British Isles-Day 13- Dublin, Eire

Monday, July 25, 2011- Dublin, Eire

We arose at seven A.M. It was a cloudy and cool 58 degrees out. The great ship had berthed in Dublin’s commercial port early this morning. We could see and hear the busy hum of containers being shifted to and fro in the port. The busy port and tourism account for much of the economic base of Dublin. Unemployment is a high 14 % in the area. The Celtic Tiger had come and gone. Times are hard here.

The Horizon’s lounge was our breakfast venue. We sat with an 80 year old couple from Palo Alto, Arkansas and traded anecdotes and
histories,

From the Deck seven Explorer’s Lounge, we walked down the gangway onto the shores of Eire. Celtic Bagpipers were playing some lilting tunes at this early hour. I always enjoy seeing them and listening to the plaintive wail of the pipes.

The bus drove us along the LIffey River that bisects Dublin. We saw the heart tugging scuplting of “The leaving” here. Several ragged, skeletal beggars are portrayed walking on the wharf and getting ready to board one of the awful coffin ships that would take those who survived to America or Canada. A full scale model of the “Jeannie Johnson,” a ship used in that time era, is berthed here as well. She is a source of local pride. Her claim to fame is that while crossing the Atlantic, she had never lost a single passenger to plague or disease.

A series of fifteen bridges crosses the Liffey here and splits the city into two discernible communities, one considerably better off economicallly than the other. The Vikings had first settled here, along the LIffey, in the 800’s. Britain’s King Henry IV had come in 1169 and stayed until the Brits were asked to leave in 1922. The intervening years, until Independence in 1922, had not been good to the native Irish.

The bus made its way across the Liffey and through downtown Dublin. We were headed for Trinity College to see “The Book of Kells.”
Trinity College had been founded in 1592, by Queen Elizabeth I, as a means of educating good Protestant lads and keeping them away from “Popish “ influence in foreign schools. It is made of gray granite stones and sprawls across a considerable expanse of Dublin, with its very green commons and leafy surroundings. The area around it is always awash with students and visitors.

We stood in line, outside of the Library wherein sat the Book of Kells, for about an hour awaiting our turn to enter. When we left the line was even longer. The first section of the exhibit is a print and picture diorama, on pasteboards, that details the inception, construction and interpretation of the four Books on exhibit. The manuscripts are written on Vellum (Calfskin) using a variety of inks. Four monks worked on each page. Each had a different task. Some drew the script, some painted the illustrations and others completed the fine details of the page. A detailed index of the elaborately drawn letters, and what each means, is necessary to read the finely crafted Latin script.

Started in the 800’s by Irish Monks, the two sections of the Book of Kells and the Book of Armagh and Book of Dornoch narrate the four
gospels of the new testament of the Bible. They are elaborately illustrated
with pictograms of birds and animals and people in vividly bright colors. Each of the lines of script is immaculately inscribed with flourishes and curley cues that needs help in translating the ancient Latin script.

The four books are kept under glass on a small table. The compartment is climate controlled to protect the ancient manuscripts. Like everyone else, we crowded around the small table and studied the books in the dimly lit room. Only a few pages are actually on display, but we each in turn marveled at the fine detail, ornate drawings and splendor of a work created some 1200 years ago by a small band of Celtic Monks in an era that we call the Dark ages. The Book is impressive by anyone’s standards.

From the crypt, we climbed up the stairs to the College’s “Long LIbrary.” Two stories of those wonderful old “stacks, with wooden moveable ladders to reach the higher volumes and all piled with texts from the last few hundred years, flank a series of glass cases which house exhibits from the Library’s past. A giant seven-foot human skeleton stands ready for inspection. Medical paraphernalia, musical scores and all manner of records from a few hundred years stand ready to interest the casual observer. Eire’s oldest wooden harp is displayed here. It was reputedly fashioned in the 1500s. The original musical score for the Londonderry Aire (Danny Boy) was of interest to me. It was composed in the 1790s. The Harry Potter movies could have filmed any number of scenes from this quaint old Library.

We were on a tight schedule, so we hurried back to the bus. Our next stop was Dublin Castle. The original central keep had been constructed in 1204 by England’s Kink John, of Magna Cart fame. He must have been a nasty character. A fire had leveled much of the keep in 1684. The current castle dates from that period. It is a quadrangle of stone, turreted walls that surrounds a cobbled stone courtyard which is used for military formations. The two stories of apartments had contained the state rooms of government and administrative offices of the Crown when it had ruled Eire. A detachment of 200 soldiers had been assigned to the rar of the Castle for enforcement of the Crown’s decisions. The Castle holds a mixed appeal to the Irish. It is their display place on formal occasions, but the castle’s awful history in oppressing the Irish, during the last few centuries, still lurks darkly, in the Irish consciousness. The keys of the place had been handed over to Michael Collins in 1922. That is about 15 years after the Irish Crown Jewels had disappeared from these mysterious precincts.

The tour guide escorted us to the entrance of the state rooms. A castle guide led us up a capered stair case to the entrance to the state
rooms. Colorful emblems of the family crests, of Eire’s series of Presidents, bedeck the walls. It is another era for the castle. The textured arras along the walls, the deep carpets and twenty foot ceilings are impressive. The Gold Harp, on the deep blue background, displays Eire’s new national emblem.

The formal drawing room is impressive with its red velvet walls, mirrors along the walls, Waterford chandeliers and deep Donegal carpets over wooden, parquet floors. It had principally been utilized as a gathering and sitting room for women after formal state dinners, while the men lingered over cigars and brandy in the dining room.

Next, we entered the formal dining room. The lushly carpeted hall is
empty save for the oil portraits of the former royal viceroys lining the walls. The English has shipped the formal dining room furniture back home when leaving the place in 1922. Perhaps it is left empty today as a metaphor of their passing.

The throne room is a smaller version of the others. It’s principal furniture is an actual throne cushioned in red velvet. Victoria was the last monarch to actually sit on it during a visit in the 19th century.

Lastly, we entered “St. Patrick’s Hall,” the site of most formal proclamations of state from Eire. The cavernous ceilings shelter a richly carpeted room, adorned along its walls with all manner of Irish flags and emblems. The Society of St. Patrick also meets here on occasions. It is an impressive formal hall for various state ceremonies and receptions.

After our tour of the castle, the bus ferried us near the Grafton Street Pedestrian Mall. Those of us who wished to get off the tour and explore Dublin on foot were welcome to do so. Mary and I got off the bus and walked the few blocks over to Grafton Street. The pedestrian mall was awash with visitors, office workers and all manner of people who were having lunch, watching street performers or just enjoying the sunshine of a cool Irish day in Summer.

We espied the two-story bulk of Bewley’s Oriental Cafe. It is locally famous. We stopped in for Cappuccino and some wonderful scones with
clotted cream and jam. The place was packed wall to wall. We sat for a time and watched the flow of people drift by our window table. It was quite a tableau of a modern and busy Dublin.

After lunch, we blended into the pedestrian stream and drifted up the Mall. A whole line of men, dressed in bright, spandex orange jump suits walked by us. They were advertising some communications company. No heads really turned in surprise. This stuff happens all the time in Dublin. A bronze and much photographed statue of “Molly Malone,” with her cart of cockles and mussels, stands on one corner. The Irish, irreverent as ever, had any number of comments about the young fish monger. Some called her the “tart with the cart.” Others had even more suggestive names for her.

We browsed several gift shops, looking for trinkets and souveniers and then walked a few blocks over looking for the Celtic Liquor Store. Inside, several patrons were looking studiously at the very expensive bottles of Scotch and irish Whiskey. Drams of each were available for tasting. I sampled one or two and bought a fifth of Bushmills for use later aboard ship. We were tiring with the day, so we found a nearby starbucks and settled in with some rather enormous Cappucinos. We sat outside and watched the Dublin traffic, and all of its visitors from many lands, wander by. The people here are really the attraction in central Dublin and well worth the visit.
A few blocks o
ver on Kildare, we found a shuttle that would take us back to the ship for $8 each. It is a nice amenity. As we boarded, a rather anxious man was asking the attendants if they had seen a confused older woman. His Mother, an Alzheimer’s patient, had given them the slip. I can’t even imagine handling that situation in crowded Dublin.

The bus took us back along the Liffey to the commercial port and the berth of the Crown Princess. We ascended to deck fifteen and enjoyed a slice of Pizza in the cool sunshine. Then we headed for the Princess Theater on deck seven. A group of Irish musicians and a small band of Irish step dancers entertained us with traditional ballads and dances. It was a nice touch to compliment our visit to Dublin.

After the performance, we retired to our room. I enjoyed that estimable liquid made by Bushmills as we watched the Irish Piers play dockside. The ship got ready to leave port. At 6:00 P.M. the ship started to gently glide away from the dock. Two passengers ran up to the ship waving frantically and hoping to board. We think they were entertainers.

The ship had gotten underway however and these two unlucky souls were left to the it own devices. They must have known some people however. As the great ship glided through the harbor, we watched a police car drive the two late monsters to the pilot boat, moored nearby. The lucky duo boarded the boat. The small craft followed us until we were ready to put our pilot ashore. They then climbed aboard, much to the embarrassment of their colleague and the general good nattered derision heaped on them.

It had been a long and full day, so we dined late. at 8:30 P.M. We were seated with two very pleasant couples from Lancashire, near Liverpool. Although charming, the accent on one of the men was so thick it was hard for me to keep up our end of the conversation. The other gentleman was a chicken farmer whose agricultural operations produced over 160,000 chickens a year for British consumption. We enjoyed sharing cultures and dinner chat with them. A goat cheese soufflé, mushroom soup, orange roughy fish over spinach and a parfait for dessert, with Mondavi cabernet, made for one more of those memorable meals.

After dinner, we stopped by the Explorer’s Lounge to hear the group “Indigo” play a Beatle’s retrospective. The place was packed. We enjoyed the various tunes that we heard them perform. It reminded us of our visit to Liverpool. Beatle’s music is always fun to listen to. Neither of the two performers looked flustered form their late afternoon run after the ship:)

It was late and we were tired. We returned to our cabin to read (Blood of My Brother-james Lepore) and retire. Tomorrow we would be in Cork, home of many of my ancestors.