Why do we do this to ourselves? 

This isn't the first holiday where we booked the return flight for late in the afternoon, thinking, "We'll have most of the day before we have to leave to do some last minute sight-seeing" only to find that, on the morning of departure, all we can think about is getting home.  We lingered over breakfast as long as possible, then decided we might as well go out for a walk to kill some time before we had to head to the airport. 

It was a brilliant, sunny day, the kind that would have afforded some grand views from the Gravity Bar.  Our walk took us past the field of granite again and, after having passed it a dozen or so times, I finally became curious enough to read the plaque. 

The huge meadow and granite squares were a memorial, covering a mass grave of Irish soldiers and civilians killed during the uprising of the late 1790's.  The name was the Wolfe Tone Memorial Park, as he was a key player in the rebellion.  Wolfe, it turns out, was an Irish patriot who, after the rebellion was crushed, was arrested and convicted of treason.  Denied the more dignified execution of a firing squad, he was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered, because he had dared to defy the English Crown.  From his prison cell, he thwarted the Crown one last time by cutting his throat with a penknife. 

These were sobering thoughts for such a glorious morning; Ireland, for all its beauty and conviviality, runs thick with tragedy. 

A few blocks later, we walked past pubs that, despite it being not yet eleven in the morning, were already hopping with cheering, happy crowds preparing for the big football game due to start sometime that afternoon. The juxtaposition somehow made me feel a little better.  Then we saw the smokestack. 

In the distance, the observation deck on the old chimney was obviously filled with people; the repairs must have taken less time than we had thought they would. The only reasonable course of action, at this point, was to go see for ourselves.