Sunday, December 18, 2011

Dublin Tourists

With all the news about the economy in Ireland, I wasn't too surprised to find they have an Occupy going on. Occupy Dame Street has the following statement:
"#OccupyDameStreet is a people’s movement, which stands in solidarity with and is inspired by over 1,400 (Occupytogether.org 15/10/11) sister occupations in the evolving global movement initiated by the people of Iceland, Greece, Spain, and the Arab Spring. We use tactics of non-violence akin to scenes of peaceful resistance in Tahrir Square and Wall Street. This is a diverse people’s initiative, unaffiliated with any political parties. We are the 99%. We stand together against political and economic corruption. We stand for equality and social justice. This is a "leaderless resistance movement" with people of many nationalities, backgrounds, genders and political persuasions."
I haven't seen any Occupying in Sweden so this was my first firsthand experience with the movement. Pretty interesting to walk by and see a library discussion group taking place, or a police man checking in on everyone on site, or even just the tent structure.
We visited Trinity College in Dublin which is a beautiful old campus. Trinity College is particularly famous for housing the Book of Kells and the Long Room. The Book of Kells is a 9th century Latin Gospel book. It is world renowned for it's calligraphy and Celtic illustrations. The Long Room is a part of the Trinity College Library housing over 200,000 of the Library's oldest books. I almost thought the Long Room was more impressive then the Book of Kells. Although the exhibit to get to the Book of Kells which described the making of the book was pretty interesting. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed inside the building so I don't have any pictures inside to share, just this picture of the campus. (Note: you have to pay several euros to go inside the library and see both the Book of Kells and the Long Room)
We also walked around Dublin Castle but we didn't pay to go inside this one. I was most impressed with the Royal Chapel, shown below, which was built in 1814.
Within the Dublin Castle grounds is also the Dubhlinn Gardens and the Coach House. The green area in the picture below is the Dubhlinn Gardens from 1680 and the name sake of Dublin. Behind the garden is the Coach House which used to be where the horses were kept. Not a bad life for them huh? Now it's conference facilities and a dining hall.
Through Dale's conference we got a free guided tour of the Chester Beatty Library on the Dublin Castle grounds. The Chester Beatty Library is more of an art and manuscript collection with their prized pieces being uniquely decorated copies of the Qur'an, Bible, and other manuscripts from as far back as 2700 BC. Pretty interesting! We rounded out this day of Dublin tourism by watching the sunset in St. Stephens Green, a nice park in the middle of Dublin.

Love Always,
Matilda

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