May 24 - Dublins' pubs - the original social network

Today we opted for a walking tour of Dublin - and in hindsight, picked poorly. It was JUST that - walking through a number of streets in downtown Dublin, having buildings pointed out to us, but not invited to go in. Darn. A bit disappointing.


However, that said, we did visit the beautiful campus of Trinity College, built in the 1700s as a theology college and strolled through much of the original part of the College and its grounds/playing fields. Lovely. The college library, with its 250,000 titles in 1 room, was featured as it is the home of the Book of Kells, produced by the Irish monks. Alas, to actually see the book was a different tour. So, we heard that it covers the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and is beautifully written with calligraphy, but we'll check it out on-line when we get home.


This piece of art, called "A Sphere within a sphere" was a gift from the Italian government. Our tour guide has renamed it "A new world emerging from an old world" - I think I like that one better. Absolutely eye-catching as it revolves outside the library.

It was a bit of a surprise to hear how "young" independent Ireland really is - 1922 was the date they received independence from England. But even with a separate parliament that deals with local things, they are still responsible to Westminister in London for some matters of business. Our guide provided us with a commentary about the history of wars for takeover and the various reigns of different monarchs. Again surprisingly, we heard that while the population of Ireland was about 8 million at the time of the potato famine in 1847-49, it decreased to 6 million after the famine immigration and today sits at about 4.5 million.

Much of the tour featured the Georgian architecture which can be seen around the 5 main squares in the city (a similar layout can be seen in Bath, England and Edinburgh, Scotland). While quite non-descript when viewed from streetlevel, the houses were very spacious and grand inside. The basement was the kitchen and covered holes are still visible in the sidewalk where coal was delivered to the kitchen below. The first floor (street level basically) was set up for business while the 2nd floor held the high-ceiling drawing room and dining room with beautiful chandelliers (still visible from the street). The third floor was the master bedroom and the "ladies room" where the woman of the house entertained her friends. The top floor was where the children and nanny had bedrooms. An interesting design feature - the windows on successive floors get smaller - an architectural trick apparently to try and make the building look taller than it was! Clever. Many of the houses also feature very fancy front doors, some with beautiful glass fans over the top.






We visited a couple of these squares and the beautiful gardens across from each. Some of these are still private gardens maintained by the home owners; others, where the homes are now mostly business locations, have been made public and are open for strolls, reading on benches, etc. Lots of statues, monuments and beautiful pieces of art. In the Archbishop Ryan Park, Shirley had a visit with Oscar Wilde while we strolled.







And, to finish the tour, a trip to the pub! At long last, Jan has tried Guinness - and actually quite enjoyed the rich flavour of the stout. Maybe because of her Irish heritage? Who knows!