
A little about the history of this today nearly 2 million busy city:
It is a place that already in prehistory had some human settlements. Officially Dublin was founded in 988, but also nominated around 140 AD by Ptolemy, a Greek cartographer. But the then Viking settlement was preceded by early Christians who lived also both side by side, each on another side of the Liffy, river going through the city.
It remained a mainly Viking settlement until 1169 when the Norman Invasion of Ireland took over.
400 years later the English Crown started a new era for Dublin. It became the center of of Irish administration. By then the population rose to 50.000 inhabitants also thanks to a rich trade of wool and linen with England.
In the 18th century Georgian Dublin became the second largest city in the British Empire. Many streets were built in this architecture style. Places like Temple Bar and Grafton Street still have their Medieval character and are not effected from era transformation. Another reason helped Dublin to prosper: the foundation of the Guinness brewery in 1759. It became Dublin’s largest employer.
During the industrial explosion Dublin and Ireland stayed a little outside and the city itself lost the importance since also the seat of government was transferred to London.
The Easter Rising, the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War damaged the city heavily. But after all it still remains the capital city of Ireland.
That is history. Modern Dublin is so open and full of youth from all over the world. And they all sit together in the pubs and enjoy the Irish atmosphere.
We loved to walk in the streets, to sit in the parks, to have Guinness and Irish stew.
Later we have been at the seaside at Blackrock which was once a little fishing village. Here we had a long walk and later some dinner which was also very nice. Here a little the daylight fooled us as we thought it was around 7 pm and it was 10 pm so it was not that easy to find a place where to eat in the first moment.
Highlight was definitely the library of the Trinity College. But also just strolling through the streets and listening to all the languages, breathing the sunny but fresh air was wonderful. We were very lucky with the weather, sunny and dry and warm for Ireland.
Dublin, Co. Leinster/Ireland:
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