History brought to life in Dublin

A lazy start this morning as we strolled to Trinity College for an 11am Historical Walking Tour of Dublin. Our guide, Donal, was a doctoral graduate in history at Trinity and he effortlessly kept our group of 30-40 people engaged for over two hours as he led us around the city, with tales from the Vikings through to Irish independence. Apart from Trinity College, we visited the Old Parliament, City Hall, Dublin Castle, Temple Bar and the ruins of the the Norman church next to Christ Church Cathedral.

Old Parliament

Daniel O'Connell monument (detail)

City Hall mosiac - 'Obedient citizens make a happy city',
a somewhat ironic comment considering the history of Dublin!

When the tour ended at the Cathedral, Ian and I spent some time there enjoying the beautiful stained glass windows, the medieval crypt and an exhibition of Tudor period costumes, before returning to Temple Bar for a late lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Christ Church Cathedral

We ended the afternoon back at Trinity College where we queued for the Book of Kells exhibition in the Old Library. There was a lot of interesting material about the production of medieval manuscripts, culminating in a display of two gospels from the Book of Kells and also pages from the Book of Armagh and the Book of Durrow. The Book of Kells was probably produced early in the 9th century and so to some extent lacked the vivid colours of later medieval manuscripts. Nevertheless it was a special experience to see such an iconic book. The exhibition ended in the library Long Room, a spectacular space where 200,000 of the library's oldest books are housed and carefully conserved.

Trinity College Old Library Long Room