Trinity

Day 3

Today I went to Trinity College. I walked all around the outer border, just to be thorough, and then I went through the South side gate onto campus. The buildings are aligned so that they form protected commons areas in the middle, and any gaps between buildings are connected by a tall stone wall. It effectively hides campus from the rest of Dublin, and creates a quiet, grassy, green space in the middle. 

I walked right to the building housing the Book of Kells. The line was long, but I knew it'd be worth it. Once I finally got my ticket I wandered freely through the displays. Each display housed a codex of the collection. One was small, the size of printer paper nowadays, that was originally the pocket size version, easily carried around. The other three were much larger, probably 1.5 ft by 2 ft. All were ornately decorated, in rich dark red, vibrant blues, shiny emerald green, and gold. The lines are perfectly straight and even, which is impressive! I couldn't detect any lines on the pages (as is common for that day and age - scribes used to painstakingly grid-line their pages before they wrote in them, so that it was neat and orderly) and it's not as if they had typewriters or printers to maintain even spacing. The books are so old they're written on vellum, which is animal hide. The covers were thick leather, some brown, some red. It was written in the early ninth century, and was moved to Trinity for safekeeping in 1661, where it is today. It's kept in permanent displays in the ground floor of The Old Library. 

The Long Room, the floor above where the Book of Kells is kept in The Old Library, is even better. It houses 200,000 of the library's oldest books. (The others are in the 7 other buildings that comprise Trinity's library.) Rows of grand, wooden arches run the length of the hall on both sides, each an entrance to a cove of books that run solid from arch to wall, and floor to ceiling. Two ladders run the side shelves so the books on the top shelves can be reached. Then there's a second story above that, with the same thing! On the first floor there are busts of significant figures at the end of every shelf. Everyone from Homer to Shakespeare to Swift. The ceiling is also wood, and it's all dark and shiny, and it smells good. It's a massive hall containing beautifully worked wood and really, really old books. It's heaven. It also houses the oldest surviving harp in Ireland; the very same one that's on Irish coins. It's pretty cool! 

I was able to take pictures of the Long Room, but pictures are entirely banned in the Book of Kells display room. It's a bummer because it's hard to even envision what a book that old really looks like. 

By then Kim and Garrett had caught up to me, and we wandered through campus some, but they were really hungry so we left in search of food. On the way I persuaded them to detour to Mulligans, a 300 year old bar known for pouring the best Guinness in Ireland. It's a lovely little bar! For being so famous, it's still very much a local's bar. It was filled with old men discussing their medications, and middle aged parties celebrating birthdays and the latest Rugby win. It probably helps that it's hard to find. It's not in a particularly touristy spot, hidden back a few blocks from the Garda station in the beginnings of the business side of town, and to the untrained eye it doesn't seem like much from the outside. But I knew what I was looking for because again I had done my research!

We, of course, had ourselves the best Guinness I've ever had, but they didn't serve food, so after drawing out the creamiest-beer-of-all-time as long as I could, we left to again pursue food. We found it in an old, ornate corner building just around the block, right across the street from the Northwest corner of Trinity and a stones throw from Temple Bar. It was right next to the bookstore that I'd perused just before I went to visit Trinity; the bookstore where I purchased a copy of The Way I Walked, published in 1937 by Robert Lloyd Praeger, a famous botanist whose works are still studied to this day, who is apparently my great uncle! Cool! And, the bookstore reminded me of the fictional one in my favorite book series, which takes place in Dublin. It was packed full of books, with a winding staircase that went up and up and up for 4 stories; quant, cozy, and a slight air of mystery about it. I was in heaven all day!

After all that, we took a quick jaunt down to Temple Bar to witness the beginnings of the nightly parties and pub crawls, took a few pictures, then headed back to the apartment. We took the long way home, circling back around and walking back through the festively lit shopping district to the south of Trinity, same as last night for me. Kim wanted to go shopping. We fit a little shopping in but stores were mostly closed by the time we got to the best parts. That's okay. Shopping can be done anywhere, any time. 

We didn't get to Dublin Castle or the Guinness Factory today, but that's okay too. The Guinness Factory no longer produces Guiness, so it's not as much of a beer tasting and tour as it is a museum. I can do that next time. The castle would be sweet, but I may be able to fit that in tomorrow. It's on the way to the train station where I'm hopping on a train to go to Galway, only a 2.5 hour train ride! I can't wait to see the Irish country!