Dublin Castle

Dublin Castle served as the seat of English and later British rule from 1204 when it was built by King John of England as a medieval fortress until 1922 at which time it was handed over to the Irish government, when Ireland became independent. The first person we spotted when we arrived was a viking, so it was a bit of a letdown to discover he was just a tour guide on his way home. 😆

Today the castle is more like a palace inside, and as well as being a major tourist attraction, it still hosts important state events like presidential inaugurations.

There are lots of historic artworks (I particularly like the apparently 3D sculpture of the cherubs which is in fact a monochromatic oil painting on canvas in which shades of grey are used to imitate sculpture), and lots of portraits of former Viceroys. In many of the portraits, the Viceroys were wearing a diamond star and diamond badge, which were the highlights of the Irish Crown Jewels.

In 1907 the Crown Jewels, consisting of rubies, emeralds and Brazilian diamonds (valued today at around AU$4.5M) were famously stolen from Dublin Castle and have never been recovered. Obviously the guy in charge lost his job, and in the information booklet they request 'if you know where they are, we would be grateful if you could take a moment to let us know.'

I guess we will never know what really took place, but it was an interesting place to explore for a couple of hours.

The other interesting place we found was a little bakery that made delicious homemade pies and bread. Peter very much enjoyed his Cornish pastie for lunch.