Well, it’s only 3 p.m. but I’m pretty much done in so I have succumbed to a lovely treat of almond croissant and a coffee. Mind you, its the inexpensive version of a Tesco croissant (only 95 cents) and a free instant coffee from my residence kitchen (it’s not half bad!). I was bound to succumb, being tired and having passed multiple lovely cafes and bakeries today, some with windows like this. Who can resist?
After writing this blog, I’ll venture out again to do my laundry and then begin to organize my backpack for the start of my Wicklow Way hike tomorrow morning. I’m very nervous about carrying my backpack over long distances, and with some decent elevation gain and loss. It’s something I haven’t done since my twenties! So, I may have to resort to calling a baggage carrier for some of the days (the third day is 21 km!), which, as my dear friend Gaetane reminds me, is a perfectly legitimate and o.k., and perhaps even smart, thing to do.
Because of my fatigue this morning , I cut short my day’s itinerary, taking out St. Patrick’s Cathedral and shortening my visit at the amazing Chester Beatty Library. That means I will just have to come back again another time! Then, I will also visit the National Gallery, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of Country Life, the zoological museum at Trinity College, the National Library, etc., etc., etc., spending a proper amount of time in each. Perhaps in two years I will come again and stay a month in Dublin, let’s say in May when it’s less busy, followed by the whole of June in the countryside. That sounds wonderful! Ah, dreams… But, as Brent has reminded me, it’s not what you don’t see, it’s what you do see.
And today I saw more gold than I will ever see again in my life! The National Museum of Archaeology which I visited this morning has mounted a special exhibit called, “Or – Ireland’s Gold” which features gold jewelery and other ornamentation from prehistoric Ireland, from 2200 BC to 500 BC. Just look at the treasures!
And there was more! Cases and cases filled with beautiful golden objects. My two favourite gold objects were in the Treasury, a permanent exhibit. First is a little purse-like case, and next an exquisite and stunning little boat dating from the 1st century, complete with seats, oars, rudder and mast, that is thought to have been an offering to a river god.
Also stunning in the Treasury were a silver and gold chalice, and silver brooches from the 8th and 9th centuries. The final image is of 9 golden balls, from an original find of 11, but two went missing before their acquisition by the museum. Amazingly, many of these golden objects, and many other metal objects in bronze, silver and iron have been found in hoards – buried treasure often found by farmers tilling a field or by peat cutters at their daily work. Can you imagine!
I greatly enjoyed my visit to the archaeology museum, and it was also exciting to view more common and practical objects from the prehistoric, early Christian, Viking, and medieval ages – objects in stone, metal, wood, bone, leather, wool, glass and ceramics. Every item, I think, is exceedingly valuable for the stories it tells.
After my visit to the museum, I walked to St. Patrick’s, decided against a visit there, then walked to the Chester Beatty Museum. Chester Beatty was an American mining engineer who became wealthy mining gold in Colorado, Utah, the Sierra Nevadas of Mexico, and the Klondike (in partnership there with the Guggenheims), and he also mined diamonds in Africa. He suffered some ill health later in life and moved to London. He was a friend of Truman and of Churchill, and he secretly helped to organize provisions for the British Army during World War II. As well, during his life he travelled extensively in the middle east and the far east and began a collection of rare and precious books. He gifted his enormous and valuable collection to the city of Dublin, and there is a purpose-built library, as well as a beautiful and restful circular lawn and garden, on the grounds of Dublin Castle.
As I was tired, I only browsed through two exhibits – “The Art of the Book” (wonderful!) and “Lapis and Gold – The Story of the Ruzbihan Qur’an”. Wow! Ruzbihan was a 16th century calligrapher, from Shiraz in modern day Iran, credited with the creation, along with his team of illustrators, of several amazing Qur’ans. For this exhibit, the library has unbound one book to display many of its pages so that the viewer can get a more complete picture of the beautifully, amazingly, intricately decorated text and illustrations, with gold on each page perfectly adding to the beauty. The craftsmanship, artistry, and discipline are truly astounding – rivalling and surpassing, in my estimation, the Book of Kells which I saw earlier this week. They will rebind the book after the exhibit ends in August. How lucky I was to see it!
Yesterday, I took a guided bus trip to Newgrange and the Hill of Tara. It was nice to rest my feet and body on the drive about 50 km north of Dublin in beautiful, green, pastoral county Meath, but my mind did not get a rest! It was a “Mary Gibbons Archaeology” tour and our guide, a Mr. F. Gibbons who is a medieval historian, was incessant, in a very good and challenging way, in providing us with facts and stories and current academic theories of a historical, literary, mythological, cultural, sociological, political, archaeological, geographic and even linguistic nature. It was wonderful to hear someone speak so expertly, eloquently, and passionately about his homeland and its long and complex history.
Here are a few photos of Newgrange and the surrounding countryside. Newgrange is a large circular passage tomb built around 3000-2500 years B.C. and is thus older than the pyramids and Stonehenge. The white quartz rock facing on the monument is a reconstruction from the 19th century, created from rock found at the site which was interpreted by the principal archaeologist as having once been the facing for the monument.
Exterior curbstones, as well as interior stones are carved with swirling, inter-woven spirals, diamond shapes, and chevrons.
We were allowed to enter as a group of 20 to travel about 9 metres along a narrow and low rock passageway to where the tomb opens up to a circular room, bounded on three sides by small circular alcoves with basin-like rocks lining their floors. The passage thus makes a cruciform shape. The guide spoke of the construction of the site, what is known of its creators, and their use of the site for ritual burial and probably worship of the sun. First putting us in complete darkness, and then using artifical light to simulate the sunrise on the winter solstice, the guide showed how the light would have travelled in a straight line from a hole just above the entrance, down the passageway, to illuminate the basin in the room at the top of the cruciform. It was very atmospheric and quite a special feeling.
We had a lovely midday break at nearby Newgrange Farm, where I ate my picnic lunch in the warm sun, kept company by one of Comet’s cat cousins.
Next, we travelled to the Hill of Tara, famous throughout Ireland as a place where for 800 years the High Kings of Ireland were crowned, and special long before that as a place where prehistoric people (before 3000 BC) created many monuments and earthworks including passage tombs, barrows, enclosures, a ceremonial avenue, and a ring fort. The site was important as a burial ground and as a place for ceremony and ritual for more than 1500 years. The hill is also associated with Saint Patrick in the 5th century, with a decisive battle of the Rebellion of 1798 where the United Irishmen fought and were defeated by British Troops, and with Irish MP Daniel O’Connell who hosted a political demonstration on the hill in 1843 attended by an estimated 600,000 people. So much history!
On the day I visited, Tara was a special hill on a warm, peaceful, sunny day, with beautiful views, and much enjoyed by children who ran and rolled up and down the dips and rises and hills of the monuments.
Goodbye from atop the Hill of Tara.