I slept well last night, that is until my alarm went off. I still did not get up until after 8. Andrea and Steven are up-Andrea went for a run. The clothes drying situation-the washing seems OK-the dryer is still an issue. Sherri gets up about 8:30. Rachel makes us French toast. I am feeling very content and full afterwards. We tried to sort out the clothes drying situation until 10:30, until we took off.
Steven guides us to the Guinness factory. This includes getting us to the bus stop, getting on the right bus, and stopping at the right stop. We toured through the neighborhood until we got to the Guinness Factory. There was a line waiting to get in, but it moved quickly until we actually got into the factory. Then it is a Disney type of line where we wait and wait. But eventually we get into the main part.
There a lady talks to us for about three minutes giving us an overview of the factory. This includes that Guinness had signed a 9,000 year lease-which 256 years of that has expired. Also how we are standing at the bottom of the world’s largest beer mug. While all impressive, a lot of it is a well rehearsed public-relations plug. My guess is that since we all who are here are interested in the brewery, she is speaking to the choir.
We spent a few minutes in the gift shop here, before starting the tour. This is the surprising part of the time at Guinness-this is a self-guided tour. Something which I assume is more like a museum, than a tour. But I am wrong. This is a well planned out production, emphasizing the four components of Guinness beer: yeast, barley, hops and water.
Perfect barley roasting temp
We start off with water and we
see a curtain of water and I think that is nice, until we come around
to the main part of the water curtain. Yes it starts off as a curtain
of water, but then it stops for a fraction of a second, before
releasing a little bit of water at a time. It makes harps and waves
and other figures. But then it spells out words, such as water and
sourced and mountains and, of course, Guinness. Very impressive use
of water, timing of release of the water and the use of lights.
The tour routes us ever
upwards into each of the components of Guinness beer. It explains
facets like how they roast the barley to 252 degrees-anything less,
the barley retains its flavor and does not release it and anything
more, the barley catches fire. Or that hops can grow at a rate of 12”
a day. And then with the yeast, they have a yeast library in which
they use a particular yeast for their beers. (Andrea and I, having a
similar sense of humor, wonder if when they check a yeast out of the
library, do they need to return it or face a fine?) There are lots
and lots of displays, four floors worth. There was one thing which
left me a bit suspect of the presentations. In one very minor
display, it talked about how they were using all of the most modern
scientific means to make their beer. They specifically mentioned a
statistical test called Student’s
T
. The
problem with that is that I remember using Student’s T 45 years ago
when I studied statistics.*. 
Waiting patiently
When we get to the fifth floor, it is time to eat. We decided on eating at a Guinness restaurant. I am still stuffed from breakfast, but I helped Sherri with her fish and chips. Then it is up two more floors to Atmosphere where they sample a Guinness beer. I am not really fond of beer so I gave away my ticket. The attraction up here is that you can walk around and see all of Dublin and it is a magnificent sight. While admiring the sight, Sherri realizes that she has lost her bus pass. Not a disaster, more of an annoyance. We can replace it or just pay when we get on the bus.
We were to go on the Teeling Distillery tour at 2:00. But by the time we leave Guinness, it is well past two.But I think all are content because of the quality of the Guinness tour. But Steven does go to the Distillery to pick up some souvenirs. The rest of us converge on the Harkin’s Pub, just down the street. The eating area is on the second floor. There Andrea orders some tea and Rachel some chicken tenders type things, which look a lot different than chicken tenders. She invites me to partake in them. We eat half and half of them. This gives Steven time to catch up with us.
Our next stop is Kilmainham Gaol. This is a jail which is infamous in Irish circles as being the place where many of the Irish rebellion leaders were held and many were killed. Sherri and I started off on the wrong foot, or more accurately, the wrong seat. There was a nice looking sofa to sit on. Turns out it is an antique-the sign had been knocked off it. The guide was kind and moved us to the waiting area.
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| Guards walkway |
The story of this jail is that it was an effort at reforming how the jails were operated. Such as when the first part of the jail was constructed, the idea was to allow plenty of fresh air into the cells. But the effect was to make them cold and dank-the limestone blocks used were not very good insulation.When the newer part of the jail was constructed in the 1800’s, the cells were more filled with light and the building was closed off, making conditions more tolerable.
Still this jail is a symbol of the rebellion, no matter how much prison reform there was. In the early 1920’s with the Irish Civil War, many prisoners were executed. There is a plaque with the first four people to be executed. Then another one with 15 names. I think Mark said there were a total of 77 people killed here. He did talk about how three prisoners were able to escape with the help of two British guards. The guards were then imprisoned. There was to be a fourth escape, but he backed out thinking that he would get exonerated at a trial-he was not and was executed.
At the end of the tour, Mark noted several movies shot at the jail or had the jail as a theme. Also there is a U2 video (A Celebration) here as well. The tour ends at the museum which we get to look through for 15 minutes until it closes.
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| Exercise Yard and execution spot |
On bus back to AirBnB
Then it is on the bus back to the AirBnB. We sit on top of the bus, enjoying the ride down the River Liffey. When we get back, Rachel and I make a grocery run. Then a bit more rest. Rachel and Andrea concocted a charcuterie board and with leftovers from last night, we had a nice meal.
We talked for a while. Around 10 I take a shower. While I like the container of the shower, the shower head and controls leave something to be desired. Also when I got out, there were puddles of water on the floor. I turned off the lights at 11.
Background
*Either I misread the display or the display did not do a good job of explaining the background. Student was a pseudonym for William Sealy Gosset who was a Guinness. Guinness used this T distribution in determining the quality of its ingredients. From Wikipedia: Gosset worked at Guinness and was interested in the problems of small samples – for example, the chemical properties of barley where sample sizes might be as few as 3. Gosset's paper refers to the distribution as the "frequency distribution of standard deviations of samples drawn from a normal population". It became well known through the work of Ronald Fisher, who called the distribution "Student's distribution" and represented the test value with the letter t.
Extra Photo's
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| View form the 7th floor |
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| Barrels for the beer |
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| Before the tour |
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| Not sure what this had to do with Guinness |
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| 10:00am tasting time |
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| Steven with a view of Dublin |
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| St Patrick's Tower |
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| The Irish Camino starts here |
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| Kilmainham Gaol Chapel |
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| Prisoner's cell |
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| Looking into the cell |
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| New part of Kilmainham Gaol |
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| Mew part of Kilmainham Gaol |
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| Another view of the new part |
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| Our tour on the guards walkway |
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| New part of Kilmainham Gaol |
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| One of the prisoners from the 1915 Irish Rebellion was a lawmaker. He got a special cell |
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