Day 9 - Ireland Adventure

Belfast to Dublin

We hadn't made concrete plans for Day 9, other than returning the motorcycle to Celtic Rider mid afternoon. Someone in Belfast had told us that we HAD to visit NewGrange on our way down to Dublin. We're are skeptical when someone says we HAVE to visit something, but this time they were right.

New Grange, in County Meath, is a nice little town, but when someone tells you to visit there, they are actually telling you to go see Bru na Boinne, an ancient burial spot dating back to the Neolithic Age.

According to our tour guide, people settled there around 6000 years ago. Experts believe the structures are at least 5000 years old - older than the Giza Pyramids in Egypt.

To call this landmark interesting was an understatement. Not only was it cool to see the outside and get the history on how it was discovered in a farmer's field, but we actually got to go inside the main chamber.

No cameras were allowed, but believe us when we say it was a very tight squeeze getting in, but once inside there was a larger chamber with three or more tombs, all with the same circle drawings as the outside.

The guide also demonstrated what happens at sunrise on the summer solstice, when a beam of light shines through the opening and illuminates the chamber. Think Indiana Jones, but not quite so dramatic.

Side note: We thought it was incredibly cool to be able to touch carvings that were chiseled by someone 5000 years ago. The Quinlan Clan originated in County Meath, so who knows, maybe one of Sean's ancient ancestors was the one doing the chiseling.

We left NewGrange and made it down to Kill to turn in the bike and all our gear.

We were very sad to say good-bye to the trusty BMW and our new friends at Celtic Rider - whom we cannot praise enough. Lou, Paul and Liam were fantastic and we will use their services again on our next QGCEvM adventure.

Photo: Stolen from Celtic Rider's Facebook page

We returned to Dublin and realized  we'd previously missed Dublin Castle, so we made up for that oversight.

and enjoyed one last night before we headed home the next day. We ended up where we started - Darkey Kelly's in the basement of the Harding Hotel for a couple drinks and a few songs.