After a strange dinner and a good nights sleep we took off from Keef Halla outside of Belfast early on a sunny morning. We decided to just drive through Belfast since there isn’t much we could find to explore there. It’s mostly a ship building town, the Titanic was built there, and it’s pretty industrial. On our way through though we did run across “The Pittsburgh Bar and Grill” in the middle of Belfast! It’s a shame it was early in the morning or else I would’ve stopped in for a pint and a gab with the bar keep.
After a quick drive through Belfast we made it on south heading towards Dublin. We stopped off to see Monasterboice which is a round tower and grave site. This one is particular though is special because it holds Ireland’s highest and nicest of the high crosses. These large crosses were carved by hand centuries ago. They are very impressive. It was a small place off the beaten path and there wasn’t many people around.
Next we headed to county Meath to see Newgrange. It’s a neolithic tomb built a long time ago. You may not of heard of it but just to give you some perspective, “Newgrange was originally built between c. 3300 and 2900 BC, which means that it is over 5,000 years old. It is more than 500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, and predates Stonehenge trilithons by about 1,000 years.” – wikipedia. It was a very impressive site, and we got a tour and even got to go inside the tomb. It’s a tight squeeze so make sure your trim American form is ready to make it!
After this we tried to make it back into Dublin because the National Library was open until 4:30. I wasn’t able to do any Murphy surname research the first time we were in the city because of the weekend, but it was Thursday so we had a chance. Big mistake!! Not only did it take forever to get into Dublin during pre-rush hour. It took even longer getting back out to the ‘burb of Navan where we were staying that evening! Oh, well you live and learn.
Still a fun day, and the weather was nice to us.