Dublin 1916 Bus Tour

Hi Eric:

I was in Dublin two months ago for the Easter Rising celebrations and took the "Dublin 1916 Bus Tour". Here is a link to my blog that describes the day that I took the tour:

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgelondon/3/1461410915/tpod.html

Here is my take on this and other similar tours. There were at least four different companies offering bus tours of the Easter Rising sites in Dublin at the end of March. I happened to end up with this one because it was the only one that had an opening anytime during my last few days in the city. As your can see this tour features two actors dressed in period costumes who performed scenes from the Rising while on the bus and at several stops during the tour including Dublin Castle and St Stephen's Green. The tour lasted about ninety minutes as I recall. This tour started around 59 (or 56) O'Connell Street a few blocks north of the General Post Office. There is at least one other bus tour that uses a name similar to this company.

My feeling is that this particular tour did not cover all of the major sites of the Rising. I feel that too much time was spent on the two actors performing scenes from the Rising rather than going to the major sites. One of the other four (or more) bus tour companys uses the same concept of two performers but it covers much more terrritory such as Four Corners. They are able to do this because their tour is over two hours long. If you do a search of Dublin Rising tours you can find the company to which I am referring. They have the two actors, they have part of the bus decorated to show a battle scene, and they print a map of their route which, again, covers much more territory. Being a longer tour they might also charge more money.

Let me say this: the reason I took a bus tour at the last minute is because I had taken the 1916 rebellion walking tour on my first full day in Dublin. I was planning to take the walking tour organized by Sinn Fein on the next day but cancelled this because: (1) my feet were killing me from the first day tour, and (2) hearing the tour guide on a busy Dublin street such as O'Connell was difficult. I thought that the narrative would be easier to hear within a bus.

Have fun. The history of the Rising is extremely interesting and being on a bus gets you from one place to another without punishing your feet. On the other hand, the bus can't go to some of the interesting sites such as the Trinity College campus.

Geor(ge)

Geor, I'm enjoying your blog-thanks for sharing it.

Dave

Dave:

Thanks for your kind words. This trip to Ireland was a real eye opener.
Geor(ge)