British Isles Friday Ireland 1991 Part 1

Hosted by Joy's Book Blog.

I've been doing some memory lane posts of trips before digital and before blogging.

I first traveled to England with my Mom in 1960
My parents took us back as a family in 1970.
John and I first went together in 1986 to London.
Continuing 1986 with Oxford and Stratford.
Ireland 1991 Part 1 Dublin
Ireland 1991 Part 2 Around Ireland scheduled
Ireland 1991 Part 3 Around Ireland scheduled
London 1987 - scheduled
Scotland 2001 - scheduled

May 1991 - Dublin Ireland (part 1)

Today we are in Dublin. I was last in Dublin in September 2015 so I will include some pictures from 2015 as comparison.

Click here for more 2015 photos which include the Mansion House and Christchurch.

Located near the very centre of Dublin, opposite the GPO, the life-size bronze statue of novelist James Joyce has become one of the city’s most iconic monuments. Leaning on a cane, one hand in his pocket and crossed-legged, Joyce strikes a distinctly Chaplinesque pose.

Some Dubliners dislike how Joyce’s chin is jauntily elevated, how his nose sticks snootily into the air. In return — as they do with all the city’s monuments — they have given the statue a cheeky nickname, “the prick with the stick”.

GPO General Post Office is indelibly associated with the 1916 Rising and the events that led to the creation of an independent Irish state. The stern grandeur of its façade, Irish flag flying proudly aloft, is an image that evokes a justifiable sense of heroism and nationhood. In the course of its long history, the GPO has witnessed much more than the events of Easter Week.

Clery's, a long established department store on O'Connell St. The business dates from 1853, however the current building dates from 1922, having been completely destroyed in the 1916 Easter Rising.

Clerys was placed into receivership on 17 September 2012.Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson were appointed joint provisional liquidators to OSC Operations Limited (the "Company") trading as Clerys, on 12 June 2015. The company ceased to trade with immediate effect. Staff were given 30 minutes notice to pack up and leave - some had worked there for over 40 years.

Whenever I visited Dublin I knew i could get the bus to my aunt's house outside Clery's. 

A large clock with two faces hangs above Clerys' central doors on O'Connell Street (opposite the statue of Jim Larkin). "Under Clerys' clock" is a well-known rendez-vous, both for Dubliners, and visitors from the countryside and is famous in the city's culture as a place where many romances begin.

The buses are no longer green!!!!

1991

2015

Three months after its closure.

2015 bus at O'Connell St.

Grafton St. (Irish: Sráid Grafton) is one of the two principal shopping streets in Dublin city centre, the other being Henry Street. It runs from Saint Stephen's Green in the south (at the highest point of the street) to College Green in the north (to the lowest point).
Since the 1980s, the street has been mostly pedestrianised, with the exception of the short stretch running between Nassau Street and College Green.

 1991

2015

How excited I was to be showing my BFF Dublin, here we are on either side of our guide.

O'Connell St. (Irish: Sráid Uí Chonaill) is Dublin's main thoroughfare. During the 17th century it was a narrow street known as Drogheda Street (named after Henry Moore, Earl of Drogheda). It was widened, and renamed 'Sackville Street' (named after Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset) in the late 1700s until 1924, when it was renamed in honour of Daniel O'Connell, a nationalist leader of the early 19th century, whose statue stands at the lower end of the street, facing O'Connell Bridge.

When I was a little girl living in Dublin my aunt worked in the candy store on the opposite corner and I would get treats.

1991

2015

Before the Halfpenny Bridge was built in 1816 you would have to take a ferry to cross the Liffey. It would cost you a ha'penny to cross its timber gangway.

 1991

2015

2015 looking the same way as in 1991 but from the bridge.

1991 Hapenny Pub

The Mansion House (Irish: Teach an Ard-Mhéara) on Dawson Street, has been the official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin since 1715.

This pub The Plough no longer exists.

Christchurch Cathedral is Church of Ireland.People have been coming to this place to worship God for nearly one thousand years.

This was an exhibit in a decommissioned church.

The Custom House (Irish: Teach an Chustaim) is a neoclassical 18th-century building which houses the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. It is located on the north bank of the River Liffey, on Custom House Quay.

The famous Moore Street open air fruit and vegetable market is Dublin's oldest food market.

Click here for lots of photos around Glasnevin graveyard. Many of the rebels from the 1916 Uprising are buried there.

In 1991 we were taken to this pub by my cousin's husband and his Dad. 

Me, Cathal and Brenda, my Dad's sister's daughter.

2015 John and I went to Kavanagh's for a pint after visiting Glasnevin.

2015

Established in 1833 John Kavanagh’s is more commonly known as ‘The Gravediggers’because of its location next to the Glasnevin cemetery and its attached folk history, this is a genuine Victorian bar, totally unspoilt.

Gabriel Byrne was here filming for Quirke, the BBC adaptation of the John Banville ‘Benjamin Black’ novels. I will have to find this as I have read all these books.

They shot a scene here for the 1970 well-meaning romantic comedy Quackser Fortune has a Cousin in the Bronx featuring Willy Wonka and Lois Lane, Gene Wilder and Margot Kidder, David Kelly (Waking Ned). Wilder does well to push Kidder all the way from St Patrick’s Cathedral in the city centre to The Gravediggers in a wheelbarrow.

2015

Random 1991 street shots.

On this trip we had a great tour guide, my Uncle Tommy McGuinness, my Dad's brother both now gone.

One day he took us out to Sandycove it is south east of Dún Laoghaire and Glasthule, and north west of Dalkey. It is a popular seaside resort.

Howth head lighthouse.

Sandycove is well known for its (formerly) gentlemen's bathing place, the Forty Foot, which in the past afforded a quiet swimming haven for males only. This remains a popular bathing place but since the late 20th century,mixed bathing is permissible.

The writer James Joyce lived for a week as a young man in the Martello Tower situated beside the Forty Foot bathing place at Sandycove. The opening scene of Joyce's Ulysses is set in this tower. It now hosts a small Joycean museum, open all year round. Bloomsday is celebrated in Sandycove in Joyce's honour on the 16th of June every year.

Uncle Tommy also took us to the house where he and my Dad had first lived, before they moved to Mourne Road where my aunt (their sister) still lives today.

Both my Mom and Dad grew up on Mourne Road and lived there until they got married.

The church where all my aunts got married. Click here to see my parents' wedding.

Galtymore Road around the corner from Mourne Rd.

We managed a few pubs with Uncle Tommy.

Uncle Tommy was a real Irish history buff and we visited Kilmainham Jail. We tried going again in 2015 but the lineups were crazy.

 Next time I will buy tickets ahead of time. I need to go there with my camera!

Opened in 1796 as the County Gaol for Dublin, Kilmainham Gaol has, at crucial moments, held within its walls most of the key personalities involved in the struggle for Irish independence.



De Valera was a leader in the War of Independence and of the anti-Treaty opposition in the ensuing Irish Civil War(1922–1923). After leaving Sinn Féin in 1926 due to its policy of abstentionism, he founded Fianna Fáil, and was head of government (President of the Executive Council), later Taoiseach) from 1932 to 1948, 1951 to 1954, and 1957 to 1959, when he resigned after being elected as President of Ireland.

De Valera jail cell.

This is a lovely song about Grace Evelyn Gifford Plunkett (4 March 1888 – 13 December 1955) was an Irish artist and cartoonist who was active in the Republican movement, who married her fiancé Joseph Plunkett in Kilmainham Gaol only a few hours before he was executed for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising.

As part of Centenary Danny O’Reilly from The Coronas has joined forces with his sister Róisín O' Reilly and cousin Aoife Scott to record a very special version of “Grace” in Kilmainham Gaol.

Lots of family visits and fun.


Hanging out with the Mc Guinness clan.

My cousin's husband performing at the Conservative Club on Harrington St.

John singing karaoke for the first time, my cousin Brenda and I put his name in for Rhinestone Cowboy.

My Aunt May and me.

Uncle Tommy and John in the suds.

Susan (RIP) Cathal and Leila.

My mother's side of the family - Mom's cousin Susan Brennan (RIP).

Susan's mother my Aunt Linda (RIP) who was married to my grandmother's brother Billy.

Joyce Brennan Feeney also my mom's cousin, her dad was my Uncle Alec, another brother of my grandmother.

Back with the Mc Guinness gang. My cousin Ann's husband, Joe and my cousin Irene's son Brian.

Ann's girls Niamh and Cliodhna

Irene's daughter, check her out now. Over the Rainbow. Broadway World Interview 2015.

Time to head home from Shannon Airport.