Part Three, Wild County Wicklow!

On Saturday, our second full day of the trip, our group decided to take a bus tour of County Wicklow to see the beautiful rolling Irish hills of heather and turf (some sort of black pre-coal substance abundant in the hills) and the Wicklow Mountains. It started off with some views of the Irish Sea, and then we made our way through the countryside. It was freeeeeeeezing cold, but the beauty of the place more than made up for it. County Wicklow has been the set of many films, including Braveheart and PS I love you. I should know, because I was forced to watch PS I Love you as soon as we returned to Oxford, and I can verify the truth of this statement. PS, you should watch PS I Love You if you're in the mood for a tearjerker and goodlooking Irish men.

After a pub lunch in County Wicklow at a local tavern (I had Guinness and Beef stew, yummmy!), we explored the ruins of an 8th Century Monastery founded by St. Kevin to Christianize the pagan Irish. Subject to over 28 different Viking raids, it was amazing the settlement still stood today. It is home to the oldest Celtic cross in Europe, an ancient graveyard, two chapels, a watchtower, and some truly breathtaking scenery of the loughs and mountains of Wicklow county. It was brutally cold, however, so if we look sniffly in the pictures, there's good reason.

That evening, we returned to Dublin proper and explored the Dublin nightlife! We did this mainly by crashing a distant friend's birthday party and made lots of very lovely Irish friends in the process. If you want to see evidence of some of the well-mannered debauchery, please view my other, more extensive picasa web album http://picasaweb.google.com/laura.ingram/ireland . The difference between this album and the one entitled Dublin! is that the Ireland one has more pictures of my friends and I fooling around and Dublin! is focused mainly on the sights alone. It's your call, people.