Baden-Powell Council BSA
at the
2012 Blair Atholl Patrol Jamborette
Day 1 - July 10th - Dublin, Ireland
 We took the overnight flight from New York - leaving JFK at 6:00PM, we approached Ireland as the sun rose over the cloud deck. We were through customs and immigration by 5:30AM, and took the bus into the city. |
 The bus dropped us off on O'Connell Street, a perfect spot for the Scouts to get an introduction to Irish history. Here, the statue of Big Jim Larkin orates outside the General Post Office, where the 1916 Easter Rising began. |
 After a quick bagel breakfast on Grafton Street, we walked up the River Liffey past the Custom House. |
 We met my Dublin Scouting friend, David Wynne, at Trinity College. After we saw the Book of Kells, David gave us a great walking tour of his city. |
 The Scouts walk through Temple Bar, a former warehouse district converted to Dublin's center for night life. |
The Sunlight Chambers building along the Liffey sports a frieze about the benefits and history of soap. Why Soap? The building was built by Lord Lever, of Lever Brothers, the soap manufacturers. |
 We ended our walking tour at Christ Church. |
 Once, Christ Church ruled the area around the cathedral. They administered their own law, including putting people in these stocks, now located in the cathedral crypt. |
 The National Museum has a great exhibit of gold artifacts, most found in bogs in western Ireland. |
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 The Cross of Cong is a centerpiece of a display of medieval objects. |
 We took the hop-on-hop-off bus tour at the end of the day, but by this time the Scouts had been up about 36 hours and just weren't up for much hopping. |
 We ended the day with another walk along the Liffey, up to the Ha'penny Bridge. One of the first iron bridges in the world, when it was built in 1816 the toll to cross was a half penny, hence the generally accepted name. Officially, it was originally the "Wellington Bridge", but this was later changed to simply "Liffey Bridge". At the end of the day we returned by bus to Dublin Airport to catch the short flight to Glasgow. And so we did - twice. I dropped off to sleep before the wheels were off the ground, to be awakened by the announcement that we were about to land in Dublin. Dublin? Isn't that where we just left? So it was, but a failure of the deicing equipment forced a return. A few hours later we took off again, to land in a pouring rain in Glasgow - and our heartfelt thanks to the poor representative of Arnold Clark Rentals who had to wait until nearly 11:00PM for us to arrive three hours late. |
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