Dublin

Hostel/Albergue: Abraham's hostel @ 25 eu

Notable memories

Saturday

Had a nice train ride into Dublin from the hotel.

Found St James Church. Will try and get to Mass tomorrow.

And found a local Irish bar, no tourists, no tourists at all. It was really cool to sit there and just take in the completely Irish atmosphere of a neighborhood bar from the accents to the laughter to the camaraderie.

On the train ride back, the doors did not open at my exit. So I was stuck on the train and ended up one further station down the line. With no way to call for a taxi because I didn't know the number, I found myself stuck in the empty, I thought, train station with two junkies mainlining, one pushing the needle in his arm. I felt so guilty busting in on his high that I apologized before asking for help. They were nice enough. They tried to help me with advice, but I finally just left the station, stepped into the road and flagged down a car. I was lucky that it was an off-duty taxi, who gave me a ride back to the hotel.

Calling it quits tonite.

Hueston train station

St James Protestant church in Dublin.

It's across the street from St James Catholic Church.

An interesting story is that St James Protestant Church has strong links to the Camino in that many years ago during an excavation, a sizable number of bodies were found there, many of whom had camino shells with them. With an insufficient number of parishioners to maintain a congregation, the church was disestablished. It is currently a distillery. The lady who told me the history of the church, said it was fitting: tradng one set of spirits for another set of spirits.

There's a theme here. Irish servers, Irish customers, Irish pub.

Sunday

Went to mass at St James. It was nice to feel some of that old time religion, or spirituality, again.

In the afternoon I joined a 2 hour tour of Dublin center. The guide was very professional, and had detailed knowledge of Ireland's history. He covered topics from the pre-Celts to the Vikings to the anglo-Normans to the British.

We learned about the many invasions, exterior forces and internal and external events that shaped modern divided Ireland.

An amazing two hour walk.

Finished the night with a walk in the rain and dinner at a pub.

What a week!

St James Catholic Church. Where the caminos of Ireland begin. Or at least the offices for the association are here.

I'm very glad that I got up a little early and caught the bus down to St James Church. While I was listening to Mass, it occurred to me that the big difference between the Dingle Way and the Camino de Santiago is that the first is very much more secular while the second is very much more spiritual.