My brother
and I meet in Boston to fly to Dublin, where we’ll join up with our parents for
a week-long coach tour of Ireland. We take a red-eye, leaving Boston’s airport
at 7pm on the 31st, to arrive in Dublin, Ireland at 5am local time.
I somehow lose my neck pillow between security and the plane, and I forgot to
bring my headphones, so the 7 hour flight is not exactly comfortable. We are
stuck in the middle of a row of 4 seats, and I’m glad I have my brother on one
side so I don’t feel claustrophobically stuck between strangers.
We land in Dublin in the dark. I'm delighted to see that all the signs are in Irish as well as English. Customs is quick so early in
the morning, and we get out to the taxis soon after. We’re traveling with the
CIE Tour company, and the only other couple in the taxi que has CIE tags on
their luggage. We think about asking them to share a cab, but it’s too early
for me to want to be social, so we leave them be. Our cab driver tells us that
he’ll be busy today as the train and bus operators are on a 1-day strike for
wage increases. I have no idea what the political scene in Ireland is like, so
I just make non-committal noises. I don’t know if the general population
supports the strike or not, but I figure I likely support it.
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| The Ferryman, a traditional pub next to our hotel |
We’re at the hotel by 6am, and it’s
still dark. We somehow beat the couple who were ahead of us, but introduce
ourselves in the lobby to Mark and his mother Joan, two darling people we’ll
spend more time with on the trip. The staff welcome us to check in early, and
it feels great to be free of our luggage. I go out to take some photos before
dawn, but the cold and tiredness quickly drive me back inside. Ian and I decide
we’ll take an hour or so nap before the coffee shop opens, but we end up sleeping
soundly for 4 hours. Our poor folks are held up by long lines in emigration at
the airport, so they miss the very first part of the trip: the bus tour of
Dublin and a visit to Trinity College.
Our coach driver for the week is a man named Paddy, and he’s
joined by our Dublin guide, Felicity. Paddy is quite difficulty to understand-
his accent is thick, and on top of that he’s a little mushy in his pronunciation.
Felicity has a beautiful, lilting voice, something you’d expect an aristocrat to
have. They both have gone through lcoursework and certification tests
to be official tour guides. I take notes, thinking I’ll do so the entire trip,
but it makes me too motion sick to continue past the first day.
Our tour starts by our hotel, and Felicity points out the
River Liffey, which cuts Dublin in half north and south, and the
beautiful bridge
that looks like a harp. Dublin has lots and lots of statues,
and we pass by
The
Famine Memorial. These statues are emaciated figures, representing the
starving masses who emigrated from Ireland to the States in the 1850s during
the famine. The memorial’s twin is in Boston, showing the still starving
figures after having just gotten off the ship. A short ways away is the third
piece in the series: the figures are fatter and golden, having experienced the
health and wealth of America.
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| Samuel Beckett Bridge at 6am |
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| I don't know what RTE is, but I love that they use muppet as an insult |
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| Statue on the far side of O'Connell Bridge |
We pass points of interest so quickly that I have a hard
time taking anything in. The GPO, which
Felicity says is the “most important building in Irish history”, is visible
behind busy pedestrians and ornate ionic columns. In 1916, this is where Irish
Nationalists demanded freedom, and were subsequently arrested and executed. We
go over the O’Connell
Bridge, which is as wide as it is long. We pass Christ Church, and stop outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral to take
photos from afar. We drive through an area of Dublin known for its Georgian
architecture, and it’s full of cheerfully colored doors and beautifully
intricate fan windows.
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| St. Patrick's Cathedral, with fountain in front |
We get off the bus to visit a statue of
Oscar Wilde. He reclines on a
rock, one half of his face joyous and the other sad. In the courtyard in front
of him sits a small statue of his pregnant wife, and across the street is a
building in which he lived. Nearby is a maple planted on the 40
th anniversary
of the Stonewall Riots and during the 26
th Dublin LGBT Pride
Festival in honor of the Irish gay community. Oscar Wilde wrote plays and prose
for adults, but he also wrote fairy stories for children. Behind his statue is
The Giant’s Garden, a giant-themed playground for children. There once was a
giant with a beautiful garden. Children would often sneak on to his property to
play, and this angered the giant. One day he came out in a rage and yelled at
them to leave. Frightened, they ran away. Soon after, the garden withered and
died. Years and years later, a new generation of children came to play, and
their laughter encouraged the plants to grow back. The giant saw this, and this time told the children that they could play in his
yard whenever they liked. We walk through and hear the story from Felicity as actual children play on the wooden structures around us.
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| Giant's Garden sign. We were not allowed to photograph inside the garden so we didn't inadvertently photograph kids |
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| Holly plant with a branch of all-white leaves in the Giant's Garden. These leaves are unable to photosynthesize, and so exist at the expense of the rest of the plant. |
Our big stop of the day is at Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. A
sweet-faced student gives us a tour of the campus, pointing out buildings of
interest and 200 year old Oregon maple trees. The Book of Kells is Ireland’s
national treasure and one of the most famous medieval manuscripts in the world.
It illustrates the stories of the four Gospels, and sections of it are on
display in Trinity’s Old Library building. There is no photography allowed in
the exhibit. It starts with towering, huge panels that talk about the monks who
illustrated the text. Large reproductions of pages and details hang on the
walls. The exhibit space id quite dark, and it’s very crowded. I push past most
of the panels so I can spend more of our limited time at the book. Unfortunately,
it’s so crowded around the book that I only catch glimpses of it. Bored
children stand in the way looking at their gaming devices or phones, but forced
to stand next to it while their parents look. I'm disappointed
, like
seeing the Mona Lisa but with 100 other tourists in front of you.
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| Trinity campus |
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| 200 year old maple trees on campus |
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| Madonna and Child. The book is full of spelling errors and on-page corrections, but accuracy wasn't as important as the illustrations. The book was meant to share the Bible with a largely illiterate population, and so the emphasis was on the visuals, which anyone would understand because they knew the stories from Mass. [via] |
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| The Chi Rho monogram [via] |
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| Most passage contain highly decorative first letters [via] |
T
he real highlight of Trinity for me is upstairs, in the Long Room. It’s a
long, narrow room filled with over 200,000 antique texts. The Long Room is
exquisite, and there’s a quiet reverence that makes it feel much
calmer than the Kells exhibit. Two stories tall, the books and library ladders
tower overhead. It’s on the second floor of the building, but centuries ago
would have been the first floor, with empty space between the floor and the ground. The foundation supports would have held
the building and the precious manuscripts off the ground away from the damp.
The space between the first floor and the ground has since been filled in with
offices and exhibit space, giving the building an extra floor without raising
its height.
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| Second-story stacks |
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| Moody exposure |
After the tour, we head back to the hotel where Ian and I
can finally meet up with our parents. There’s a meet and greet with the tour
group, and then we’re free to go into the city and get dinner on our own. This
is the part of the trip I’ve dreaded, the parts without a schedule. I get anxious when I don't have an immediate answer for a question of dad's, so being without a schedule can be nerve-wracking. There’s nowhere nearby to eat, and none of us know the city well
enough to have a dinner suggestion. The hotel’s front desk recommends we get a
cab and ask them for a recommendation in the Temple Bar area. We head out, not
realizing that the Temple Bar area is the younger, hipper area and is quite
touristy: we would get much more authentic options a few blocks away. Our cab
driver doesn’t want to suggest anything- he lets us off in the neighborhood and
just says he’s sure we’ll find something we like. Elephant and Castle has a 90
minute wait, so we cross the street to The Auld Dubliner because a) it’s open
and b) has seats available. Dad and Ian are somewhat cross with each other, and we’re all
tired, jet-lagged, and overstimulated. The food is bad, and we are tense.
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| Temple Bar |
Temple Bar is an area I’d like to come back to another time;
in a way it reminds me of the French Quarter in New Orleans. We catch a cab
back to the hotel, and it’s a relief to shower just so I can be alone and
unstimulated for the first time in 24 hours. I miss Jason so badly it’s a physical ache. I’m so happy to be
with my family, to be in Ireland, but in that moment all the stress and
frustration catches up to me and I feel very fragile. I don't want to come off as ungrateful, but at the moment I'm all funned out. Tomorrow we’ll drive out
of the city to Glendalough and Waterford, and it will be beautiful.
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