Éire go Brách - Part V

Today I didn't really know what I wanted to do. There are still plenty of things I want to do, but nothing was really calling me. I thought about the fact that I never made it to Trinity College my first full day here so I decided to fix that and go see the Book of Kells and the Long Room housed there while I was at it. After grabbing some lunch at what has become my go-to place near my room, The Parnell, I took the short walk down to the Trinity College campus. Trinity College is a very old college, founded in 1592, and the older parts of the modern college grounds date from somewhere in the mid-1700s. It's an interesting campus because it's in the center of downtown Dublin, but once you walk through the doors of the main gate you are instantly in the world of academia and could almost forget the double-decker buses, taxis, and street sweepers outside. But it's also a very busy campus as it's an active college but also one of the biggest tourist attractions in the city because of the Book of Kells. Fortunately for the students there are a limited number of places the average tourist can get into, so they do have their sanctuaries, but the grounds themselves are wide open and teeming with people. The main attraction to the college is, of course, the Book of Kells.

The book dates back to approximately 800AD and contains the four Gospels of the New Testament. Probably it's most notable feature are it's intricately detailed and fabulously preserved illuminated, or illustrated, pages. The illuminations combine the talents of various artists to emphasize certain elements of the text, but there are also highly stylized pages of illustrations of the Four Evangelists or Virgin and Child. The college has a nice setup for the book with a large anteroom full of explanations of the process of making such a book, other examples of rare illuminated books, as well as a brief history of the Book of Kells. It's self-guided, but not hard to follow and takes a max of 30 minutes if you pore over everything. This anteroom then leads to a smaller, dimly lit room with a large, low stainless steel clad display case with two of the four folios from the Book of Kells open; one to a page with large, full-page illumination, and the other to page that gives a good idea of what a standard page of text (in Latin) looks like. There are also two other extremely old, rare books that are on display along with the Book of Kells but they really pale in comparison. Although the book and it's history is interesting and impressive, the thing I really wanted to see was what they call the Long Room.

The Long Room is...long. It's also very tall. The Long Room is a library of old and rare books in a long open room with two stories of shelves and a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The room is floor to ceiling rich, dark wood, tall windows that let in a surprising amount of light, and tons of books with old, tattered, stained, torn, and cracking covers. The shelves are in alcoves on each side of the room with windows facing into the main room. At each section between alcoves is a bust of a famous figure in literature, in academia, in Irish and the college's history, and even a few that they don't seem to know exactly who the people are. The room oozes age and knowledge and has a smell of old paper mixed with a weird sweetness. It's just a beautiful, old room. My only disappointment was that you weren't allowed to go up to the second floor, which would'v made for a great view of the whole room.

After sitting for quite some time and just taking in the Long Room I left Trinity College and didn't know what to do next. While walking to the Guinness Storehouse yesterday I saw a pub called The Brazen Head that labeled itself the oldest pub in Ireland. I decided to head in that general direction, not really remembering exactly how far it was, and just started strolling down a long and busy street that seems to change names quite a few times on it's way. Along the way I passed Christ Church Cathedral and stopped in. It's a very pretty church that has been built and rebuilt several times, with most of what stands now having been built in the 1870s with some elements of the 14th century church, mostly the crypt, still around here and there. It's connected by bridge to a museum on the other side of the street, called Dublinia, in another part of the church. Dublinia is a museum geared towards the Viking and Medieval history of Ireland. It was about to close so I didn't go in. After some more walking I found my way to The Brazen Head, which is indeed an old pub. The establishment itself claims 1198 as its origins, but the current pub is closer to 400-500 years old. It's a pretty nice pub that serves a good pint and I had a really good plate of bangers and mash (sausage and mashed potatoes). Their sausage was WAY better than that served for breakfast at my hotel that I have trouble waking up early enough to eat. If the sausage was that good, I'd try a lot harder. On the way home I did stroll through Temple Bar again but it was a bit early so it wasn't yet that busy. I went back to my room expecting to rest up a bit before heading back out, but once I got in I realized how tired I was and decided that was going to be my night. Tomorrow I'm thinking of heading towards the waterfront, which I've not gotten anywhere near yet.