May 17-18
I have been excited to visit Ireland for years, really ever since Michael and I started dating. As some of you know, Michael’s family are of Irish decent and know a lot about their heritage. Some 12 or so years ago, Michael visited Ireland, spending time in Dublin, Belfast and driving around the island. He has often spoken fondly of that trip and it has made me really really really excited to visit.
Our first stop was Dublin and after dropping off bags, we headed out for dinner and a pint. Our airbnb happened to be about 2 blocks away from one of Dublin’s stadiums where The Rolling Stones were playing that night. As such, our neighborhood was swarmed with concert goers wandering around with beers. As opposed to people walking down the streets with cans of beer, as you may see in the US outside a rock concert, people were just walking around with glass pints of beer and setting them next to buildings when they were finished. I guess someone wanders around and collects them later because there were no glasses around the next morning. We thought about going to try to grab some last minute tickets, but instead just went for a pizza instead.
We popped into the bar next door for a Guinness after dinner while the bartenders were tackling the huge task of cleaning up after the masses had left for the concert. Maybe they go out and get free pint glasses from out on the street. Half of them may have actually belonged to that pub.
Guinness!!! In Ireland!!!
We stayed for another and then headed to bed. We had a lot to do the next day.
We jumped up first thing and went for runs along the River Liffey. Merchant’s Arch and a pub called Merchant’s Arch:
And this building:
After getting cleaned up, we grabbed a few quick sandwiches, but passed on the Taytos.
Check out this clip if you need more info on these amazing chips and trust me, you need more information:
Then it was off to the Book of Kells. BUT…. as it is Dublin and this place is just swarming with history, we had a bunch of stops and interruptions on the way to get there. First – the home of Oscar Wilde, a famous Dublin poet.
The home was donated to and restored by American College Dublin in 1998. It is used for exhibitions and you can apparently take classes in the home through the College. But you can’t take tours. So off to the next best thing! The square right across the street has this amazing smirking and lounging statue of Oscar Wilde.
As silly as I think that statue is, there were four pedestals next to it that have some of his famous quotes written on the stone. We spent quite some time reading through them.
I was going to tell you my favorite, but having read through them again, I’m not sure I can choose. So many clever thoughts!
And then off to explore the rest of the small square. Like many gardens we’ve entered recently, it was just beautiful.
And there were busts of famous people throughout the square, including this one of Michael Collins, the Irish revolutionary, soldier and politician.
I just googled Michael Collins to say something more thoughtful about him. But with just one search I was reminded that the history of Ireland, its wars and its relationship with the UK is a complex and tough history with a lot of suffering and struggle. It is also a history that I am by no means qualified to speak on and as such won’t in this blog. Any summary from me would be inadequate. Anyone who wants more info can google it or talk to Michael’s father about the subject.
Now on to something of which you can speak with one of our religious scholars that we keep on staff, Michael’s mother. The Book of Kells!
This was something that I was really excited to see and Michael was not. He had seen it the last time he was here and didn’t think it was that cool. But he was easily convinced. First of all, Trinity College is really cool. The campus is right in the heart of Dublin and despite all of the tourists, it still has that really great “college feel”. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about: the energy that you get when you walk on a campus, with lots of young people hanging out in the courtyards, discussing great (and small) things. Trinity College’s notable alumni include Oscar Wilde, Mary Robinson (not the super important Chicago lawyer – the first female President of Ireland), Samuel Beckett (RIP Beckett’s Bar in Chicago), Jonathan Swift, and a bunch of others. Trinity College has nearly three million books, some of which we saw in this amazing old library which houses around 200,000 of the library’s oldest books.
Marble busts line the room depicting authors, poets, politicians and scholars, including Socrates, Pluto, Jonathan Swift, Shakespeare, Newton… and a bunch of others.
But my favorite part was these stairs. I love these stairs.
OK, so now just a few words on the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells was written over 1000 years ago. At that time, there were less than half a million people living on the island, living along the coasts and waterways. The Irish church was made up mostly of monastic monks who lived in communities that were devoted to study, manual work and prayer. They spread the message of the church through hand written and illustrated books depicting the gospels.
The Book of Kells depicts the four gospels, written in Latin, with lavishly decorated pictures and font. There is some uncertainty regarding where the book came from and who to attribute the work to, but one thought is that it came from a monastery on the island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland around 561 AD, and then possibly moving with the monks to Kells, county Meath, after 806 AD, when Iona was attacked by Vikings. The book was sent to Dublin around 1653 for security during the Cromwellian war in Ireland and was at Trinity College by 1661.
It is believed that there were four main scribes for the Book of Kells who wrote the words and then three major artists who did the illustrations, although there may be some overlap between the two groups of men.
Here are some examples of decorated words from the Book of Kells. Apparently a word may recur but its design is never repeated:
Here is a copy of the portrait of the evangelist John from the Book of Kells:
Here is the description that is assigned to the picture and speaks to the thoughtfulness that was put into these illustrations:
“The double-ringed halo almost overwhelms the evangelist. Its design bears a strong resemblance to a plan of the Holy Sepulchre (tomb of Christ) in Jerusalem and the circular church built over it, as described by Arnulfo, a 7th-century pilgrim from Gaul who stopped at Iona on his return from the Holy Land.
In his right hand John holds an exaggerated quill pen, emblematic of his role as author of the gospel. His ink pot, perhaps made from a cow horn, is visible just above his right foot. The corner-pieces are filled with a geometric interlace of snakes with their heads meeting at a central point. The medieval belief that the snake was reborn when it shed its skin was a fitting analogy for the resurrection of Christ. The blue lines of the frame are extended to form interlace tendrils of foliage terminating in beast heads.
Each of the four crosses inset into the rectangular frame is filled with delicate interlace.”
That’s the first time I have ever heard a snake being compared to Jesus, but we’ll go with it for now.
You can’t tell from this picture, but apparently on the outside frame of the portrait, you can see another figure that is believed to be Jesus during the crucifixion, however, it was cropped out when the book was rebound in the 19th century. The book was rebound a handful of times, with one rebinding having done a lot of damage by just cropping out an edge of the book.
So we don’t have any pictures of the actual books. No pictures allowed in that room. So I went ahead and googled. The pages that we saw were the genealogy of Jesus from Luke and John 10:14-18. I couldn’t find a photo of the page from John, but here is a picture of the genealogy that I found:
I thought that was incredible.
Afterwards, we headed on a slow walk to the Guinness factory. First stop: the Molly Malone statue.
Molly Malone is a popular song set in Dublin that Wikipedia says is the unofficial anthem of Dublin. The song tells the fictional tale of a fishmonger who sold her seafood on the streets of Dublin, but died young of a fever. The legend has grown, as these things do, and now people say that there was a historical Molly who sold fish by day but was a prostitute at night. Another legend says she was one of the few chaste female street-hawkers of her day.
One thing we know is true: stupid tourists grabbing her have rubbed the bronze off her chest. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Enjoying our walk:
Next, we made the obligatory stop at The Temple Bar. This place was great. Now, I know it’s touristy. But it was also a lot of fun.
This sign told us to eat oysters and drink Guinness:
So we did:
It was really crowded at two in the afternoon with a ton of tourists and a few stag and hen parties, so I’m sure it’s ridiculous at nights. I’m not sure I need that experience, but I’m glad we made the stop.
Then we headed over to the Guinness Storefront.
This is something that Michael hadn’t done previously but had heard good things about, specifically, the view while drinking your beer. OK. The tour was self guided and it was fine. We’ve been on quite a few brewery tours before and I’ll say that most smaller breweries are better tours because you end up speaking with some people who are super excited about beer and what they’re doing. The exception is Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis where I’ve seen some really great tours with outstanding tour guides who give a lot of great inside information about the history not only of the company but how it relates to St. Louis as well. This was not that.
But – did you know that the word beer comes from the word baere which means barley? Me neither.
Apparently it’s only possibly true. The google machine is telling me that the more common assumption is that beer comes from the Latin word bibere which means to drink which then went to monastic Latin biber which means a drink, to old English/Dutch/German words beor/bier/bier which then became beer.
But it was a really cool space.
And they did teach you how to drink a Guinness in a tiny glass before handing over the full sized pints.
And the view of the city from the top was indeed amazing.
But there were so many tourists that people were constantly bumping into you and taking selfies. We got out of dodge as fast as we could.
Unrelated: did you know that ostriches don’t actually bury their heads in the sand?
After Guinness, we dropped into another pub to grab some food. This is a marathon, people, not a sprint. Fish and chips! The picture doesn’t look that great. But they tasted great and it was my first fish and chips in Ireland!
Then we headed to the big event for the day!!! The literary pub crawl!!!
Michael had done this tour the last time he was in town and loved it. And as I love books, this was the perfect tour for us. It started at The Duke Pub at 7:30. So we got to the bar and grabbed some pints.
The tour started with a song and then two actors went on to perform dramatic readings from a handful of Dublin writers including Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot, and James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses. We stopped at several pubs that were chosen for a handful of reasons. But many of the stops were relevant specifically to the novel Ulysses.
O’Neills is over 300 years old. That’s an old pub.
I would like to say that we have tons of information that I can share with you from this pub crawl. I don’t. We were drinking beers all day. My main takeaway is that I’m going to try to read Ulysses. That was actually the running joke all night that no one has ever read the entire thing. But now’s the time, if I’m ever going to do it.
What I can definitely say is that it was a blast. The actors were great. It was not hokey. And Michael took second place in the end of tour quiz. Of course he did. I would definitely recommend this tour and the next time we’re back in town, we’ll definitely be doing it again.
This is our group at the end of the night participating in the quiz:
Here is Michael with his winnings. He was really excited.
When the tour ended, we stayed at the last bar and had a great conversation with a guy named Eddie. He lives outside Dublin but was in town for the Ed Sheeran concert. Well, his wife and kids were there, while he was at his favorite bar. We talked with him for quite some time and had great conversation.
There is a big vote in Ireland on May 25, while we’re still in the country. It is a referendum to repeal anti abortion laws. And the city is littered with signs from both sides stating facts and opinions. As is the case with most heated topics, some of the facts on signs leave me wondering just how truthful they were being. This topic came up with our new friend Eddie. We hadn’t had a chance yet to talk to anyone from Ireland about the topic and we spent 20 or so minutes trying to get his opinion on the matter without suggesting our thoughts on the matter.
This conversation could have been a disaster. Once again, all three of us were a few beers in, and talking about such a charged issue is better done with a clear head. But the conversation was great. For being a really normal, working class guy, he was educated on the topic, seemed to understand both sides of the argument and seemed honestly torn between which way he’d vote. He understood the information that was being thrown around and was cautious about accepting any of it from either side at face value. Thoughtful and well informed discussion about a tough topic. How about that? We left the conversation at that and moved on to talking about other important things, like a detailed conversation about the documentary, “The Last Waltz”, about the band, The Band.
