Dublin, Ireland, Day 2 November 6, 2011

Sunshine again???  We are blessed!!!  Another glorious day to explore Dublin.  Today is Sunday and the museums do not open until 1400 (2PM).  This makes for a perfect time to find that darn GeoCache that we couldn’t find the other night.

Back to the Buddhist Meditation Center we go - in broad daylight.  We look and look and look to no avail.  By now we are feeling like big time trespassers and hope the police won’t be showing up to haul us off to the real jail:-).

Finally in extreme frustration Cat says she gives up.  Then as we are walking down the street she says that the overhead map shows an alley by the site.  So we walk across the street to an alley next to which is a metal box that hold telephone wires, she reaches behind and sure enough there it is!!!  The GPS coordinates in the instructions were WAY off.  Now she is feeling really good that she found a geo cache in Ireland.

Next we get on the hop on hop off bus and begin to take the ride all around Dublin.  We decide to stop at Trinity College to see he Book of Kells.  When I was last in Dublin it was located up in the long library under glass.  Now they have a proper exhibit that costs 10 Euro for Cat and 8 Euro for me (senior :)).  And what a wonderful exhibit it is.  They have blown up some of the more ornately decorated pages from the book as big posters on the walls (see above pictures).  There are samples of the minerals and plants that were used to make the ink used by the monks as well as the story of how the pages were written and then decorated.  A chart of the alphabet used was also on the wall.  We note that there is no K or W and that I&J are the same symbol.  While it is A,B,C, etc.some of the symbols looked nothing like the letter they represent.

Having the posters there was wonderful because only two pages of the book can be seen under the glass and they only change the pages every three months.  It takes 75 years to get through the whole book that way.

Up in the long library we gaze at all of the books on the shelves.  The shelves soar up  the walls to the ceiling towering 30 feet above us.  There are ladders that go up to the top shelves and the librarian climbs up to retrieve books that have been requested by the students and professors.  There are reading rooms off the upper levels.

Cat asks the guard what is the youngest book?  He replies the yellow pages of the phone book.  The Irish wit quick and sharp is so fun.  We all have a laugh, but then as we are wandering around the guard approaches us and, with a twinkle in his eye, he slaps a book on the case where we are standing.  It is the yellow pages! A worn, torn, dogeared copy that looks at least 20 years old. We have another laugh. The Irish are so friendly, helpful and have a great sense of humor.

It is now almost time for the museums to open and we want to go to the Archeology Museum where the “bog bodies” and the Egyptian artifacts are shown along with items from ancient Ireland.  We hop on the bus once more and then get off by St Stephens Green and wander to the museum.

Cat cannot get over the gold jewelry pieces that are 5,000 years old.  They resemble pieces from Egypt during that time period further solidifying my gut feeling that there was some form of communication between the ancient Irish and the ancient Egyptians.  It IS amazing to see something made by man that is so old but yet could be from today in the finest jewelry shops.

We wander from room to room learning about ancient Ireland.  Then we stroll through the small but lovely Egyptian collection.  It is fun for me to see Cat’s enthusiasm about these ancient cultures.  As we are leaving the Egyptian exhibit and the mummies found there, she begins to swing her arms around saying that she couldn’t be buried that way because her arms have to be free and she would feel claustrophobic.  I say dead is dead and she wouldn’t even know. I say this as we are passing one of the museum guards.  He laughs and says exactly so.  We stop to chat.  He takes us to see one of the most amazing pieces in the entire jewelry collection.  It is called the Tara Brooch.  We had passed it and admired it, but until he shows us the different symbols on it, we did not appreciate or even see its finer points.

Made of cast silver-gilt, the brooch consists of a ring with a broad expanded area and a long free-swivelling pin. A knitted chain is attached to one side by an animal head grasping a hinged tab. Every surface is decorated. The margins of the ring carry fish-tailed animals in relief, the front carries elaborate filigree ornaments of animals contorted into elaborate knots and interlace embellished with gold granules. Different types of wire and gold strip are used in a variety of combinations to produce a sumptuous effect. Amber and enamel decorate the settings. The hinged tab is a composition of animal heads with two tiny cast-glass human heads. The reverse carries a tightly-packed group of patterns in cast work - beasts, including, in the centre of the broad area, a pair of entwined animals, and, on the margin of the ring a procession of birds. The silvered panels on the reverse bear elaborate scrollwork of spiral ornament in the La Tène style. The design is seen as copper showing through a thin silver layer. A similar technique is used to produce the pattern on the keystone panel of the ring but here the copper is overlaid by a thin layer of gold.  All in all a fabulous piece.

Next - the “bog bodies”.  Here in Ireland and in other parts of the world there are areas called bogs.  Here they are a source of fuel especially in the past.  Men work in the bogs cutting brick shaped peat out of the bogs

A few thousand years ago, someone living in what is now Ireland made some butter, stuck it into an oak barrel, wandered out into a bog about 25 miles west of Dublin, and buried it.

Somehow, that someone lost track of it, which two lucky archaeologists discovered earlier this year when they dug up the stashed loot from the Gilltown bog, between the Irish towns of Timahoe and Staplestown.

But that wasn’t the first keg of butter that’s been preserved by the strange chemistry of the bog. Or the 10th; more than 270 kegs of bog butter have been retrieved from the wetlands, along with dozens of ancient bodies, swords, and ornaments all of which have pulled from the peat.

All kinds of bodies have been found with their skin and organs intact. The objects are preserved by the remarkable properties of Sphagnum mosses, which come with preservatives built into their cell walls. After they die, they decay very slowly. and anything that falls into the Sphagnum peat bogs decays more slowly, too.

We hop the bus once more and squeeze in one more activity called Dublinia.  It is a heritage site located in the heart of medieval Dublin that exhibits three stages in Dublin’s history.  First is Viking Dublin depicting what life was like when the Vikings lived in the area.  Then Medieval Dublin shows the black plague, a rich merchants house and other scenes from that time.  Third is an exhibit of today and includes how archeological finds are handled in modern Dublin.

Another fabulous and informative day and we haven’t even scratched the surface of what Dublin offers.  We realize that two days is not nearly enough, but we love what we have experienced.

Since we are packing up and leaving tomorrow for New Ross and the Creacon Retreat, we decide to make an early night, have room service and watch the SF 49er game.  What??? You say -the niners game on TV in Ireland???  Well, being a lady of the Empire there is no way Cat will miss the game, soooo she has found a way to watch it over the internet! 

They win making their record 7 and 1 and all is right with the world!