Day Twenty-Seven – Friday, 8 June 2012
Dublin
Accommodation – Lansdowne Hotel
Weather – wet and windy
Temperature – mid-teens
The day started off wet and ended wet. It also produced gusty winds and we battled
on with the rest of Dublin with inverted umbrellas and rain.
Not to be deterred we made our way to Trinity College as we
thought we may as well do things that can be done indoors. Wrong!
The tour at Trinity is all conducted outdoors and we wandered the
grounds of this old university with a group of about forty sodden people
hovering under ledges and an ancient tree to glean some knowledge about this
old institution. After a few minutes of
the tour I stopped taking notes as the paper was too wet and the pen wouldn’t
write.
Our tour guide was a student of the university and was
wearing one of the traditional robes (a tad modernised I’d assume) which was
made optional wear in the 1980s. Of
course, once it was made optional then it quickly went out of favour.
Trinity College was built on a former monastery in 1592 by
Elizabeth I. At present there are 16000
students enrolled at the university.
Included in our tour was entry to see The Book of
Kells. It was probably written in 800AD
by the monks of Iona. It had a chequered
history including attacks by the Vikings and being ‘lost’ for a significant
number of years before being sent to Dublin in 1653.
Before seeing The Book of Kells tourists pass large panels
of information which give an insight into how the book was made. It appears there were four ‘writers’ after an
examination of the style of writing.
Each presentation letter at the commencement of the page was the monk’s
opportunity to show some artistic flair and no capital letter is the same.
Viewing the panels is a rather higgledy-piggledy affair and
we made our way through some very eager red-scarfed pilgrims who were dead keen
to read every panel. A member of the
pilgrims held a portrait of the Virgin Mary as each pilgrim passed a panel or
entered a room.
When we finally reached the small glass covered showcase
with The Book of Kells and two other illuminated books it was difficult to
position yourself to have a good view. I was reminded of chooks pecking at a handful of feed. I
hope in high season there is some sort of order – perhaps going in a clock-wise
fashion to move people along. I wondered
if a mirror over the books could provide further viewing for those people
waiting for a view would have helped.
It was then on to the Trinity College Library which is very
long (65metres) and houses around two hundred thousand of the library’s oldest
books. In the library is the oldest harp
to survive in Ireland and dates from about the fifteenth century. It is made out of willow and oak and is quite
small compared to modern harps. This is
the national symbol of Ireland and even appears on the Guinness label.
We left Trinity College with the rain still pelting down and
gusting wind and found a café at Temple Bar for a coffee and cake. It was great to be out of the inclement
weather and in some warmth. The next
stop was the National Gallery of Modern Art which was on the route of the
hop-on-off bus. The old formal garden
next to the gallery is very well tended however the wind was blowing a treat so
we tried to find our way inside.
Unfortunately, you are not meant to find your way inside as it is under
major renovation and any other areas were unavailable as a EU conference was
about to take place.
Finally worn down by the weather we caught our city
hop-on-off bus back into the city, took in the sights of the city once more and
then found our way back to our hotel.
The weather never let up all day and it was great that our hotel had its
own pub on the premises in the basement and we didn’t have to head out again.
I ordered a super-greasy meal of a burger and chips with a
sauvignon blanc…..I figured I deserved it after today’s weather!
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