Near my hotel at St. Stephen’s Green park:

 

there is a sculpture entitled Famine by Edward Delaney:

 

It is one of a score of statues you can find throughout the city to memorialize the Great Famine (An Gorta Mór) that took place between 1845-1852, brought on by potato blight and resulted in some million lives lost from starvation. Approximately another million people emigrated from Ireland at this time for survival, and this significant population wipeout forever changed the Irish narrative in every sense–culturally, politically, economically, socially.

But you’d never know it from the abundance of food I’ve been enjoying in Dublin. From the full Irish breakfast (this picture btw is not of my own plate as I can’t eat most of the stuff here)…

 

to fish & chips…

 

to salmon & Irish vegetables (this was by far my favorite meal)…

 

the potato is always somehow incorporated into each meal. It’s a good thing I’m doing a lot of walking to counter all these carbs! And speaking of walking, this morning I’m on O’Connell Street,

 

looking for the General Post Office (GPO):

 

The GPO, a fantastic Georgian building, is of historical significance as it once served as the headquarter during the failed 1916 Easter Uprising.

 

Today it is one of the landmarks of Irish freedom:

 

The struggle for Irish independence is epic, and when you have the pleasure of hearing about it in the Gaelic cadence, with all its peaks and lulls, you feel every ounce of anguish, every flash of pride, and every bit of humility. For all the nationalism I feel here, it is always tempered by a nod or a wink admitting to reasons for any earlier failed attempt at independence. There is no cavalier bravado I’ve found elsewhere. Any embellishments in story-telling seem to only come from their gregarious, lively nature, drawing you into their lore.  So this is one of the two reasons why I love this place.

I think by tomorrow we’ll get to the second reason. It has nothing to do with this guy, but here he is. I finally find my leprechaun: