Day Ten: Malahide Mayhem

Dublin, despite what some locals may tell you, has a pretty darn good public transportation system. There’s a whole spiderweb of bus routes to take you all over the area, and the DART is reasonably inexpensive and pretty fast. And because DART serves Dublin and its environs, it becomes just a short jaunt to the end of its route, Malahide.

I don’t really know much about the town of Malahide, other than it features a quaint little downtown that boasts an alarmingly large number of pubs. The central area of town is only about three square blocks, but we passed by at least eight different establishments for grabbing a pint. It also was home to the most temperamental weather I’ve seen since leaving Oregon. In traditional Pacific Northwest fashion, it rained intensely for about five minutes before breaking into brilliant sunshine, which eventually settled into a partly cloudy sky. I’m home!

To get to Malahide Castle (the only real reason for this trip), you have to traverse a very large park that has been formed from what used to be the castle grounds. The park is massive, and on the way to the castle we passed a cricket game in progress, two full size hurling/Gaelic football fields (not in use), a very large children’s playground and a series of soccer fields. Apparently the Malahide Castle grounds have over 500 different types of tree, but all I know is that it was the first time Ireland has lived up to the reputation for greenery that I had heard so much about.

Walking through all of this almost made me forget about the actual castle, which made it all the more surprising when we turned a corner and were suddenly faced with a large medieval castle. Malahide Castle is not the oldest castle in Ireland (it was built in 1108), nor is it the biggest (I have no idea which one is), but it was the first honest-to-God castle I think I’ve ever been in. And for that, it was pretty incredible. People actually lived in the castle from when it was built until it was sold to the Dublin City Council in the 1970s, so the interior has some far more modern touches than the exterior belies. Still, most of the rooms have been preserved to their mid-1800s incarnations, and it really is quite neat. They didn’t allow us to take pictures, presumably to prevent us from sharing detailed information on how to bust through the Irish castle defense system that is currently in place. Regardless, we saw a peacock when we left, so it put a nice cap on the whole experience.