Well I’m really pushing my Irish luck… a second whole day with no rain! It was a nice cool 70 degrees… but my AirBnB person this morning said, “be careful out there today, it’s going to be really hot”. 70… really hot??? Gotta love it!
I started the day off with another guided walk in the city but this one was from a historical perspective. I didn’t realize how much our Declaration of Independence in 1776 meant to the Irish. They saw it as a nation who could successfully break away from the British Empire. But they tried many times and failed. They finally became an independent state in 1922 (even though Northern Ireland is still part of the United Kingdom).
I also learned the colors on the flag mean green for Ireland, orange for Northern Ireland, and white for the hope that they will live in peace together. I got to see the room where they first had their House of Lords. It’s currently in the Bank of Ireland building but that building used to house all of the Irish government.
We also went inside City Hall, which was really an elaborate building and many weddings are held there. It’s also the building where they fought for their independence.
I then took a tour of Trinity College. Founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I to establish a Protestant way of thinking about God, Trinity College has long been Ireland’s most prestigious college. Originally the student body was limited to rich Protestant men. Women were admitted in 1993 and Catholics were given permission by the Catholic Church to study there in the 1970’s.
Inside Trinity College is housed The Book of Kells and it has an amazing history. It’s a 1,200 year old version of the four gospels. It was created by dedicated Irish monks cloistered in the remote Scottish island of Iona. They slaughtered 185 calves, soaked the skins in lime, scraped off the hair, and dried the skins into a cream colored writing surface called velum. In 806, the Vikings savagely pillaged and burned Iona, killing 68 monks. The survivors fled to the Abbey of Kells (near Dublin) with the book. For eight centuries, the book was only read from during special Masses. In 1654, during Cromwell’s reign, the book was smuggled to Dublin for safety. It was first displayed to the public in the mid-1800’s.
I also got to tour the Old Library, referred to as The Long Room. The 200 foot long room had over 200,00 books in it!
After that I took a walk through this beautiful city park called St Stephen’s Green. Since it was “so hot” (Lol) people were out in droves.
I then saved the best for last. I went on this Musical Pub Crawl where we went to three different pubs and listened to real Irish music. The two players explained each song and instrument and everyone got to sing along. It was a blast. There was also a woman doing an Irish dance at one of them.
So the pics in order are as follows: The First is the House of Lords, 2 and 3 are inside city hall (check out the shamrocks in the city seal made of mosaic tile), 4-7 are all Trinity College buildings, 8-10 is a blown up page from the Book of Kells, all the busts in the Library, and me looking like a tourist!, 11 is St Stephen’s Green, and 12 are the guys who played at the Pub Crawl.
Hope everyone is having a happy Tuesday!
The Wandering Italian 