Day 1 - Dublin
Amy and I flew over on the same flight from JFK and got into Dublin about 7:30 am. All the weather reports said to expect highs of 61 degrees and rain. They lied. The weather was splendid and clear with highs around the low 80’s for our entire visit. Roll up the sweater sleeves and enjoy.
After dropping our bags at our hostel, we decided to ignore our jetlag, prop open our bleary eyes with coffee and go see stuff. First on the list - St. Patrick’s Cathedral, built between 1191 and 1270. There was a choir singing and occasional instruments. I remember especially a violin playing Be Thou My Vision, which was a really wonderful background for wandering around the cathedral. There is no crypt, as the water table is only about 8 feet below the floor.
Statue of St. Pat.
These are tattered battle flags from Irish regiments in various wars.
After St. Patrick’s, we went to Marsh’s Library. They were closing, so we only got maybe 10 minutes, and they wouldn't’t let us take pictures, but wow! Marsh’s is the oldest public library in Ireland, and one of the oldest buildings in Dublin still used for its original purpose. It was built in 1701 by Archbishop Narcissus Marsh. It contains over 25,000 books from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, covering medicine, law, science, travel, navigation, mathematics, music, surveying and classical literature. The books were so obviously very old, mostly leather bound, varying widely in size. The collection includes 80 incunabula (books printed before 1501) all on shelves of dark, beautifully carved oak. There were also little 300-year-old cages in which readers were locked with rare books. The whole place smelled of leather and book glue and dust and funny-old-building smell. It could have spent hours there.
The garden in front was beautiful, too, with rosemary spilling over the wall and a mysterious-looking iron gate.
That afternoon, we took a tour of Dublin castle and visited the Charles Beatty Library. The castle was the seat of power for rulers of Ireland all the way back to the Vikings (930’s), and it was the sight of transfer of power to the Irish government when they got their independence from the British. Unfortunately, a fire demolished most of the castle in the 1600’s. It was then slowly rebuilt, and what stands there now is mostly an 18th century building (not nearly as interesting as a medieval one). There is one medieval tower left and the tour takes you down into the basement, where you can view the stone arch where people in boats used to be able to slip into the castle from the River Poddle, back when the river was part of the defenses (rather than rerouted underground as it is now).
Castle ballroom.
This statue of justice was erected by the British outside the castle, and the Irish found it amusing. The statue (a) faces the castle and away from the people of the city (b) is not blindfolded (the sculpture decided that would make her ugly), and (c) holds a scale that kept filling with rainwater and so tipping one way or the other. The scale was finally fixed by drilling holes in the pans to let out the rainwater. Overall, a good representation of British justice to the Irish throughout most of their history.
More interesting than the castle (IMO) is the collection of illuminated manuscripts in the Charles Beatty library on the grounds. It’s a really wonderful collection of holy texts - Christian, Islam, and Buddhist. There were Koran’s written in gold and awesome curling Arabic with gold medallions and illustrations bright as foil even though they’re thousands of years old. Unfortunately, there were no pictures allowed.
At this point, we decided we’d put in a respectable day’s tourism and collapsed in our 18-bed hostel room. It turned out to be a good idea to get sleep early in the evening, as the boom-boom of a nearby night club and the lawnmower-like snoring of one of our roommates made sleep difficult later on.