Dublin

First thing we did when we arrived (late at night) was to find the hostel. Once again, I took longer at the airport even though my immigration line was much shorter (two people versus 60). This is because the non-EU citizens have to answer questions upon entering a country and Jess holds a UK passport.

Our first day in Dublin we took a free walking tour based on the theme “Dublin in the 19^th Century.” We went to St. Stephen’s Green, a park which was used for public executions, passed the house Oscar Wilde grew up in, walked through Trinity College and ended up in front of the port at a statue remembering the Potato Famine. The tour guide was a girl our age who was born in Dublin to Romanian and Israeli parents, but grew up in Canada. She sounded like she was a college student from the northeast.

That afternoon, a Sunday, we wandered around the city a bit, passing through Dublin Castle, many cafes, an Asian supermarket (where I bought dried yams and plantain chips), and passed the oldest pub in the city (from the 1100s). We also visited the National Gallery of Ireland and I discovered a new painter I like: Jack B. Yeats. He’s an impressionist painter and uses lots of bright colors in his images. He wasn’t actually Irish (born in London), but he lived there for a long time.

We also stumbled upon an exhibit called “Infectious: Stay Away.” We had to wear pendants that lit up when we became “infected” with the “disease.” The exhibit was put on by The Science Gallery at Trinity College and there were people around to answer questions about germs and how disease can spread. One part of the exhibit was a mental game. Two people sit on opposite sides of a table with headbands around their heads. In between then is a ball on a track on the table and some computer screens which are attached to the headbands by a cable. The ball starts in the center and you have to “push” it mentally toward the other person. The computer screens show brain activity. The person who is able to relax more will be able to push the ball to the other side. I lost horribly….three times. Apparently, Jess is better at relaxing than I am.

Monday, we started early, heading first to see the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript. The exhibition showed first how illuminated manuscripts were made: different paint colors, paper types, and symbols used. Then you enter a dark room where the book is in a glass case in the center and you can lean over it and read the open page. There are actually four books in the set (one for each of the four gospels), two of which are on display. It was pretty impressive to see such workmanship in real life, especially since I had studied them in art history class.

After seeing the book, we continued upstairs to an old library. The room had a vaulted ceiling (the vaulting was added to allow for more space for books) and was really long and narrow. There was an exhibit on the mystery book, which I wasn’t too interested in, but the room and being inside this library was extremely cool.

Next stop was to the National College of Art and Design for its graduate student show. Each department took over a different part of the school. We started in the glass and ceramic area, where students had well-thought and put together projects. Next we saw media instillations which weren’t that exciting, except for one in which the viewer is told to watch a movie and is actually on camera and can be seen from another room.

We went next to Kilmainham Gaol, a prison from the Victorian era and the place where the organizers of the 1916 Easter Rebellion were held. During the plague people committed crimes because they wanted to be arrested and thrown into the jail. This was because prisoners’ rations were sufficient, whereas the average person had trouble feeding himself. At first I though our tour was going to be awful because there were 50 or 60 people and one guide. However, he was great: quite a character and made the few children in the group participate. Throughout the tour we were shown where prisoners slept, prayed, and exercised. We also saw where the 1916 organizers were shot. The jail’s museum had a lot of photos, letters and other objects left behind by the prisoners.

Monday evening we went to Howth, a coastal town near Dublin. We actually took the city bus there. First we walked the pier and took pictures of the lighthouse. Then we walked up one side of the town, which is a peninsula, and climbed around on the cliffs. We took some pictures of the pier and town from above and then went and got dinner at a place called the Bloody Stream, where I had a seafood plate and cider. We went back to Dublin that evening and went to sleep early.

Tuesday morning we went to the National Museum of Ireland. The building was more interesting than most of the collection it housed. There was a main room with wrought iron arches and highly complex columns with capitals like pyramids. The best part of the collection was the bog bodies. A body disposed of in a bog can be preserved for thousands of years. The skin is the best-maintained part. The bones are not well preserved and the organs, completely gone. Of the four bog bodies, only one was complete. One had a hand which was so fleshy and substantial that it looked real. Some still had their hair.

We went next door to the National Library where we saw an exhibit on poet WH Yeats’s life and work. The exhibit was thorough and we also attended a reading of his poetry (some Irish actor with his sister accompanying on flute). Later that day we went to another library: the Chester Beatty Library. Beatty was a rich American who collected books and left them to a library established in his name. His collection of old (we’re talking hundreds of years old) books from Asia and the Middle East was incredible. The illustrations were bright and detailed and the range of books was large. In another gallery we saw an exhibit on religion. It contained mostly religious books Beatty collected over the years. Some were scraps of parchment of original bibles from the turn of the century.

I was surprised at how cosmopolitan Dublin was. It’s the capital city and yes, it’s an important city in Ireland, but it’s quite small (450,000). Everywhere we looked there were restaurants from different cultures, hipster cafes, bakeries with gluten-free cupcakes (they had nuts though), skater shops, Urban Outfitters, and tons of local pubs, too. I knew it would be a city, but I didn’t realize it would have quite the diversity it had. The center was still small and walk-able, which was great for touring around.