Dublin and Glendalough

A week ago, in Edinburgh, Steve had arranged for a young woman named Seana - a Trafalgar "local specialist" - to take us on a tour of Edinburgh.  This morning he introduced us to the Dublin local specialist, Ruth, who had a lovely Irish accent.  She told us about the Georgian Squares for which Dublin is known, beautiful row houses distinguished only by their different colored doors.

We drove past the famous statue of the reclining Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square; he appeared to be basking in the late August sunshine, as if ready to utter some witticism, as "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”

Ruth told us that Dublin has recovered well from the 2019 recession; at last count there were 142 construction cranes scattered throughout the city.  One of them was even poised over Christ Church Cathedral, commencing a $9 million Euro project to replace the huge slate roof tiles.

We also saw St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the well from which he was supposed to have baptized 600 converts in the 5th century - very remarkable.  And we passed another famous landmark, the so-called Ha' penny Bridge, which has replaced a ferry that cost a ha' penny to cross the River Liffy. 

We crossed the Grand Canal and entered Donnybrook, whose name still exists today- "a brawl; a public dispute."  We who follow American politics closely are accustomed to this word!  But Ruth explained that the area we were driving through was the location of Donnybrook Fair, where horse racing had taken place (as it had since at least 200 AD), and thus the site of of many heated arguments over horse trading.

As we left Dublin, we drove into County Wicklow, often called the Garden of Ireland, with its rolling fields and abundance of heather and gorse, and then higher and higher into the Wicklow Mountains.

Here we  began to see hedgerows for the first time rather than the stone fences built in England.  Ruth told us that there were 300,000 kilometers of hedgerows in Ireland, separating hundreds and hundreds of sheep - there are more sheep in Ireland (5 million) than people (4 million).  The sheep here were especially prized for their meat, which is said to be flavored by heather.  We passed through several picturesque villages, and we were told that the BBC drama Ballykissangel had been filmed here.

 Our destination this morning was the remains of the ancient Monastery at Glendalough - the word means "Valley of Two Lakes" - an Early Medieval monasic settlement founded in the 6th century by St Kevin.  Its ancient churches and round tower are well-preserved.

Ruth pointed out that many of the graves were marked with stones having suns larger than crosses on the Celtic crosses; these early Christians were not unsympathetic to the pagans who lived here before them where the sun was worshiped.

I was especially impressed by the stone church, St. Kevin's Church, with its stone roof, built of corbelled stones, that does not leak.

At the exit to the Monastic Site, a woman was playing an instrument which I later discovered was the Uilleann Pipes, similar to the bagpipes but played with the elbow - very beautiful!

We returned back to Dublin and found lunch at The Duke; I had some delicious Irish Stew, with lamb that I imagined was flavored by heather.  We had plenty of time for touring Trinity College, founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I, which Joyce refers to in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:  “The grey block of Trinity on his left, set heavily in the city’s ignorance like a great dull stone set in a cumbrous ring, pulled his mind downward.”

It had the opposite effect on us because it contained an exhibit of the Book of Kells, widely recognized as Ireland's finest national treasure.   The Book is an "Illuminated Manuscript," written in Latin, and containing the four gospels - a masterpiece of calligraphy and decorative art which I studied in my earlier years.  Every page is a work of art.

We joined a long line of visitors viewing the pages on exhibit at this particular time - no photos allowed, of course.  And then we came into the Long Room (ca. 1712), the main chamber of the old library filled with 200,000 of the Library's oldest books.  What a wonderful fragrance! - old books . . .

We had some free time in the afternoon to explore Dublin, so we wandered separately, as Leopold Bloom had, and Ulysses before him, through its wide streets and alleys.  I even spotted Finn's Hotel, which reminded me of the mythical Finn McCool after whom Finnegans Wake was named.

This young woman was writing something in chalk on one of the cobbled streets near Trinity, and I paused to watch her for awhile.  "There's only one earth. . ."  I thought it might be a plea for the environment.

An hour later I passed the same place and she had finished her poignant message, which gave passers-by a more realistic perspective, perhaps, on the romanticism of the homeless wanderer.

 "Never look down on someone," indeed.  Did I drop a Euro or two in her cup, as others were doing?  Of course I did.  She was a writer, after all.

Some of the others on the tour had opted to attend a show this evening, but we opted for something a little different - our first run during the tour (other than the one mile I had completed a week ago in Peebles).  So we quickly dressed out, and ran from our hotel down to a a deserted building called the Legionaries of Christ, a former novitiate closed because of several controversies that I did not completely understand.  But it was a good place to run, circling its parking lot several times.  Martha completed three miles and I completed two.

We returned to have a quiet, light dinner in our hotel.  Our server was a young man from Bangladesh, it turned out, who had just taken his exams and was awaiting the results.  "I have my fingers crossed," he said.  He was studying Business Management and his plan was to remain in Ireland.  "I think I picked the right country," he said, and smiled broadly.  We could not disagree.