If you are ever looking for a really cool place to visit over the summer with a lot of history and beautiful sights, Ireland is the place to go. My family and I went for 10 days and packed in millions of different activities during the short time we spent there. Now, you’ll get to learn the same history and enjoy the sights too!
Dublin is the capital city of Ireland. If you like history, look no further. In Dublin, there are some streets and buildings that are really old and significant. They have colorful doors with columns in front of them. Did you know that the number of steps leading up to the front door of one of these buildings used to show the social hierarchy of Irish wealth? This means that the more steps you had, the richer you were. The Irish also loved symmetry. If you look at the buildings, you can see how the doors are right in the middle of the buildings. They also made the windows on the first floor of the buildings bigger than the ones on the top floor, so if you are looking up at it, it looks taller than it actually is.
Trinity College in Dublin is home to many amazing historical sights, including the Long Room and the Book of Kells. The Long Room is a two-story library with a spiral staircase and an enormous globe. It is over 300 years old and holds more than 200,000 books, many of which are being preserved after centuries of dust and handling. Although many are missing, the library is still beautiful. Trinity College also houses the Book of Kells, which was handwritten by monks on parchment made from animal skins. It contains the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—in Latin, with colorful illustrations and carefully written letters. Because the book is extremely old and light-sensitive, a different Gospel is displayed every 6 to 8 weeks. If you’re interested in Latin, you may even want to visit and try to translate it!
Dublin has many cathedrals, including St. Patrick’s Cathedral, dedicated to St. Patrick, who greatly impacted Ireland despite not being from there. If you visit, you can see how much Dublin has grown because the cathedral’s original entrance is now much lower than the road in front of it. The cathedral is incredibly beautiful, with flying buttresses, arches, and a spacious interior with a large chapel and many side rooms for prayer. Although its original floor and some of the roof and walkways were lost due to serious structural decay, Benjamin Lee Guinness tried to recreate the cathedral as it once looked. However, the floor tiles are not at all from the original design, having crazy pops of color and flare, but still adding nicely to the overall look. Fun fact, if you remove the arches and towers, old cathedrals are usually shaped like crosses. St. Patrick’s Cathedral also contains the supposed rock where St. Patrick baptized millions of Irish people.
Ireland was ruled by Britain for about 750 years, and British lords lived in castles to watch over the country. One famous ruin is Blarney Castle, about 5 miles from County Cork. Built into its battlements is a famous limestone called the Blarney Stone. Legend says that kissing it gives you the “gift of gab,” or the ability to flatter people when you talk. However, kissing it requires leaning upside down over the edge of the castle, so I wouldn’t advise it. Another interesting site is Charles Fort in Kinsale, a 17th-century star-shaped fort that survived a 13-day siege. It is built into the surrounding hills and is really cool to explore. Ireland also has many old friaries with beautiful courtyards and large graveyards, where you can sometimes find the graves of your Irish ancestors!
Ireland is covered with sheep and fields for them to graze in. There are so many sheep, the shepherds can sometimes get them mixed up! So to help with this problem, shepherds spray paint the sheep’s wool with different colors and designs so that they can tell them apart. The shepherds also use sheepdogs to herd them. But since dogs are colorblind, they can’t gather the right sheep. So the shepherds have to teach the dogs special commands to round up certain sheep and not others. It’s really cool to watch them in action!
The town of Knock is home to the Marian Apparition site, Our Lady of Knock. It’s a really beautiful and modern cathedral, sadly not shaped like a cross, but has the chapel where the actual apparition happened. The cathedral houses a beautiful collection of statues: Mary with a golden crown on her head, Joseph bowing to her, St. John preaching, an altar with a lamb and a cross on it, and angels surrounding it. It’s very peaceful, and a really great place to visit. They also have a gift shop where you can get books and medals from the site. And lastly, there is a stone in the wall of the Marian Apparition chapel where the apparition was said to actually take place. People venerate it, and you can even see the holiness radiating off of it.
Finally, the last place you should visit is the Cliffs of Moher in Doolin. They are about 702 feet tall and 9 miles long. If you look off of the cliffs, you can even see some caves where the water crashes into them. Sometimes you can see a whale bubble-feeding! Fun fact, the cliffs were used as a backdrop for Harry Potter and Dumbledore’s search for the Horcrux in the 6th movie! Between April and July, you can find Puffins visiting the cliffs as well. The Cliffs of Moher are really old, about 320 million years to be exact. They’re so old that you can see fossils of ancient extinct sea creatures preserved in the rocks! On a clear day, you can see the Aran islands and the Twelve bends mountain range in the distance. You can even get a boat tour and look up instead of looking down!
Ireland is an amazing place full of history and beautiful sights! I only covered the southern coast of the island, but there’s so much more to see! I definitely think you should go if you get the chance. If you want a tour of Dublin, hire Alan with the yellow hat. He’ll tell you all about the grumpy turkey in the Book of Kells, and the colorful floor tiles in St. Patrick’s cathedral. If you’re driving past plains, try and see how many sheep you can spot. I guarantee you will see a lot. Ireland is an amazing country, and everyone who goes will have the time of their lives.
