Day 4 - Heading to the Coast

For my last morning in Dublin this week, I finally visited the Old Library at Trinity College.  I haven’t seen the Guinness Storehouse yet, but it’s rank in my priority list of touristy things is far below the Old Library, if that gives a general idea of how much I wanted to see this place.  The Old Library is where the Book of Kells is kept.  For those of you not familiar with the Book of Kells, this famous Irish book was written over a 1,000 years ago by monks of the Irish church.  The Book of Kells was written in Latin about the Four Gospels, with immaculate, beautiful colors and art.  Although I only saw a couple of pages of the actual book, they had large pictures displayed on the walls to give a better view of the book’s contents.  Couldn’t take any pictures, but that’s fairly standard for historical sites. 

What was far better than the Book of Kells was the Long Room in the Old Library. This place is by far the very best thing I have seen in Ireland so far. The Long Room is the main chamber of the Old Library, has around 200,000 of the Library’s oldest books (clearly not for touching).  Also, the harp inside is the oldest surviving Irish harp, dated from the 15^th century.  The Long Room has a big display of many old medical books that doctors used, a few tools similar to the ones I saw in Sighisoara, Romania’s Clock Tower Museum, and the death mask of Jonathon Swift.  It was dark, musty, and just made me want to hang out and write my novel.  Absolutely spectacular. 

I thoroughly enjoyed my morning dose of history.   We’re pretty much off for the day, I’m writing this on the bus to Sligo, which is on the west coast of Ireland.  I’ve seen a few sheep, but this is a busy highway so they won’t be crossing the road here.  I’ll likely run into “rush hour” with sheep in the area I’m headed to.  Dublin is okay, but it’s fairly touristy and a little dirty in some areas.  I hope next week on my last two days in Dublin to see the Dublin Castle and the Guinness Storehouse, if there’s time.  My class has been invited to a private tour of the Dail (Ireland’s version of the White House), which I guess is very hard to get.  We’re feeling quite special. J  

Next blog will be from Sligo!

Oh and happy birthday to my big sister, Emily!