bye bye dublin - last odds and ends to my trip

last day in dublin.. we went to the historic kilmainham gaol - a prison!, which was extremely fascinating! kilmainham gaol is one of the largest unoccupied prisons in europe and a common site for filming movies. it was also one of the first modern prisons - before kilmainham gaol, prisons were designed with basically one room in which all prisoners of all ages, no matter what their crime, were placed together. kilmainham goal was designed with the idea of isolation in mind. the cold limestone prison is loaded with tiny cell rooms with one window so deep and diminutive that you can't even see out of it. the prison was the main gaol for the imprisonment of many irish rebellion leaders and a site for many public hangings. the prison was closed in the late 1980's (i believe?) and has since been used exclusively as a museum.

 sturdy doors

 this room of cells may look familiar from some movies

the idea behind this design is "always seeing", every prisoner and cell can be seems from anywhere the guard is standing. 

this last picture is where the final executions took place in kilmainham. the final executions were by gun shot and the prisons who were executed were well known rebel leaders. their names were engraved on the stones close to the cross - this was equivalent to their grave stone.
i would definitely recommend this museum to any one visiting dublin! i loved it.
after we were finished the tour of the gaol and spent an hour or two in the museum we headed back to city centre.. which was about a 35 minute way i'd say. we stopped for coffee at a little shop on the way and walked around the city a little longer. there wasn't many other attractions or site seeing we needed to cover.. all we knew is we wanted to hit up temple bar at night for some live irish music. we went back to the hotel, got ready to head to temple bar - which was absolutely packed! we found some live music and looked everywhere for a table but to no avail. we squeezed three chairs into a tiny section at the bar and orders beers while we listened to some live irish music and once we got hungry enough, we left and went to eat dinner somewhere that we could actually get a table... it was the perfect way to spend our last day in dublin, ireland.
now that is officially the end to our amazing scotland/ireland trip. i loved every about it and although i'm so glad that becky is back in canada with us now, i do wish she would go back just so i can come visit again!