Trips

Thurs., 5/9/13 - Dublin
It was raining again this morning but we walked to St. Patrick's Cathedral anyway. The rain was intermittent and the wind blew cold. The cathedral sits on an entire block and has a lovely park beside it. In the park is a plaque referencing the well (no longer there) where St. Patrick began baptizing converts from Viking pagan beliefs to Christianity in the fifth century. The Normans built a stone church on the site in 1191 and rebuilding and additions have occurred over the years. Jonathan Swift was Dean of the Cathedral from 1713 to 1745. Some of his Books of Prayer and his sermon on sleeping in church are on display. He is buried under the floor with his wife.
Inside the sanctuary (nave, transepts, and chapels) are numerous plaques, busts, and statues of "The Right Honorable" this and that and memorials to the servicemen of many wars. In the north transept is the original door from 1492. The Earl of Kildare cut a hole in the door and stretched his arm through to grasp the hand of the Earl of Ormond, his enemy who had taken refuge in the Chapter House. This act of reconciliation ended the bitter feud between them. From this event comes the phrase, "chancing your arm." The door is called the Door of Reconciliation. On display are ancient slabs of stone with Celtic crosses and a bell dedicated by the Huguenots who used one of the chapels. Above the choir rows are the banners and hatchments (armor) of the Knights of St. Patrick, a chivalric order founded by King George III in 1783.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

St. Patrick's Cathedral - lots of important people

St. Patrick's Cathedral - Door of Reconciliation

St. Patrick's Cathedral - old organ

St. Patrick's Cathedral - banners and hatchments

St. Patrick's Cathedral

St. Patrick's Well site

St. Patrick's Cathedral grounds

We need this for our area

Street Scene

St. Stephen's Green Mall - glass and iron atrium

         This afternoon we checked out of our hotel room and left our bags at reception and went for a walk to St. Stephens Park and through the three stories of shops in Stephens Green Mall. The building is mostly glass and iron with a huge atrium.
         After mochas from Starbucks, we dodged rain back to the Drury Hotel, got a cab and checked into our new hotel, the Burlington, where we will meet our first tour group this evening.
         At 6 Pm we met our tour guide, Michael Doughty in the lobby and then went for free drinks, a short, not too informative speech about tomorrow's itinerary, and then a "light"dinner of hors d‘oeuvres.

Fri., 5/10/13 - Dublin - Burlington Hotel
         This morning our tour group got on our nice "Insight" bus (Insight is the tour company) and headed out to "tour" Dublin. We drove around all of the area we had walked in the last two days while the local "step on guide," Shamus, pointed out things on the left or right of the bus. We were driven out to Phoenix Park, which is the largest city park in Europe - didn't get off the bus and it was raining, so no pictures. The US ambassador has an estate in the park and the President of Ireland has a mansion and the Dublin Zoo is here as well.
         Back in the city, we went to see the Book of Kells at the archival library at Trinity College. The Book of Kells is over 1000 years old. It is a lavishly decorated copy in Latin of the four gospels. There are displays explaining the ink, pigments, velum, and binding of the four ancient books of the gospels in the collection - the Kells being the oldest. Upstairs we walked through the 65 meters of the Long Room, which houses around 200,000 of the library's oldest books and marble busts of famous Irishmen. Along the center of the room were some open books and an exhibit of some of the steps used to restore these ancient treasures.
         After the Book of Kells, Marge and I were dropped off at Dublinia, a museum of the history of Dublin from the Viking age (on the first floor) through the medieval times (second floor) and the archeological endeavors (third floor) to uncover history (no pictures inside).
          Dinner tonight was at O'Brian's Sussex House - more fish and chips and Shepherd's Pie and Guinness. The dishes had different flavors from what we had at the Hairy Lemon and were very tasty.

Long Room of the Trinity College Library

Long Room Displays

Long Room

Gale's traced name in Futhark - Viking rune letters

Street scene

Sat., 5/11/13 - Dublin to Cork
         Dublin is a fine city and we really enjoyed our visit but it is time to move on. This morning we boarded the bus at 8 AM and headed toward Cork. First we detoured to the Irish National Stud Farm and Japanese Gardens.   It started to pour rain as we began our walking tour, but we put up the umbrellas and looked at several mares with foals born this year - one was only four weeks old.
         It rained as we wandered through the Japanese Garden representing the Life of Man. We entered through the Gate of Oblivion and then walked along the cave of birth, hill of learning, marriage bridge, ambition, etc. and exited through the Gateway of Eternity. A pretty cool concept!
         By now the hot mocha and warm scones in the heated tearoom were a welcome relief from the weather outside. This is typical Irish May weather - with temperatures from 40 to 55° and intermittent rain everyday.
         The drive from Dublin to Cork is through fertile fields with hedgerows of gorse (has yellow flowers and thorns) and brambles. Grasses like rye, alfalfa, and clover, which the horses love, grow in a rich limestone soil. There are lush pastures full of cows and lots of sheep. Some land is "common land" and ranchers can graze their herds on it for three days or campers may stay on it for three days at a time.

Irish National Stud Farm

Cherries in bloom at the Irish National Stud Farm

Japanese Garden at the Irish National Stud Farm

We arrived in the Viking seaport town of Waterford and walked, in the rain, into the pedestrian old part of town for lunch. We found a small shop and had homemade potato leek soup. We rejoined the group for a tour of the Waterford Crystal factory. Crystal has been made here since the 1700's. In the 1800's England imposed a tax on their products, which put them out of business. The Republic of Ireland (the part we are currently touring) restored the factory in 1920 but it went bust again. It is opened again now but creates mostly trophies, specialty pieces - like the New Year's Ball that drops in Times Square.

Bagpipe band in Waterford

Another bilingual sign

Christ Church, Waterford

Blowing Waterford Crystal

Computer-assisted design

Etching the crystal

Computer driven machine etching

Oops!!

Waterford Crystal

We made another quick stop to look at a typical country graveyard with an unnamed, common grave for victims of The Hunger (or Famine). One million (one of every three) Irish people, mostly children, died in the 1840's as a result of the blight that rotted their potatoes. There are crosses like this all over Ireland.

Another Famine Memorial

Gorse

We finally arrived at a very modern hotel, the River Lee Hotel, in Cork and walked into town to find dinner. We ate at the Restaurant 14A in old town. It was not a pub per se and we had roasted lasagna. Cork is a growing city and has a university that is the second largest in Ireland.

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