Dublin City Centre is compact and really easy to walk. You can see the Medieval Core and stroll to the Georgian squares without travelling far. There are lovely cafes and bars to have a refreshment before visiting the shops. The streets are not in a gird system but this adds a little fun to the orientations.
Dublin is fortunate to have lots of parks to visit, interspersed through out the City and there is a vibrancy that is uniquely Dublin which makes it ideal for a staycation.
There are many locations to choose from but Cuckoo Lane is up at the top. It was where a religious house for the Augustinian Order and was located. The site was large, spreading south to the River Liffey and to the West almost to the Phoenix Park. It was very powerful and wealthy.
The friars built secret passage ways from Cuckoo lane under the River Liffey all the way to Christchurch Cathedral. So they did not have to walk over ground, the passage ways ended in the Crypt of Christchurch.
A passageway was also burrowed the whole way to the Phoenix Park and was only discovered in the 1800s, 600 years after it was built!
One of the key skills of religious orders was distilling so it is not unfitting that after the Priory was dissolved the site was used for whiskey distilling and in the 1700’s Jameson built a distillery at Cuckoo Lane.
These days the historic stone building has been converted into apartments and the site is situated in our Fruit and Veg markets.
We are very lucky in Dublin that many of our Galleries and Museum are free to enter. All the National Museum are free and the Archaeology Museum has some of the most unusual, must see exhibits in Dublin.
There is a wealth of bronze age gold honed into elaborate jewellery which is so classic it could still be worn today! It displays the fact that gold was commonplace and there was great wealth in pre Christian Ireland.
A large oak boat, the Lurgan canoe was found to be over 4000 years old and preserved by the Galway bogs.
The Treasury contains our Christian wealth from the Tara broach to priceless chalice and finely decorated Bishops Crozier. Really inspiring to see jewels still perfect after a millennium.
Then the most unusual room contains the bog bodies, preserved in the acidic waters of the bogs for thousands of years. You can see the hair bleached red by the iron, the nails and skin are also preserved. They can be unnerving so are not for the squeamish!