Dublin disappointment

I’m finding that I can’t trust my initial impression of a place. Dublin is a good example of that. 

Being Irish felt like a big thing all my life, I had big expectations coming here. Initially I was disappointed and kinda mad about Dublin. 

I remember after seeing the central part thinking: Really this is it? A crowded tourist place with nothing Irish about it? What did I expect? Not leprechauns, fairies and shamrocks that’s for sure. I expected music. Irish music. 

Every city has buskers especially in tourist areas. I expected them to be playing Irish music here. They weren’t. They played American rock mostly. WTF? 

Of course the music here is in the pubs. Neither of us are drinkers, so we havent gone into any pubs. Silly, I know. I’ll remedy that shortly.

It wasn’t long before I started looking into the history

of Ireland. Of Dublin. I really only had very broad knowledge about the country. Knew it was divided. New about the troubles. Had formed a tourist impression of the rest of it. It was a sort of background place in my life but I never really looked into it. That changed here. I read up on the history. 

History makes a people. History has made Ireland. Ireland has only been independent of English rule since 1921. Even then, they were part of the UK until 1949. Prior to that, the monarchy and UK government had a part in external affairs . That ended in 1949 when they became the Republic of Ireland. 

So it has only been 73 years since Ireland has been completely independent. The history of English rule has greatly influenced the country. They were treated like shit a lot of the time. That and the struggle for independence probably has shaped the Irish character.

 Put that in the middle of a beautiful island with a unique culture of music, literature and humor and you have Ireland. It’s magic.