Following Breakfast we gathered in the lobby with our fearless leader Alan. Once the headcount was right we headed out to walk down to the river and up to Trinity College (~.6 mile).  There we were joined by an official university tour guide (Mike, a grad student from upstate New York) who took us on a brief tour of campus.

This is “Fresher Week” – orientation week for the incoming freshmen

So the main campus quad was awash with people, booths, and such.

We were glad to add to the chaos.

One of the most interesting buildings on campus is the Museum Building.  The architects of this building incorporated significant floral embellishments, but with a sense of mischievous humor they added various animals into the mix.

Following the tour we visited the main library; home of the Book of Kells. There is obviously significant interpretation before you see the actual book. We learned about other similar books from the same period.  We learned about vellum. We learned about ink and pigments. We even learned about the scribes sense of humor (as evidenced by some of the surviving interlinear commentary).  Of particular interest to me was a display on the “Chi Ro page.”

This page (containing the first two letters of “Christ”) is full of symbolism.

Just one example, the mice in this section are presenting the Eucharist.

I was also impressed by the display of the “illustrated alphabet”

Following the buildup we shuffled into the “vault” for a look at the actual book.  They don’t allow photographs in the vault so you’ll just have to take my word that the book is impressive.  One page was open to the beginning of Matthew’s gospel. It demonstrated the highly embellished art.  Another section was open to a page from Mark – more text than art though the first letter of each verse was embellished.  It’s amazing how rich and vivid the colors are, even in these small artistic additions.

After the book we climbed the stairs to the great hall

Which was a great hall.  Noteworthy in the hall is the harp of Brian Boru.

While it isn’t really his harp it is significant in that it is on every coin minted, and on every glass of Guinness poured in Ireland.

After the library it was off to lunch. Along the way we came across the “Molly Malone” statue.  There were hordes of people taking pictures of each other so we opted to have pictures taken with the real Molly.

Lunch was a modest affair accompanied by an excellent Irish story teller.  She talked about various kinds of fairies and passed on a few stories.  It was great fun.

Following lunch it was off to the “Museum of Ireland” – the archaeology museum.  Included in their catalog is the largest collection of gold objects in Western Europe.

They also had other interesting artifacts:

Following that it was time for a drink.  We loaded Steve on a tram (He had pronounced that he had hit the fun barrier.) and Billie, Cheryl and I headed over to the Temple Bar district in search of good music and better libations.

We did not stop at The Temple Bar itself – we’d been warned that it is pretty much a tourist trap. But we did wander up Temple Bar street, finding ourselves in a convivial establishment called The Norseman. From there we checked out a number of other establishments (and a few of their brews) and eventually decided that we may have been mistaken to leave The Norseman in the first place. So we hied our hence back there for supper (and another libation).

Thus fortified we set out in search of a tram stop, but eventually decided that it would be quicker to simply walk back to the hotel.

Tomorrow the only item on the tour schedule is the farewell dinner. So the day will be designated “Around Dublin Day 2.” We’ll have to see what kind of mischief we can get into.

TTFN,

R