Our last days in Dublin were spent making a few important visits – one to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College, another to tour the Guinness factory and a few key sights around the cit.
We ended our time in Dublin with a magical literary pub crawl that involved being guided through the streets to quality pubs by an actor who on route performed snippets of plays and stories, including bits of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Joyce’s Ulysses plus wonderful stories about Brendan Behan and Oscar Wilde.
The Book of Kells, a work dating back to the 6th century, is a lavishly decorated book containing the four gospels written in Latin.
It was done by monks on the island of Iona, off the Scottish west coast, around 561.
What is remarkable about the book is not only the immaculately decorative pages with superb, flawless calligraphy but the fact that it was so carefully preserved and protected over the centuries.
It did fall into careless hands a few times but somehow managed to survive pretty much in tact, minus its gold cover, but still remains a remarkable work of art and one of the world’s most precious literary documents.
We also wandered into the Long Room at the Old Library at Trinity. This library houses more than 200,000 books and dates back to the mid-1800s. The room has a row of marble busts of various writers and scholars, including a particularly fine bust of Jonathan Swift.
Earlier in the day, we toured the city, stopping to look at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where we found a walled gallery with plaques honouring all of Ireland’s great writers.
At the Guinness Factory, we got to learn about the huge success of the Guinness company from its early days to present. This is a very stylish building, shaped like a pint of Guinness, with the circular Gravity Bar at the “head” of the pint on the 6th floor.
The company manages to tell its story with great flair, using all sorts of clever high-tech presentations, as well as creating a party-like atmosphere in the restaurants and bars on the various levels where live music is also performed.
In the evening, we started out at The Duke pub and went on a literary tour, stopping at pubs such as O’Neill’s, as we went with our guide telling very entertaining stories about various writers.
We leave Dublin very happy with our experience and with a deep sense of appreciation for the kindness and hospitality and joy for life of the Irish people.
