craven.fr (.ox.ac.uk)

This is an article in my ongoing series about our trip through the British Isles. Earlier articles include the Introduction,Stonehenge, Oxford, Driving to Wales, Anglesey, and Crossing the Irish Sea.

In planning our trip, probably the biggest unknown was how driving on the left would go. I was hopeful that I'd be able to adapt without too much trouble, but I didn't discount the possibility that it could be harrowing and stressful if I couldn't. Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to schedule in a day of pampering with no driving at all; if things were going well it would be a pleasant change of pace, and if we were shell-shocked by countless brushes with death, it might give us a moment to recover and, in the worst of cases, draw up alternate plans mid-trip.

Well, obviously things were going fine so far, so none of my pessimistic plans were really necessary. However, it was still wonderful to have a break from motels and enjoy a five-star luxury hotel instead: the Radisson-St. Helen's, a gorgeous hotel built around an 18th-century noble estate, complete with country gardens. For whatever reason, Ireland doesn't seem to get a lot of visitors in August, so we were able to get an incredible deal on our rooms—barely more than some of the motels in Scotland! (Why Scotland is a travel hot spot in August but Ireland isn't is a mystery to me. The English must not like to change their money.) We had two nights there (a long stay by the standards of this trip!), and enjoyed the hotel, and room service, and just the general atmosphere of living in luxury. It was a lot of fun.

Of course, since we spent a lot of time enjoying the hotel and its gardens, we did not visit the rest of Dublin enough to do the city justice. But with only two days that wouldn't have been possible no matter how much we tried to pack in sightseeing. We did take a trip into the city centre in the afternoon—it's a straight bus shot from the hotel, so it wasn't difficult. We visited the Trinity College campus, continuing my tour of great universities, but we got there too late to see the Book of Kells. We also saw a bit of the surrounding downtown and stopped in another bookstore.

I also spent a lot of time watching TG4, the Irish-language TV station, and was happy to get to see the famous soap opera Ros na Rún. All in all though the situation of the Irish language in Ireland is pretty weak compared to Welsh in Wales, which is a shame—and ironic, in the context of Irish independence compared to Wales' long, close history with England. But I think it is fair to compare the situation of Irish to that of Native American tribal languages—they are proudly held onto and displayed publicly by their respective peoples as a cultural symbol, but not actually used as day-to-day languages except by a tiny minority. Whereas Welsh really is what ordinary people speak in Wales, at least in a large part of it. They speak English, too, but if you lived there and hung around much you'd probably feel awkward about all the people around you speaking a language you don't understand if you didn't try to learn Welsh. Of course, in Anglesey I was in a very heavily Welsh-speaking part of the country, while here I was in Ireland's largest city, so the comparison may seem unfair. Still, comparing the number of articles in the Welsh wikipedia to the Irish one gives a fairly objective picture of which language is more vibrantly alive.

Anyway, Dublin was a great city and one we owe a longer visit to sometime. Ryan Air not infrequently has direct flights to Lille for only a few euros, too, so I'm sure we will return there sometime just to visit Dublin for a long weekend. But in any event, our day at the Radisson-St. Helen's was a splendid change of pace on our trip, and highly appreciated by the whole family.