Day 6, 16 May 2012

This was the day we were making our first move in Ireland, leaving Dublin behind and moving to a cottage down near Wicklow.  We loaded the car, and a near run thing it was too.  There was barely room for all of us and our bags in the car.

The 200 year old farmhouse we stayed in near Rathdrum.

Before heading south we went north to the Boyne river valley as there were a lot of sights we wanted to see.  The Boyne has everything from Neolithic tombs, pre-dating the pyramids by 2000 years, to the bronze age, pre-Christian seat of the high kings to the largest Norman keep in Ireland to the battle where James II lost his throne to William of Orange.

It took us an hour to get out of Dublin, what with getting lost and cross directions.  We only drove past our starting point once, but we basically got out of the city, then navigated around to where we wanted to be.  We drove north and hit the battle of the Boyne site first.

This is about as good as the interpretation got.

Nice house, though it was not here at the time of the battle.

A period Dutch mortar.

A little tough to read, but it describes the battle in general terms.  Embiggen it and you can read the text.

A bit about the artillery.

A medium field piece of the period, 3lb Falcon?  Rhys likes it too.

Powder Wagon.

A battery of guns on the battlefield.

The ridge behind which the Jacobites hid from the Orangist artillery barrage.

A farm.  I don't know if it was here during the battle. 

This is a remarkably poorly interpreted battlefield.  There is nothing on the field itself to tell you what happened.  They have a nice, two room museum, but they don’t allow pictures inside.  This is very frustrating.  Someone else covered this better than I could have, so you can find his rant here and just know that I agree with it all.

They have a giant landscape model of the battlefield with lasers to show you the movement of the troops at the battle.  Sadly, the lasers weren’t working and the only part they showed was the diversion to the west.  There was also a fifteen minute film which told us everything that had happened, or it would have if it had been working.  They also gave Grandad a flint, for a musket.  The boys got to hold, though not keep, a musket ball, which they thought was very cool.

The boys and I walked the Oldbridge section of the battlefield, but it might as well have been a walk in a park for all that you could tell what happened, or if anything had.  This was a very disappointing visit and I can only hope that when I buy a book on the battle, the fact that I walked it will help me understand it.

The giant neo-lithic construction of unknown purpose as rebuilt in the '60s.

After the battlefield we went and visited New Grange, home of some giant Neolithic barrow tombs.  The visitor center is a bus ride away from the tombs and each visit takes about an hour and a half to two hours.  We had an hour wait before our bus was leaving so we watched the video, looked at some exhibits and grabbed some lunch at the tea shop.  The boys have not been very keen on Irish food.  Owyn was thrilled to have fruit for lunch.  Rhys ate a sausage roll.

We got out to the bus and after much drama about who was supposed to be on it and who was not, and several people being escorted off of the buses, we finally drove up to the mound.  The mound was built 5000 years ago, then lost.  It was rediscovered a couple of hundred years ago and left unguarded until recently.  The front has been rebuilt in the way they thought the original had been.  Some of these rocks were brought from 80km away, though the big ones were “only” brought from 15km.  This is another site that doesn’t allow photography inside.  Clearly flash photography would damage the stones.  Sadly Owyn had to poop just as we were going to go in and Tracy and Owyn both missed out on getting to into the central chamber.  It was quite an awesome site.

The white rocks are fund many, many kms away from the site.

One of the stones found around the foundation with original, 5000 year old art on it.

The entrance cave.  The hole above is to allow the sun into the central chamber.

When we came out Owyn was crying because he had not gotten to go in.  Rhys did get to go in but fidgeted and talked the entire time.  It just goes to show the world is not a fair place.  As we were leaving we stopped to admire the spot where they are building a new bridge out of giant legos.

The supports for the new bridge, clearly made out of giant lego blocks.

By this time we were too tired, and it was too late, to see any of the other sites.  The first day aside, we have not been napping during the day, pushing through on a normal schedule.  Since we still had to find our cottage, and I did not want to do that in the dark, we headed south, skirting Dublin again and diving into the Wicklow Mountains.  This is a 200 year old farm building.  It was a very rustic location with some very eccentric qualities.  Happily we are an eccentric family and fit right in.  Owyn made up a story about the adventures they would have there and Rhys happily played along.

The giant fireplace with the kitchen range, lost in the middle of it.

We found the cottage after only two wrong turns and stopping twice for directions.  We unloaded the car, threw Nana and the boys out and Tracy, Grandad and I drove back into town to buy some groceries.  I had to go since I’m the only one allowed to drive the car.  The shopping was fun.  The supermarkets here are just different.  We found everything on the list and quite a bit that was not.  The trip back to the house was quick and we got settled in.  They boys needed a bath, so we saved that for desert.