Today was playing tourist - after breakfast we decided to walk down O'Connell St and purchase a hop on, hop off bus ticket which takes you all over Dublin's city showing you over 28 different tourist locations along the way. The highlights for us included Trinity College, St Stephen's Green, The Guinness Storehouse factory (including the tour and mandatory Guinness) - the tour finishes up at the Gravity Bar and whilst you are drinking your complimentary pint of Guinness you get to see down over all of Dublin - a great place to visit and ponder the vision of the Guinness Family who took out a 9000 year lease on this place paying about 45 pounds per year when the lease was signed! Now there is putting faith in your product!!!

However, the absolute highlight of the day was the Kilmainham Gaol.

The Kilmainham Gaol is a must for any visitor to Dublin - the guided tour which took about an hour and a quarter is filled with Irish History and gives you a fantastic appreciation of what this country has been through. It is hard not to let the tour impact you - especially when the end of the tour highlights the area where the last of the 12 Irish Rebels - were killed by firing squad by the British - need I say any more??????

Total respect for the matyrs of the 1916 uprising - P H Pearse, Clarke, Macdonagh, Plunkett, Daly, O'Hanrahan, William Pearse, Macbride, Colbert, Ceannt, Mallin, Heuston, Macdiarmada and James Connolly. What else can I say?

Without getting too political it is interesting to note that there have been 5 failed uprisings throughout the Irish History, however, the 1916 Easter Uprising probably was the most significant in Ireland's history.

We managed to find a great pub called O'Neills for lunch and a drink along the way, so all up it has been a full on day.

We went to pick our car up today, however, it was not ready. As we didnt really want the car until tomorrow, we have organised to pick it up tomorrow - so it has turned out to our advantage. We will pick up the car in the morning and begin our travels around Ireland - heading up to Belfast first thing in the morning.

Peter, we tried to have a drink at one of your favourite haunts from your previous trip - the Patrick Conway hotel - however,the place has shut down! Clearly the place has missed Jeff and your contributions!!!

Tonight we wanted to do a Pub Crawl with a local musician however, we were too late.....so instead, we decided to do our own Pub crawl. We started where we finished last night at the Gogarty, however, as the same musicians were playing we moved on. We had dinner at Fitzgerald's and waited for their music to start, however, we were disappointed with the music - non Irish - so we moved on. We then went to the Auld Dubliner, across the road from the Gogarty, and stayed there for a few pints. After this we moved onto the Temple Bar where we started last night - the place was jumping - they had a young group playing some serious "craic" - it was great listening to their reels of Irish Music.

After leaving the Temple Bar, a local busker was playing "Come out you Black and Tans" - a perfect way to finish our night of Irish Music in Dublin.

We have enjoyed our two nights in Dublin and I haven't drank anything except Guinness the whole two days - and have managed to only need 2 somac tablets - so I think I am going ok!!!

Slainte