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We arrived in Dublin on schedule and proceeded to O’Connell Street to the Gresham Hotel. Will chose this hotel because it is featured in the short story The Dead by James Joyce. The hotel is steps away from the General Post Office or GPO where the Easter uprising of 1916 took place, Patrick Pearse proclaimed the Irish Republic before being arrested and then hanged by the British with the other leaders of the Uprising. This year being the Centennial of the Uprising which lead to the Irish Republic being established, a wonderful exhibit in the GPO can be seen, it is very well done and dramatic. The British in trying to suppress the uprising where ham fisted and showed no mercy and this is were they made their fatal political mistake. The Irish population rallied to the ideas of the patriots and Britain conceded to the Irish after 400 years of misrule. Everywhere in Dublin there are reminders of the Easter uprising of 1916.
I had visited Ireland with my parents in 1969 but did not remember much of that trip. What struck me at first was how similar to PEI the Irish Republic seems to be. Same street names, Grafton, Euston, Great George, etc. The food both seafood, beef and cheese similar to PEI. Music and culture well with our large Irish population on the Island there are lots of similarities with Ireland.
During our visit of 10 days we had several days of wind and rain, though the rain is often misty and not a downpour, though that can happen. No wonder everything is so green. The weather does not stop people from going about their business and the streets were full of people.
Dublin as a city is very cosmopolitan, Spanish and Italian are heard everywhere in the centre of the city. The service industry is dominated by Poles, French and other EU citizens. Ireland is coming out of a period of severe austerity following the economic crash of 2008. There is hope that now that the worst is behind them, life will get better, though there are signs of work unrest and discontent in the population.
We walked quite a lot and went to Trinity College to visit the Book of Kells, which are the four Gospels. What was of interest to me was not so much the actual Gospel pages on display but the whole story around the making of the Gospel books, the illuminations of the pages, the ink made from metals mixed with natural oils, grounded semi-precious stone powder, flowers and excrement of small molluscs and vellum parchment made from calf skin, all of it complex and requiring a lot of careful work.
The books written in Latin are 1200 years old and it is a miracle they survived wars, fire, the Reformation and vandals.
Christ enthroned
We also took a tour of Trinity College which at the time of our visit just about to start the Academic year. The University was built on land Queen Elizabeth I received in inheritance from her father Henry VIII in 1592. The land originally housed a monastery and the square with its clock tower was the monks cemetery. Trinity has had its share of famous alumni, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, Edmund Burke, Samuel Becket to name a few.
The Old Parliament now the Bank of Ireland.
Trinity is located across the street from what is today the Bank of Ireland formerly the Irish Parliament under British rule. We had a lovely tour of the place with a recent graduate student, who told us about housing on the campus which is somewhat primitive to this day, the buildings are old and historically protected so there is a measure of inconvenience like the showers entrance requiring one to walk outside the building to access them, in Winter it is a pretty unpleasant cold experience. The formal dining room of the University is open to professors and graduate students who distinguished themselves and received a prize. The grounds are beautifully kept and on the square there are very old Oregon Maple trees, they usually do not grow to be this big but given that they were planted in the old monastery cemetery and are surrounded by the buildings of the college, they have grown to a majestic state.
Here is one of the Oregon Maples on the Square of Trinity College Dublin
The clock tower on the square of Trinity College, Dublin.
Trinity college residence no 18 on the campus, the area is known as Botany Bay, where disruptive students were housed, this was the residence of Oscar Wilde.
I actually thought the Book of Kells show was a big rip-off: 10E to see two pages. Good though the exhibition was, I could have got that from a book. You do see the library too, though, which is impressive.
Clearly I need to spend more time in Dublin to catch its special flavour. It seemed too small for the enormous number of tourists when we were there (out of season).
The west coast of Ireland is another matter – ah, the Beare peninsula, the Burren and Connemara, some of the most magical places in the world.
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I agree that showing only two pages is checky for 10Euros. The library was interesting but I had seen similar libraries at the Hofburg in Vienna and at Melk Abbey on the Danube, it did not make an impression. It is also true that the city is overrun by tourist and that gives way to a certain negligence towards visitors from business owners.
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“Dubliners” is one of my favorite reads; “A Painful Case” and “The Dead’ are two of my favorite stories.
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Well then you must plan a visit to Dublin you would enjoy it a lot.
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And yes I said yes I will yes
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Dublin is on my list of places to see.
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We visited Dublin a few years ago. Though you are far more cultural than us. We ended up at the Guinness Brewery.
JP
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A very good choice of site to visit. I had my first Guinness on this trip and must say that it was very good, despite the fact I very seldom drink beer. I wish I had had the time to visit the Guinness Brewery in Dublin it looked impressive.
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Our local friends Mark and Mary are from Dublin, now US citizens, or dual citizenship (Is that automatic unless you ‘renounce’ the previous one?) and as sophisticated as they are, can be very touchy when the subject is the emerald isle. I don’t quite get it.
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It depends on the topic. If it is history then I can understand, it is complex and Britain sought to subjugate the Irish and destroy their culture. In a next post I will speak of the Churches in Ireland and later on Ulster where the old hatred are just under the radar. As an outsider I sought to understand by asking questions but did not offer opinions since it is not my country nor my history.
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Just discovered your ideal post-Ireland reading: the great Irish essayist Hubert Butler and the volume of his writings about Ientitled The Eggman and the Fairies. I’ve taken it up after his book of European essays The Invader Wore Slippers, about which I’ve just written on the blog. Both superlative.
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thank you for the reading suggestion. Will look into it. You always make good suggestions on books to read.
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Interesting as always Laurent. I can see now why people are touchy about certain subjects. As an Irish descendent I was always led to believe we were a country of lazy drunks and that’s why England was so wonderful to come over and lift us up to as a society. Now I am discovering what really happened and it’s hard not to feel anger. I have to also admit, I can’t stand Guinness, I think that is probably an Irish sin but it’s like beer mixed with roofing tar to me.
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Great post Laurent! Having never been Ireland, I enjoyed the comments almost as much too. I am fond of libraries and though it didn’t make an impression on you because of others you have seen, I think I may enjoy it.
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Beautiful
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