Discovering the Story of the Leprechauns

Today we started the day going to the Leprechaun Museum, a museum of folktales and stories of the fae and leprechauns of Ireland. We we taken through the history and myths of the people of Ireland and their belief of the small folk.

We then boarded the On and Off bus once again to make our way up to The Phoenix Park at 707 hectares (1752 acres), it is a historic landscape of international importance and one of the largest designed landscapes in any European city. It was originally established as a Royal deer park in the 17th century.

St John's Ambulance presentation was happening on our way

St Kevin's Cathedral where Johnathon Swift the Author of Gulliver's Travels is Buried

The Factory of the Famous Guinness

The residence of the President of Ireland in Phoenix Park

We then walked through Merrion Square Park the construction of the Georgian houses at Merrion Square began in 1762 and continued for 30 years. The earliest plan of the park shows a double line of trees around the perimeter which was later enclosed by railings in the early years of the 19th century. A 'Jardin Anglaise' approach was adopted for the layout of the park with contoured grass areas, informal tree clumps, sunken curved paths and perimeter planting. Merrion Square soon became a fashionable address for the aristocracy and the professional classes. The park was purchased from the Pembroke Estate by the Roman Catholic Church in 1930 for 100,000 as a site for a cathedral. However, this project never materialised and in 1974 the then Archbishop, Dermot Ryan, transferred the 4.75 hectares (11.7 acres) to Dublin Corporation for use as a public park making what was once the preserve of local privileged key holders into a public park to match the best in Europe and a successful adaptation of a typical Georgian Square to modern intensive public usage.

Oscar Wilde considered mad in his day for having voices in his head with Tinnitus and placed in a mental hospital.

After looking through the National Gallery and the various exhibits they had we then made our way to Iveagh Gardens among the finest and least known of Dublin's parks and gardens. They were designed by Ninian Niven, in 1865, as an intermediate design between the 'French Formal' and the 'English Landscape' styles. They demonstrated the artistic skills of the landscape Architect of the mid 19th century and display a unique collection of landscape features,  the pre 1860s rose varieties add an extra dimension to the Victorian Rosarium.