Afternoon All, Aaron here bringing you a little fun Tuesday's Travels flavour from our very own Fair City. Enjoy!
One thing I've always wanted to do was go on the Dublin Ghost Bus Tour - so when I was offered the opportunity to go with my good friend Ally I couldn't say no!
First Stop:
First impressions on both our behalves was how well this bus is decorated. Sure, it's clear from the outside that it's a ghost bus but the gothic interior is on another spooky theatrical level.
Our first stop on this bus is the Royal College of Surgeons - here we learned all about Dr. Clossey - a man who was way too blasé about acquiring fresh corpses to torment his poor students with.
An amazing border over the bus windows
While stopped outside of the college itself, we were treated to a hilarious recreation of what a typical morning with the good Doctor himself would be like - which consisted of a severed torso hung on a hook and a poor passenger getting a good feel for anatomy; all acted brilliantly by one of two professional Irish actors on-board, fair play lads!
Second Stop:
Now before we go to the stop we were treated to a great horror movie quiz (which I failed atrociously) in which one person was picked to guess what movie certain song clips were from - winning gets you a copy of Dracula on DVD, and failure gets you DEATH.
I think this is an owl -
the bus if FULL of stuff like this!
After the quiz and a very informative lesson on the history of Dr. Acula (which was fantastic, I love that neckbiter), we pulled up to the beautiful Christ Church; now I've never been so I was sure we'd be going in the front door but nope - straight down to the crypts for some great learnings on the children around Dublin. They would hook bodies up the nose and drag them up out of the grave, often leaving some sitting up in their coffins to scare the bejaysis out of poor Gravedigger Billy in the mornings.
It was in these crypts that I found out just how disgustingly suggestible I am, which involved getting worked over by a man dressed like Doctor Who with a thumbscrew, Spanish Tickler and to add insult to injury - a nutcracker..
After that horrific trip down BDSM road, it was time to move on to learn about the intriguing story of the Madame of the brothel(now pub and hotel) across the road, Mistress Darkey Kelly. She was burned at the stake as a witch for carrying an illegitimate child of the Sheriff at the time - good to see Ireland's good auld morals haven't changed eh?
This appears when you google Darkey Kelly -
maybe her?
Next up in spooky crypt shenanigans we were treated to the story of a Dublin "hypnotist" by the name of Dolocher who had quite a zombie-esque taste; funnily enough he was said to be the original werewolf, well, a ghost of a wolf that would savage women for the duration of the winter and come to be known at the Dolocher. Suddenly we were paid another visit but I couldn't possibly tell you by whom...
Final Stop:
Our final stop was at St. Kevin's graveyard. A Protestant church just outside the old city walls where Catholics could pay through the nose for burials of family members so that they make it to the pearly gates.
We flew by Bram Stoker's original house,
I did my best!
In this precariously perched graveyard behind the church we learned that it wasn't just good god-fearing Catholics looking for burial, it was also shallow (at the time) graves of victims of highwaymen and the sort just turfed in on top of each other.
To think that tiny little graveyard on a hill looks down into a meadow of 30,000 bodies jammed together - interesting stuff indeed, that is, until an attempt that very evening to get the count up to 30,035-ish. My nerves will never be the same!
A selfie with 30,000 people,
tacky just like Weird Al said
All in all it was a brilliant trip and totally worth your time, I know for sure I'll be going again to subject treat pals to the experience. Open all year round, not just Halloween, it's 14+ so no scared children to be seen. We learned a huge amount about Dublin's dark history through terrified laughter and begrudging respect for our tormentors. Also Darkey Kelly's is right across from the Christ Church and I highly recommend dropping in, it's a good pub with great atmosphere.
Ticket Price €28.Duration 2hrs 15mins. Leaving from Dublin Bus Headquarters on O'Connell St, nightly. For further info & Private Hires see the site HERE or contact info@dublinsightseeing.ie.
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