Your Majesty, here’s a fairly rough guide to Ireland
I take the liberty of suggesting some places of historical interest which you might wish to see.
Cromwell got it wrong, Your Highness – go to Connacht first, to the Famine Memorial Park in Murrisk, Co Mayo, which commemorates the 2.5 million people who either died of starvation or emigrated during the Great Hunger in the 1840s.
Another memorial not to be missed is on Talbot Street in Dublin which is dedicated to the victims of the biggest mass murder in Irish history – the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. Also, the Round Room in Dublin’s Mansion House is a must see.
This is where the historic first Dáil Éireann met in January 1919 following the 1918 general election which endorsed Irish independence only to be rejected by a foreign parliament.
Other places of interest should include the Stonebreakers Yard in Kilmainham Jail where the leaders of the 1916 Rising were executed. Or how about Mountjoy Jail where 18-year-old Kevin Barry and nine of his comrades were hanged in 1920-’21 for opposing foreign rule in Ireland. Just down the road from Mountjoy is Dublin port. It was from here that record amounts of foodstuffs were exported throughout the empire during the famine years.
No visit to Ireland for Your Majesty would be complete without a trip to the southern capital, Cork. A visit to the newly-restored City Hall is a must. In 1920 the old Cork City Hall, along with surrounding streets, was burned to the ground by the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries in reprisal for local resistance to foreign rule. Pesky natives didn’t know when they were well off.
Anyway, proper order has now been restored in the Rebel county. In 2008 Lord Mayor Brian Bermingham hosted a “night of nostalgia” in City Hall in remembrance of the Irish Great War dead. This became known as the “Slaughterhouse Ball”. The Great War was hardly an appropriate subject for entertainment. Anyway, nice to see we are still loyal to our imperial roots. Period costume (optional) and poppies were in vogue.
Seeing as money is tight, tea and rasher sambos in the former Vice Regal Lodge, now known as the Áras, may have to suffice for Your Majesty. Perhaps the nearby Guinness brewery might dispatch a few large bottles of stout to the Áras. History records that your majesty’s great-great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria, dropped into the brewery on her visit to Dublin in 1900 and enjoyed a drop of the black stuff. Finally, to crown the day, so to speak, a stroll down Chesterfield Avenue to the Wellington Monument from where Your Majesty can overlook the empire’s former second city.
Pearse, Connolly, MacDiarmada, et al, have a lot to answer for.
Tom Cooper
Delaford Lawn
Knocklyon
Dublin 16
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