Then off to find breakfast. Found a place advertising cooked breakfast and went in to investigate, but it was like Coles cafeteria so we gave that a miss and headed up to Grafton Street, thinking there might be something up there. Not much to be seen so we asked one of the flower ladies, who was setting up her stall. She recommended Metro Cafe, which was perfect - lovely cafe with music playing, booth seating and great atmosphere, eggs on toast and an Australian waitress from Tasmania.
Then it's off to our first official activity of the trip - the Book of Kells and the Long Room at Trinity College.
I'm actually not too sure what the Book of Kells is - something religious. Anyway, we go into the courtyard and there is a guy explaining something to the crowds inside. Apparently the Book of Kells is closed today - it's experiencing technical difficulties? How is that possible? It's a book, isn't it? How can a book have technical difficulties?
I'm not actually too worried about not being able to see that, it's the Long Room I'm really interested in seeing and it certainly does not disappoint! An amazing building!
The Long Room is described as being filled with 200,000 of the library's oldest books and is one of the most impressive libraries in the world. It was built between 1712 and 1732 and has a collection of marble busts. So amazing.
Next, we head up to Dublin Castle, stopping on the way at the St Stephen's Shopping Centre to get some tickets for next week. For a shopping mall, this is a really nice one...
Up to the castle where we choose the self-guided tour and inside. Some magnificent rooms - here are the drawing room, throne room and ceremonial room...
Here they had a display talking about hair, makeup, clothing and customs of the era, with interesting bits of information like the wearing of beauty spots was to cover smallpox marks, if they bathed more than once every couple of months, that was considered excessive and they could scratch lice under the wigs.
There was also the portrait gallery which held the banquet table, where they would serve puffin, pig, lark and badger...
The ceremonial room is where they hold the inaugurations of the Irish presidents.
The grand staircase, randomly, was almost empty when we came across it...
After a bit of culture, back to the hotel for a sit and relax before heading out again, to the Little Museum of Dublin.
As the poster says, "The amazing story of Dublin in 29 minutes." This was fabulous! We got there a little bit early and had time to wander through the George Bernard Shaw display...
..before heading up to the second floor to a room all decorated in posters and paraphernalia about Dublin through the ages.
Our guide is Ronan, which he tells us means 'Little Seal'. He is great - enthusiastic and very informative. He starts by finding out where everyone is from and it's quite a diverse group - French, Dutch, American, Swiss, Greek, we are the only two Australians. Then it's the history of Ireland - very interesting and very difficult to recount!
Lots about the Easter Rising, including the fact that there was an hour truce in fighting in St Stephen's Green so the ducks could be fed. And as they had limited funds, the zoo had to decide which animals would be fed (the lions won) and which animals helped the lions win.... Also the zoo sold one of the lions to MGM and it was one of the first that roared in their opening banner.
Learned that Michael Collins was more than just a character played by Liam Neeson - he was the minister for finance and minister for home affairs and he went to London to try and negotiate an independence treaty, and he came away with the separation of north and south Ireland, that started many conflicts.
There was the poet Brendan Behan who was known as a big drinker - and that was by Irish standards! He negotiated to create a slogan for Guinness and to be paid in Guinness instead of money. It took him six months to come up with the slogan 'Guinness gets you drunk'. Needless to say, they didn't use that slogan, they went with 'Guinness is good' or something like that.
He told of how Ireland was one of the first to legislate for same sex marriage and said how most of the countries represented in the crowd were there too, and then he looked at us, "And Australia...?"
So much history, so well told, with lots of humour. It was only half an hour but so much interesting information. It was hard to get a photo of Ronan as he was so animated! Here he is, though...
After the official part of the tour, we wandered around the other levels - there was a U2 exhibition room and an Irish Times room...
And that was the Little Museum of Dublin! Off to a pasta place for dinner before heading back for another earlish night - we're nearly back on track but not quite, yet...
No comments:
Post a Comment