Touring the Past

Since I worked late Wednesday at the resident information session, I got to get off early today. The office is a 5 minute walk from Dublin Castle, so decided to do some sightseeing. I did the tour, which was pretty cool (and the tour guide was very good). Apparently, the English had knocked down most of the Viking castle to build a ‘proper’ castle. Unfortunately, only part remains because someone had the bright idea of installing explosives to prevent fires from reaching the powder room (where the gunpowder was stored) or the scroll room (where all the important records were). Well, you can guess what happened – there was a fire and it set off the explosives and blew up a large part of the castle. While the plan did work, the fire didn’t reach those two rooms, they lost quite a bit of the castle. SO, the only logical thing to do then is to turn the disintegrated part into a courtyard, which is what now remains. Anyways, that meant the tour wasn’t too long. Here are photos of the rooms, which were pretty cool. Also, the walls were about 12” thick – which is kind of ridiculous.

model of Dublin Castle

for Mom - he worked in Dublin Castle and went to Trinity College

Gaelic! for those of you who wanted to see some

Declaration of Irish Republic

Dublin Castle Garden - SO COOL

Waiting room

Throne, enlarged for one of the Kings because he was massive

The reception room ceiling

cool painting representing Ireland

layout of Viking Dublin

original ruins of Viking settlement

look at how thick those walls were!

After Dublin Castle, I went over to do the Trinity tour and see the Book of Kells. Trinity is ranked #27 in the world and was created as a Protestant university, partially on the old ruins of a monastery. Mr. Berkeley went here (you know, the one UC Berkeley and the city are named after), so there’s a library named after him here too. The bell tower in the middle of the courtyard has two bells, only the new one is rung though (to mark dinner time). The had it built because they needed something aesthetic to pull your eye into the courtyard and make it not just a large flat place. The figures on the corners are the heads of the four original disciplines of college. They have some really old, but very popular, student housing that doesn’t have AC and only has one bathroom on the first floor (hmm sounds really familiar….though we have them beat – Lawnies have to go all the way to the Rotunda to use the bathroom whereas their bathrooms are on the bottom floor of their building). 

courtyard of Trinity (notice bell tower - that's where the play was)

awesome architecture

Berkeley Library

there are only a few of these around the world --> technology breaking through the old world (or perhaps destroying it?)

After we had a short tour of Trinity, we got to see the Book of Kells. The Book is an attempt to record the Gospel (i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) in writing and images so that illiterate people could understand the message of the Bible, too. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, the type of script that we now call gothic on the computer. The letters starting paragraphs are elaborate (picture the letters from storybooks, except these were first), with animals or flowers or some image that creates the letter. They’re squares of thin gold and other precious things, like lapis lazuli, to create a rich and ornate image. There are also full page images depicting a wide variety of things, from the Gospel writers to representations of Jesus. The use of the snake (which is often found in the looping celtic knot, perhaps the precursor of it) is used to represent Christ because the snake sheds its skin, kind of like the rebirth we have through Christ. Also, it is a reminder of our sinfulness. There are also many peacocks used, I think it said because they believed that they were reborn and thus represented the eternal nature of Jesus, but I can’t quite recall their exact meaning. It blows my mind that not only did someone write this out in gothic script, which in and of itself is hard, but they created gorgeous and finely detailed letters and pictures to go along with it. It’s really quite amazing when you think about all the effort that must have gone into it. Funny story about the Book of Kells: a thief stole it from the monastery where it was held, sold the ornate box it was in, but then could not sell the book because it was too recognizable. Realizing that if he were to be caught with it he would be hanged, he buried it in a farmer’s field. The farmer realized that part of his earth was dug up, investigated and found the book. He returned it to the monastery, who then gave it to Trinity for safer keeping. That’s how it ended up in Trinity library. There are actually some other books similar to it that also have beautiful script, but the Book of Kells is by far the greatest of its contemporaries.

Image of Christ in Book of Kells (from internet)

example of awesome letters and amazing handwriting (from internet)

            After you see the Book of Kells (which we couldn’t take photos so sorry), you got to go through the “Long Room”, the famous lower floor of Trinity library. Rich mahogany wood, two levels, some of the oldest books you could image and a ceiling resembling a gothic church, it was quite an impressive room. Every column had a bust of a famous person in front of it, from Shakespeare to Plato. Old, but really cool books were on display in glass cases in the center of hall as you walked along. One of the scripts, I believe it was a Georgian book, looked very much like Elvish – hmm I wonder if Tolkein modeled it after that. Anyways, it was a really awesome room, but again, no photos.

the Long Room (from internet)

            I met up with Elizabeth, who is interning in parliament (pretty cool), and we headed back to UCD to change before going out to eat. We met up with Brinda and Chipra at a Lebanese restaurant they’d wanted to try. (yes, I know – Lebanese, or really any ethnic food for that matter, in Ireland, but I’d never had Lebanese food and I was curious to see how some ethnic food is here since they have quite a bit – Chinese, Mexican, Ethiopian, etc). The food was really good and the restaurant had a really awesome décor, so that was fun. After, we pub-hopped until we could find one with a bit of seating space to watch one of the semi-final matches (Germany vs Italy) in soccer. I must say, yo have to get to a pub early or there will be no seats left and many Irish are apparently content to stand for an hour and a half to watch the game. Italy won (wahoo!). After, we met up with Elizabeth’s fellow intern who was heading home because her internship time was ending. That was fun and w got to meet some new people, if only for a short time. 

Elizabeth and I