Dublin
Friday and Saturday, October 21 and 22, 2005
My lunch appointment in Dublin never confirmed a location, so I sleep in and delay my departure from Knockanbrack. Mary has generously offered to loan me a package of photographs – some a hundred years old – to bring home, scan and mail back to her. We go through them and for those that are not already labeled we write on the back who is in picture.
Departing, even at 11:00 AM, is far to soon for Mary.
I drive northwest through Tipperary and on to Cashel, taking a brief detour for a few photographs. Then it is a straight shot on the motorway to Dublin.
Dublin is a more cosmopolitan city. Many more people of color, Asians and Europeans than I have seen elsewhere. And this is seemingly not a new phenomena – during my stay I will order a sandwich from an Asian women with and Irish accent and purchase an item from a black woman with the same. It is an old “big” city. The buildings are no taller than what I saw in Limerick, but there is more litter and graffiti that is rarely seen in the west. It has the accumulated soot and dirt of centuries upon it. There is also big city traffic.
The maps are good and I find the guesthouse on the north side. I arrive around 3:45 PM. As I enter this building the co-owner gives me his card -- my hosts are Mary and Joseph, and my room at the inn is waiting. But this Joseph is a Romanian immigrant.
I decide to spend the evening catching up. After checking my e-mail, I do my last preparations for the work in London and catch up on these blog entries. That done, at around 8:00 I walk to a pub / restaurant several blocks down the street for dinner. Above the mantel in the dinning area are three photographs of Bill and Hillary Clinton during a Presidential visit. The friendly waitress speaks with a clipped German accent. The menu includes stir-fry, Mexican, Cajun, and pasta entrees. And this “historic neighborhood pub” is one of four owned by the folks. Dublin is an international city.
After breakfast, I fully catch up on my work and send out e-mails. Shortly after lunch I take the short bus ride into the center city. There are bus lanes along most of the major roads and bus transportation is well used. The double deckers are full and frequent, and even so there is much traffic.
As luck would have it, I get off a block from the Abbey Theater – I take photograph for my daughter the aspiring actress. I spend some time wondering the city and then head for Trinity College. I stroll down O’Connell Street. It is a beautiful, wide boulevard with statues of Irish heroes dotting the median. I find the College. You enter into the main court through an archway in the building facing College Square and what had been the Parliament during colonial rule. The architecture is wonderful and it has the feel of a rich academic environment – adjacent to but separate from the many attractions and distractions outside.
I follow the signs for the Book of Kells. I purchase my ticket and walk through the fascinating exhibit on how these works were done on by Irish monks over a thousand years ago. I learn many things including the fact that velum was originally made of calf’s skin and that is what the pages of these books are made of. I then have the opportunity to look at four open books – two are the Book of Kells and two are similar Irish bibles hand transcribed in the 7th and 8th century. They are quite amazing.
Next it is up the stairs to the Long Room that turns out to be the original College Library. This huge two-story room is full floor to ceiling with very old books. There are display tables down the center aisle containing texts used during the schools history. The first is a first edition of Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Farther along are first editions of books by Newton, Faraday, and others. There are anatomy and medical books that would fascinate Amanda. It is an inspiring room. Even though it is an Anglican school, this room makes me wish I had studied here.
As the sun is setting I wander through the Temple Bar area – an old section on the left bank out side the College filled with wonderful pubs, restaurants and shops. I stop at a shop to purchase some gifts fro family back home and then circle back to a place that advertised real Irish food and Music.
Oliver St. John Gugarts’s has a pub with modern music on the first floor, a pub with Irish music on the second, a restaurant on the third and guest accommodations on the forth. I start on the third floor. The food is Irish – I order a chicken casserole from a 1780 recipe – and the excellent wait staff is a mixture of all but. After dinner I walk down to the second floor. About 8:45 PM the next group on the daily 12-hour rotation of musicians begins playing. A few years ago, with my asthma I would not be able to enjoy the music but now all pubs and restaurants in the Republic are smoke free and I heard on the radio that the success of this has inspired the North to propose a similar policy. Here I am in Dublin, sitting in an Irish Pub, sipping Baileys and listening to very good Irish music – a dream that I had not expected to become reality even 4 weeks ago. All that is missing is my wife Amanda, or my friend Russell here to enjoy it with.
With a busy three days coming up as the 10:00 hour approaches I reluctantly depart. I stroll across the Half Penny Foot Bridge and then back down O’Connell Street. I catch a bus and by 10:30 I am in my room.
My lunch appointment in Dublin never confirmed a location, so I sleep in and delay my departure from Knockanbrack. Mary has generously offered to loan me a package of photographs – some a hundred years old – to bring home, scan and mail back to her. We go through them and for those that are not already labeled we write on the back who is in picture.
Departing, even at 11:00 AM, is far to soon for Mary.
I drive northwest through Tipperary and on to Cashel, taking a brief detour for a few photographs. Then it is a straight shot on the motorway to Dublin.
Dublin is a more cosmopolitan city. Many more people of color, Asians and Europeans than I have seen elsewhere. And this is seemingly not a new phenomena – during my stay I will order a sandwich from an Asian women with and Irish accent and purchase an item from a black woman with the same. It is an old “big” city. The buildings are no taller than what I saw in Limerick, but there is more litter and graffiti that is rarely seen in the west. It has the accumulated soot and dirt of centuries upon it. There is also big city traffic.
The maps are good and I find the guesthouse on the north side. I arrive around 3:45 PM. As I enter this building the co-owner gives me his card -- my hosts are Mary and Joseph, and my room at the inn is waiting. But this Joseph is a Romanian immigrant.
I decide to spend the evening catching up. After checking my e-mail, I do my last preparations for the work in London and catch up on these blog entries. That done, at around 8:00 I walk to a pub / restaurant several blocks down the street for dinner. Above the mantel in the dinning area are three photographs of Bill and Hillary Clinton during a Presidential visit. The friendly waitress speaks with a clipped German accent. The menu includes stir-fry, Mexican, Cajun, and pasta entrees. And this “historic neighborhood pub” is one of four owned by the folks. Dublin is an international city.
After breakfast, I fully catch up on my work and send out e-mails. Shortly after lunch I take the short bus ride into the center city. There are bus lanes along most of the major roads and bus transportation is well used. The double deckers are full and frequent, and even so there is much traffic.
As luck would have it, I get off a block from the Abbey Theater – I take photograph for my daughter the aspiring actress. I spend some time wondering the city and then head for Trinity College. I stroll down O’Connell Street. It is a beautiful, wide boulevard with statues of Irish heroes dotting the median. I find the College. You enter into the main court through an archway in the building facing College Square and what had been the Parliament during colonial rule. The architecture is wonderful and it has the feel of a rich academic environment – adjacent to but separate from the many attractions and distractions outside.
I follow the signs for the Book of Kells. I purchase my ticket and walk through the fascinating exhibit on how these works were done on by Irish monks over a thousand years ago. I learn many things including the fact that velum was originally made of calf’s skin and that is what the pages of these books are made of. I then have the opportunity to look at four open books – two are the Book of Kells and two are similar Irish bibles hand transcribed in the 7th and 8th century. They are quite amazing.
Next it is up the stairs to the Long Room that turns out to be the original College Library. This huge two-story room is full floor to ceiling with very old books. There are display tables down the center aisle containing texts used during the schools history. The first is a first edition of Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Farther along are first editions of books by Newton, Faraday, and others. There are anatomy and medical books that would fascinate Amanda. It is an inspiring room. Even though it is an Anglican school, this room makes me wish I had studied here.
As the sun is setting I wander through the Temple Bar area – an old section on the left bank out side the College filled with wonderful pubs, restaurants and shops. I stop at a shop to purchase some gifts fro family back home and then circle back to a place that advertised real Irish food and Music.
Oliver St. John Gugarts’s has a pub with modern music on the first floor, a pub with Irish music on the second, a restaurant on the third and guest accommodations on the forth. I start on the third floor. The food is Irish – I order a chicken casserole from a 1780 recipe – and the excellent wait staff is a mixture of all but. After dinner I walk down to the second floor. About 8:45 PM the next group on the daily 12-hour rotation of musicians begins playing. A few years ago, with my asthma I would not be able to enjoy the music but now all pubs and restaurants in the Republic are smoke free and I heard on the radio that the success of this has inspired the North to propose a similar policy. Here I am in Dublin, sitting in an Irish Pub, sipping Baileys and listening to very good Irish music – a dream that I had not expected to become reality even 4 weeks ago. All that is missing is my wife Amanda, or my friend Russell here to enjoy it with.
With a busy three days coming up as the 10:00 hour approaches I reluctantly depart. I stroll across the Half Penny Foot Bridge and then back down O’Connell Street. I catch a bus and by 10:30 I am in my room.
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10:01 AM
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