Tuesday 1st June

This morning I felt sore but okay. I hadn’t swelled up anywhere significantly, but the bruise on my knee had come out nicely and the graze on my hip had scabbed over. I was expecting at some point for a bruise to come out there eventually as well, because the hip is really quite sore, although not when walking. My right ribs were the most painful part, fortunately not when I was just sitting breathing, but when I straightened my posture, when I leant over in a funny way, if I used my right arm to push, pull or lift. The right arm was stiff, my knee was sore and my hip was sore. That, I could deal with. But my ribs were really very uncomfortable but I decided that if anything had been damaged that badly, I would have known it by now. So I got dressed and I decided - from now on, go up and down the stairs BAREFOOT!! It seemed to do the trick, and I felt safer…although I have to admit that I kept looking at those stairs for the rest of the week feeling quite scared of coming down on them. As a consequence each time I came down the stairs I took it EXTRA slowly!!
So, today we were planning to go to Dublin, and I was feeling fine so that’s where we went. We used our pop-out map of Dublin all day which was very handy to get to where we wanted.

First off we went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. The entire thing was an exhibition of many illuminated manuscripts, about their history and how they were made. There were numerous exhibits such as “pocket books” which were thick, small and just as pretty as the larger books. The ink was bright and the gold leaf was very shiny. All the books were in very good condition, considering their age - the first couple of books we saw were about 600 years old, whereas the actual Book of Kells is just over 1000 years old. I became particularly mesmerised by a little video in the exhibition, showing how a book would have been made - the pages being sewn together, then the front and back, then covering the front with leather or vellum, sticking it on, sewing it to secure it…. I don’t think I reached the end of the video but I had to tear myself away from it because of school groups and I had lost track of how long I had been standing there with my mouth gaping open at the video….!

Throughout the exhibit, like many I suppose, there were enlarged poster-sized copies of many of the books, mostly the totally illuminated pages with no text. The light behind them showed up the colours and the shapes, but when it came to see the Book of Kells, the colours were much darker, and duller. I was still impressed by them of course, what with all the detail put into the tiniest of spaces, the work was really quite exquisite. But this book is over 1000 years old, you can’t really expect the pages not to fade can you? The pages with text were a little brighter, but then again the only illuminated parts were the first letters of each paragraph - still, with exquisite detail in the patterns.

We then went up into “The Long Room” which was basically a huge library of many very very old books which were in the process of being preserved or had finished the restoration process. Two levels of books, from floor to ceiling and in the centre there was a small exhibit of “The Irish in India” which was quite interesting.

We were then taken back downstairs into the shop which was really quite good, although I didn’t buy a great deal. I bought a couple of “Thank You” cards for the owners of the places we were renting during this holiday, as I had forgotten to create my own to take. I bought a souvenir for my brother - a mouse mat with a celtic pattern - and we went on towards the National Museum of Ireland.

The Museum - like most Museums - was free to get into, and surprisingly, there was no fee for the lockers to put bags and coats into.  The first thing we did was go to the café - I hadn’t realised that it was 12noon and I hadn’t had anything to eat since Breakfast. That and not getting much sleep last night probably didn’t help how I was feeling - I was fine, but I was feeling a little like a zombie, as you do when you don’t get much sleep the night before!

We both had a “twice backed potato” which was really very nice as it had been mixed with ham and cheese, and baked again, and it came with two side salads. A large meal for the middle of the day, so we though we might have a light meal for dinner!

This Museum was really very very good. Apart from what seemed like random exhibits on the Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Cyprus, and a Roman exhibit, pretty much everything was either Irish, from Ireland, or had Irish connections. Irish archaeology spanning from the Palaeolithic (stone age) right up to Medieval archaeology was displayed, and I have to say, the Irish have some pretty impressive archaeology.  The prehistoric pottery was very different from English pottery - ours is plain with occasionally some decoration, while Irish pottery is FULL of patterns, filling the entire surfaces. Some pots even came with lids - which we don’t see in England - and the patterns went from rim to base.

The Irish seem to have quite a lot in the way of textiles and leather, and also wood - a wooden cauldron was quite an impressive piece - probably because Ireland had a lot of natural peat bogs in which this stuff was found. The waterlogged conditions preserve things like wood, leather, and any textile really, so these things barely perish in places like this. We saw a lot of shoes and leather capes, and scabbards and sheaths for swords, some of which were intricately decorated with the typical celtic pattern we associate with Irish Iron Age archaeology.

Something else which was exhibited in an interesting way, I thought, were bog bodies. They had all been found in peat bogs, so the skin and hair had been preserved, which was quite amazing to see. The interesting thing was how they were displayed. The entire exhibit showed other things which had been discovered in bogs due to the amazing preservation conditions, but the bodies were hidden away in the middle of circular walls which you had to walk around to get into, to see the bodies. I thought this was a good way of displaying them, because not only were they lit dimly to preserve them, but it shielded them from eyes which did not wish to see them, and allowed people to enjoy the rest of exhibit without seeing them if they didn’t wish to. I think this also gave the bodies an enormous amount of respect too, especially as all the bog bodies here were killed in such unpleasant ways. It was a really good way of exhibiting them.

The Viking archaeology and all the jewellery was also very impressive, and the entire Museum was well laid out and took you in chronological order from beginning to end. By the time we had finished, it was around 3:15pm and we thought of going to the “Dublinia” experience but our feet were aching and we were both quite tired. We walked around to see the Liffey (the Irish river), and I was on the lookout for Irish tourist shops so I could browse postcards and other crafty little things. I saw one as we came into Dublin but it must have been quite a way out from where we were. To be honest, we didn’t really see much in the way of tourist shops, like you do in London, Edinburgh or even Paris - you get quite a few tourist shops, but we were struggling to find even one. The other thing about Dublin is that it didn’t really disappoint me as such, it’s just that it seemed like a normal city. It didn’t have anything to define it really as the capital city of Ireland, in the same way London is English, Paris is French, and Rome is Italian. I just didn’t find Dublin distinctly Irish, just as a city centre.

So, we made our way back home to enjoy a nice cup of tea, relax and hopefully have a better night’s sleep than last night, and being EXTRA careful with those stairs. All this time I have been worrying about Mathew falling down them, and I ended up being the one to do it instead!