Monday, July 5, 2010
Journey To Dublin - Part Three
The Book of Kells is a bible that was hand written and illustrated by a bunch of monks in a small Irish monastery about twelve hundred years ago. This hand written bible is considered to be the most ornately hand-decorated bible ever. The monastery where this bible was conceived was in a small town by the name of Kells. So the bible became known as The Book of Kells.
The book survived in Kells for a couple of centuries, but the monastery was under constant threat of attack from the Vikings first, and the English after that. For the safety of the book, it was decided that it should be moved to Dublin. It eventually found a home in the library at Trinity College, housed in a glass case, and opened to a page that contains a very elaborate illustration of Jesus Christ Superstar. Good choice since Jesus is one of the main characters in the book.
I don’t know if the staff always keeps the book open to that page. They might close it up every night and just open it up to a random page every morning. And maybe it just happened to have been opened up to a Jesus page on the very day that Lara and I were in town. I like this theory.
Makes me feel special. Like maybe Jesus likes me. I am one of the blessed. Or maybe that makes me one of the meek. Because Jesus likes the meek. (Blessed are the meek.) But I’m getting ahead of the story.
Lara and I have to walk directly through the heart of the city to get from our hotel to Trinity College. The sun was shining and there was little wind, making for a very pleasant forty degrees. It should have only taken about thirty minutes to walk to Trinity, but since it was nice, we stopped every couple of blocks to snap photos of historic buildings.
We walked down O’Connell Street, which is sort of the main thoroughfare. The Millennium Needle is located here, as well as the General Post Office. The Millennium Needle is just, well, a giant needle sticking out of the ground. But the General Post Office has some interesting history. During the Easter Rising in 1916, the building was shot to hell by British soldiers, and you can still see bullet marks on the building columns. Lara and I stopped at the Post Office Building to have a look inside. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when I walked inside I was quite disappointed when I found a bunch of people inside delivering and receiving mail. A little too mundane for my taste. I guess I was hoping that it was going to be filled with mist, and fiddlers, and a couple drunkards bare knuckle boxing next to a bar, and Bono. But I suppose the Irish need a place to send and receive mail, and they might as well do that at the Post Office.
O’Connell Street ends at the River Liffey. Lara and I cross the River Liffey on one of their many bridges. The River Liffey bisects downtown Dublin. As Lara and I walk over it, I take a moment to look around and notice that there isn’t a single skyscraper in the entire city. There doesn’t appear to be a single building over ten stories. I like this. It makes a very large city feel quaint and humane.
After we cross the River Liffey we very quickly find ourselves at the entrance to Trinity College. It looks more like an entrance to a federal government building than an entrance to a major university. There is a tall wrought iron fence separating the sidewalk from a sparse courtyard. The courtyard has two statues of ordinary scale and no vegetation whatsoever outside of the very neatly manicured grass. The building is a regal looking four-story granite affair with lots of windows and a large archway. The strange thing to me was that there was minimal signage. The only reason we knew that we were at Trinity College was because of all the young adults with backpacks that were streaming in and out of the entrance. I guess when a university occupies the same place for four hundred years there is no need to help direct people to it.
We made our way through the archway that was actually a long corridor that was cut out of the building. It was basically a fifty foot long tunnel that opened into a large open-air quad. The quad is surrounded on all sides by buildings of varied architectural styles; Corinthian, Gothic, Georgian and Victorian. At the center of the quad stands a majestic bell tower. The walkways are well-maintained cobblestone, and the manicured lawns are guarded by large iron chain links.
It is not immediately obvious where the Book of Kells is housed within the university. We wander around aimlessly for a couple of minutes until we stumble upon a very small sign that pointed us in the right direction. We end up having to follow several arrowed signs that led us around a good chunk of the campus. We arrived at the appropriate building- the Old Library - and paid nine Euro to enter.
There is a large room containing enlarged prints of the illustrations in the Book of Kells, along with detailed descriptions of how the pictures were crafted. Accompanying the print descriptions was a history of how the Catholic religion was spread throughout Ireland, and all the major events that affected the Catholic people of Ireland since the Book of Kells was created. Adjacent to this large room was a much smaller, dimly-lit room that contained the book itself.
I attempted to read everything in the first room, but I couldn’t stop looking towards the second room that held the book. Eventually I gave up and just went on in. The Book of Kells was encased in glass, and it was opened to a page depicting a cartoonish Jesus with open arms, surrounded by what seems like thousands upon thousands of tiny Celtic symbols. After I stare at the page for a long time, I went back out to the first room and find Lara still reading through all the Irish history. I decide to finish reading everything myself as I wait for her. When we are done reading we go back into the room and stare at cartoon Jesus for awhile longer.
When we grew tired of cartoon Jesus, I thought that was the end of the experience. The exit of the Book of Kells room was a staircase. We walked up the staircase and found ourselves in what is called the Long Room. One large open room at least two hundred feet long, with three levels of mezzanines containing stacks and stacks of books and marble busts of the greatest thinkers of the world, all connected by wrought iron spiral staircases. It was magnificent. I felt like I was being transported back to the eighteenth century.
On the first floor were about a dozen large glass cases that contained random Irish relics; five hundred year-old hand drawn maps of Ireland, hundred year old photographs of Dublin, notes written by the hand of Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, and even Queen Victoria. Lara and I stagger around the glass cases for an hour or so trying to digest it all. I could have wandered around that Old Library for days, but sadly there were no hot dog vendors inside, so we were forced to leave when our hunger became too much to ignore.
We stopped briefly to browse through the Old Library gift shop, but decided against purchasing any Book of Kells scarfs or Book of Kells underwear. We consulted our travel book for a nearby place to eat lunch and decided on a cafeteria type place called Kilkenny Kitchen that was supposedly popular with students. It was on Nassau Street which was immediately adjacent to the southern side of the university.
I purchased a chicken panini sandwich and a cup of coffee for thirteen Euro. Lara ordered a similar Panini and a cup of tea. We sat and ate for a long time, watching the locals and trying to harness more energy. I was feeling pretty worn down at this point, but we still had a lot of daylight left and a lot of sights still unseen. After we finished recharging, we decided that the second most important sight to see after Trinity College had to be the Guinness Brewery.
The book survived in Kells for a couple of centuries, but the monastery was under constant threat of attack from the Vikings first, and the English after that. For the safety of the book, it was decided that it should be moved to Dublin. It eventually found a home in the library at Trinity College, housed in a glass case, and opened to a page that contains a very elaborate illustration of Jesus Christ Superstar. Good choice since Jesus is one of the main characters in the book.
I don’t know if the staff always keeps the book open to that page. They might close it up every night and just open it up to a random page every morning. And maybe it just happened to have been opened up to a Jesus page on the very day that Lara and I were in town. I like this theory.
Makes me feel special. Like maybe Jesus likes me. I am one of the blessed. Or maybe that makes me one of the meek. Because Jesus likes the meek. (Blessed are the meek.) But I’m getting ahead of the story.
Lara and I have to walk directly through the heart of the city to get from our hotel to Trinity College. The sun was shining and there was little wind, making for a very pleasant forty degrees. It should have only taken about thirty minutes to walk to Trinity, but since it was nice, we stopped every couple of blocks to snap photos of historic buildings.
We walked down O’Connell Street, which is sort of the main thoroughfare. The Millennium Needle is located here, as well as the General Post Office. The Millennium Needle is just, well, a giant needle sticking out of the ground. But the General Post Office has some interesting history. During the Easter Rising in 1916, the building was shot to hell by British soldiers, and you can still see bullet marks on the building columns. Lara and I stopped at the Post Office Building to have a look inside. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when I walked inside I was quite disappointed when I found a bunch of people inside delivering and receiving mail. A little too mundane for my taste. I guess I was hoping that it was going to be filled with mist, and fiddlers, and a couple drunkards bare knuckle boxing next to a bar, and Bono. But I suppose the Irish need a place to send and receive mail, and they might as well do that at the Post Office.
O’Connell Street ends at the River Liffey. Lara and I cross the River Liffey on one of their many bridges. The River Liffey bisects downtown Dublin. As Lara and I walk over it, I take a moment to look around and notice that there isn’t a single skyscraper in the entire city. There doesn’t appear to be a single building over ten stories. I like this. It makes a very large city feel quaint and humane.
After we cross the River Liffey we very quickly find ourselves at the entrance to Trinity College. It looks more like an entrance to a federal government building than an entrance to a major university. There is a tall wrought iron fence separating the sidewalk from a sparse courtyard. The courtyard has two statues of ordinary scale and no vegetation whatsoever outside of the very neatly manicured grass. The building is a regal looking four-story granite affair with lots of windows and a large archway. The strange thing to me was that there was minimal signage. The only reason we knew that we were at Trinity College was because of all the young adults with backpacks that were streaming in and out of the entrance. I guess when a university occupies the same place for four hundred years there is no need to help direct people to it.
We made our way through the archway that was actually a long corridor that was cut out of the building. It was basically a fifty foot long tunnel that opened into a large open-air quad. The quad is surrounded on all sides by buildings of varied architectural styles; Corinthian, Gothic, Georgian and Victorian. At the center of the quad stands a majestic bell tower. The walkways are well-maintained cobblestone, and the manicured lawns are guarded by large iron chain links.
It is not immediately obvious where the Book of Kells is housed within the university. We wander around aimlessly for a couple of minutes until we stumble upon a very small sign that pointed us in the right direction. We end up having to follow several arrowed signs that led us around a good chunk of the campus. We arrived at the appropriate building- the Old Library - and paid nine Euro to enter.
There is a large room containing enlarged prints of the illustrations in the Book of Kells, along with detailed descriptions of how the pictures were crafted. Accompanying the print descriptions was a history of how the Catholic religion was spread throughout Ireland, and all the major events that affected the Catholic people of Ireland since the Book of Kells was created. Adjacent to this large room was a much smaller, dimly-lit room that contained the book itself.
I attempted to read everything in the first room, but I couldn’t stop looking towards the second room that held the book. Eventually I gave up and just went on in. The Book of Kells was encased in glass, and it was opened to a page depicting a cartoonish Jesus with open arms, surrounded by what seems like thousands upon thousands of tiny Celtic symbols. After I stare at the page for a long time, I went back out to the first room and find Lara still reading through all the Irish history. I decide to finish reading everything myself as I wait for her. When we are done reading we go back into the room and stare at cartoon Jesus for awhile longer.
When we grew tired of cartoon Jesus, I thought that was the end of the experience. The exit of the Book of Kells room was a staircase. We walked up the staircase and found ourselves in what is called the Long Room. One large open room at least two hundred feet long, with three levels of mezzanines containing stacks and stacks of books and marble busts of the greatest thinkers of the world, all connected by wrought iron spiral staircases. It was magnificent. I felt like I was being transported back to the eighteenth century.
On the first floor were about a dozen large glass cases that contained random Irish relics; five hundred year-old hand drawn maps of Ireland, hundred year old photographs of Dublin, notes written by the hand of Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, and even Queen Victoria. Lara and I stagger around the glass cases for an hour or so trying to digest it all. I could have wandered around that Old Library for days, but sadly there were no hot dog vendors inside, so we were forced to leave when our hunger became too much to ignore.
We stopped briefly to browse through the Old Library gift shop, but decided against purchasing any Book of Kells scarfs or Book of Kells underwear. We consulted our travel book for a nearby place to eat lunch and decided on a cafeteria type place called Kilkenny Kitchen that was supposedly popular with students. It was on Nassau Street which was immediately adjacent to the southern side of the university.
I purchased a chicken panini sandwich and a cup of coffee for thirteen Euro. Lara ordered a similar Panini and a cup of tea. We sat and ate for a long time, watching the locals and trying to harness more energy. I was feeling pretty worn down at this point, but we still had a lot of daylight left and a lot of sights still unseen. After we finished recharging, we decided that the second most important sight to see after Trinity College had to be the Guinness Brewery.
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