We were so happy to have my parents here visiting!!! They just left yesterday to fly back home ( 😦 ), and we were sad to see them go, but we had a wonderful almost two weeks with them here! It was great to have them back for a second time because things were more familiar to them, and we were much more settled ourselves this time than last. We had a nice mix of site-seeing and just hanging out and playing. The boys were so happy to see them!

It was really nice to have time to just do “normal” things together. My parents brought a ton of toys and books to spoil the boys with and they had a blast playing together 🙂 Isaac got to have a few movie nights (at home) with grandma and grandpa, which he loved. And we even made a trip to the National Aquatic Center which is an awesome swimming complex. The Ireland Olympic team trains there and then there’s a separate huge pool with water slides, a lazy river and wave pool, and a pirate ship with slides for younger kids. Interestingly, most of the pools in Ireland require you to wear swim hats, which you can see pictured below. We all enjoyed it, and Rafi especially loved the little rides in the lobby.

Jeff and I even had a chance to get out for a date night while my parents were here! We have had a babysitter one other time for a daytime date, but this was the first time we had gone out together at night. First, we went to a traditional Irish pub in town called O’Donoghues and grabbed a drink (beer for Jeff, cider for me), then hit up a yummy restaurant nearby called Bang. Delicious food and wine, and mostly just a chance to have a leisurely meal and conversation.

And of course we did some good visiting of some sites too! Every time I visit almost anywhere in Dublin or Ireland, I’m amazed once again by just how much history is everywhere!

One of the coolest places we went this time was Newgrange, which is about 45 minutes north of Dublin. It’s situated in the lush green Boyne valley and is the site of incredible archaeological finds of passage tombs. These are older than Stonehenge or the pyramids at Giza! When you visit, there’s a great visitor center with an exhibit that explains the history and then you can take a short shuttle out to the actual mounds for a guided tour inside the passage. You have the chance to tour several of these astounding mounds that are thought to have served as both tomb and solar marker. Newgrange is the name of the most famous/popular mound (and the one we visited), but there are several others that are possible to see too.

We learned about the ancient people that lived in the valley and were able to settle there because of how green and fertile it was and because the Boyne river provided lots of salmon. It’s not known too much about the community that lived there for sure because there are no written records, but archeologists have used carbon dating and fossils to speculate about the lives of the people. It’s thought that the passage tombs were used as burial sites (possibly temporarily while a person’s spirit passed through and then they were moved somewhere else), as well as had other spiritual significance. It’s believed the people there were sun worshippers because the tombs are also solar markers (marking where the sun is). The really cool thing is that on the winter solstice, the sun shines through the top of the passage at a precise angle, which shows that the people clearly could calculate the position of the sun. Anyway, it was fascinating to learn about and definitely a recommended site to see when visiting Ireland! Here are a few pictures of the mound and the lush green Boyne valley and Boyne river. The picture of the inside of the “passage”‘ is actually a replica of it from the visitor center because they don’t allow photos inside the real one.

Another really interesting historical thing we did was tour Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced jail), which was Dublin’s jail for several hundred years and whose prisoners reflect a great deal of Irish history. Initially, the prison was meant to be an “improvement” on prisons that existed before that, with just one prisoner per cell and supposedly better rations. But in reality, the conditions were still horrific and, particularly during the Great Potato Famine, many people (including children) were imprisoned simply for begging for food. In fact, some people were so starving and homeless during the famine that they preferred being in the prison where at least they knew they had a roof and a meager bit of food.

But the especially impactful part of the prison tour was learning about its role in the Irish rebellion against the British. In 1916, during the Easter uprising, Irish rebels/freedom fighters staged an uprising against the British and declared their independence from the British empire. In response, the British sent in thousands of troops into Dublin to quash the rebellion and capture the rebels (the streets of Dublin were bombed and destroyed by the British during the fighting). As the rebels were marched to Kilmainham Gaol, the Dublin residents booed and spit at them (clearly the uprising did not have popular support at this time and the everyday citizens were mad that it resulted in their city getting destroyed). Once at the prison, 14 of the Irish rebels (famous in Irish history such as Patrick Pearse and James Connolly among others) were executed without trial, and this was huge in gaining sympathy and support among the public for the cause of the uprising and independence. Below are a few pictures from the prison, including the courtyard (marked with crosses) where the executions took place. It was a grim but very interesting look at a piece of Irish history.