4 NOV 2008: My trip to Navan & Dublin

The whole idea behind this trip was just something of a practice run before setting off to the Continent next week and everything went brilliantly.

The first day was just a long – almost all day – bus trip to the other side of the country:



The plan was to make it to Navan and hook up with a Couchsurfer guy there that was going to let me crash at his place during my visit. The only real snag on this day is that once I got to Dublin, it occurred to me that although I had given Cormac my mobile number, I hadn't got his so had no way to contact him once in Navan. Luckily, as it turned out, he realized he hadn't given me his number and sent me a text five minutes after getting off the bus. So everything went well.

We went back to his place, had a couple beers, and both went to sleep early. Cormac had to work the next day and I was just tired from the trip.

The next day I set out with the idea of taking the bus down to Tara, but it was such a nice clear sunny day I decided to walk it instead. It took a couple hours, but was a nice walk. I wanted to see Tara in the day light, before the druids did their fire thing that evening (see previous posts).

One thing that I didn't realize is that the Mound of Hostages, one of the most prominent features at Tara was a megalithic chamber that was open...







I was also a bit surprised to see another standing marker next to the Stone of Destiny (another megalithic standing stone, that was used in the coronation of the ancient Irish kings and would supposedly "sing" when the pagan gods approved of the new king). What was it? A memorial put up by the IRA at Tara in 1938…



After visiting the site in daylight for a couple of hours, I decided to go waking to other sites in the area, like Rath Maeve and the castle at Dunsany. As it was starting to get dark – and cold – I stopped for a bite to eat and went back to Tara.

Unlike last year, when apparently the revival of the Beacon Fire ritual at Tara took the authorities by surprise, one thing I noticed from the outset was that there were large signs all over Tara saying that you could not start fires there anymore. So this already made me suspect that maybe it wouldn't be a big event like it was last year. As the sun went down over Tara, there were a few very small groups of people who obviously knew one another and were up to something, however, a few arsonists on a hill isn't what I had in mind. Further, they all had cars, so if the idea was to just light the fires and leave, I'd be stuck there. I waited until about an hour after dark just to see if all of a sudden a lot more people were going to show up, however, when that didn't happen I walked back to Navan. That was the whole "Halloween was a bust" post earlier. If they had the ritual on the Hill, either it was about ten people in the dark or it happened much later at night.

I had a few drinks with Cormac and went to bed early. Oh well.

The next day I hopped the bus from Navan to Dublin, for the whole goth/EBM night thing I talked about earlier. I found the club easy enough as it was close to the bus station and got a room in a hostel (a whole lot of Americans and Germans there) right around the corner. The rest of the day I just walked around Dublin, which is a big city, just exploring around. I came back to my room and took a nap. Like all of Ireland, Dublin is absurdly expensive, just moreso. So instead of hanging out in the pubs before the club, I just got a bottle of vodka, mixed it with some apple juice, and wondered around some more.

By the time I went to the club – about 11:15 – I was already half tanked which is a good thing since the drinks at the club were even more expensive than in the pubs. The prices really were ridiculous, but that didn't stop me from buying more. The venue was very small – think of maybe the basement level of Milk in Denver – and most people didn't show up until after midnight. Some people I was talking to said this was particularly slow, and probably because it was Halloween weekend and everyone was probably at private parties or broke.

On the upside, the music was excellent, and since the goth/EBM thing is definitely not big in Ireland a number of the other people there were foreigners too. I ended dancing with and then hanging out with a girl from Argentina and had a good time despite the fact that we were both entirely too drunk. It was a good night.

The next day I explored a lot more Dublin; Dublin Castle, the Guinness Brewery, and so on. Then I took the train out to Leixlip where Cormac was, and we went back to Navan. We went out to a couple pubs and had a few pints and that was that.

The last day, as mentioned in an earlier post, I wanted to make it out to Newgrange, near Slane. Again it was a lovely day so I decided to walk it and at Cormac's suggestion took the Ramparts walk which is incredibly picturesque:

The castle is Dunmoe Castle, held by the D'Arcy family and burned down in 1799.



The problem was that after I left the Ramparts walk, I didn't know which way to go and went the long way around to the town of Slane. However, from there it was another 10 km to Newgrange, and there was no way I could make it (without calling a taxi) before it closed. So instead I stayed in Slane, ate dinner and had a lot of pints. Later, since it was cold and I was drunk, I did give in and called a taxi back to Cormac's place. There Cormac, his roommate Sara, and I all had some drinks into the morning having a good time talking all manner of stuff.

The next day – yesterday – I got the bus back to Tralee and watched the election (see my earlier post).

So all said it was a successful trial run. I got to do at least some of what I intended, met some cool people (Cormac & Sara in Navan, and people at the club in Dublin), and have a better sense of what I need to take with me as I set off next week.