Dublin Castle

Originally posted on Posterous, May 10, 2012

The site of Dublin Castle has been occupied since the Vikings were here. The castle has been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, though you'd never guess to look at it: the current version of the Chapel Royal, for instance, is actually a Victorian rebuild. The only remnant of the Norman castle is one tower; the rest was destroyed by fire.

Yes, I know fire alone doesn't have much effect on stone. The fire that destroyed current castle's predecessor apparently set off the powder magazine. (It could happen to anyone, right?)

Whoever built the Royal Chapel viscerally understood perpendicular Gothic architecture—it's perfect in every detail. So much so that I spent more than an hour soaking it up (yes, this is how Tom has, over the years, perfected his skill in cat-napping). It's small in physical size, but enormous in intent: the whole point of the Gothic style is to use its soaring grandeur to create in those experiencing it a sense of the infinite—in the case of a church, that of God; in the case of secular buildings, that of the owner. Shrewd barn-yard (or castle keep) psychology, really, and it makes for a thoroughly satisfying sightseeing experience.

It was so awe-inspiring I found I required a restorative before I could even consider the official tour. Thus, I can report that I heartily approve of the brownies served in the castle's café. The Irish share one of their most endearing culinary traits with the Austrians: a tendency toward serving warm desserts 'mit schlag', or with a good-sized blob of whipped cream.

Official tour next, we were shown the State Apartments and the Undercroft by the very knowledgeable and amusing Jennifer. Next year, the EU heads of state will all be meeting at Dublin Castle, in the rooms we've just gawked through. The intimate scale of the State Apartments should surely be conducive to productive meetings—my only question is, how much of the rest of the city will be overrun by their flunkeys and security staffs?

The Undercroft, left to the end of the tour, is particularly fascinating. Dug out at the foot of the Norman tower, you can see some of the tower's massive footings, and part of the original city wall, with an early-Gothic gateway that was later filled in.

Left again to our own devices, we explored the garden behind the castle. Built atop what used to be a black pool—dubh linn—for which the town is named, it was a bulge in the River Poddle, now flowing beneath the city. At one side of the main garden is a small sculpture garden, dedicated to those who have lost their lives keeping the peace.

Lovely floral plantings add to the air of peaceful contemplativeness—similar in intent to the chapel, but very different in execution, this was a garden in which I could happily spend some serious time. A hungry husband isn't conducive to contemplation, though.......

Trinity 2: The Book of Kells, and the Long Room

Originally posted on Posterous, May 8, 2012

We went back to Trinity again, this time for the full treatment: full tour, guided by a tame student, and then the Kells manuscript. Walking along it en route, I was struck again by how much Grafton Street reminds me of Madison's State Street—buskers, entertainers, and street artists all happily co-exist with the foot traffic rushing past. Today, several artists in sand were busily sculpting sleeping dogs. Why dogs? No idea.

Our guide for Trinity's official tour was a student who introduced himself as Stephen. Tall and slender, he had a mop of wavy strawberry-blond hair, indigo-blue eyes, and chiseled features—in all, a thoroughly dangerous young man. There was a glint of humor in his eye, though. When he mentioned that the campus had no school of veterinary medicine, I enquired with great solicitousness what they did when a student took ill.

He turned a wintry eye on me for a bare moment, and replied that student health wasn't an issue for the university administration, since they could easily summon a pediatrician. Thereafter, he enlivened the canned script with anecdotes and acerbic observations, to the great pleasure of his audience.

The tour lasted a scant half an hour, and covered the same buildings and sculptures we saw on our first visit. At the end, we stopped to chat with Stephen, who had, he said, just finished his bachelor's degree, and was to start work on his doctorate in September. His specialty was to be bandits, and he was especially interested in the likes of Jesse James and Ned Kelly—interesting subject matter, I have to agree.

Trinity Library

The chief benefit of the tour was now ours: unlimited time in the Trinity library, with access to the Book of Kells exhibit. The preface to the Book is very thorough, with the Book of Dimma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Dimma) open on display, with all kinds of information on how medieval books were made, pigments used, parchment-making, book-binding techniques, and a dozen other things.

The Kells manuscript (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells) itself is housed in a separate room, with the Book of Durrow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Durrow) and the Book of Armagh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_armagh) in the same case. The room is dim, to protect the fragile manuscripts, which lie in a large case, glass-topped, with brushed-aluminum sides for leaning on to look closely at the manuscripts. Only one small quibble: the reflective glass case makes it difficult to see the books at times; Trinity, please copy....!

I've waited 35 years to see the Kells manuscript, which was open to the beginning of the Gospel of St. Matthew. Tour groups would come in, and I would politely step aside while they took a fast "But it's nothing exciting!" look. When they left, I re-applied myself to the case, studying the fineness of the calligraphy, and the intricacy of the knot work in the carpet page. Tom cheerfully tolerated this for more than an hour, until even he grew restive enough to start getting grumpy.

He dislodged me, and we moved on to the library's Long Room. Though it now houses more than 200,000 of the university's oldest books, they had only the smallest fraction of the current number when it was built. The scale is truly glorious, but the room itself is neither self-important nor forbidding: It's paneled in wood, now dark with age, that invites visitors to dip into the shelves and get comfortable.

Display cases down the center of the room held more of the library's delights. Among the most stunning were the incunabulae—books from the dawn of printing. There was a page from Gutenberg's Bible—not his first run, his very. First. Book. There was one of Caxton's, and one of Wynkyn de Word's as well; being in the same room as all three of those would be about the same deal as being in the same room with Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Donne. Mind-bending.

There was also a little French Book of Hours, late 14th century high Gothic, glowing like a jewel in the display case, and one of John Speed's maps of Leinster dating from the 16th century.

Off to one side, in a case by itself, was a harp—a clairseach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clairseach) The oldest harp in Ireland, some 600 years of age, it was made of willow, with brass strings. The only other thing I could have wished for was a recording of its voice, since it had been refurbished. If you're not familiar with the Irish harp, this is a very good introduction....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNeQccj4cxg

Lovely, isn't it?

Gimme that old-time religion—maybe

 Originally posted on Posterous, May 5, 2012

We started the day Thursday with a long walk, down across the Liffey, and up O'Connell Street. We had no fixed destination; we were just wandering, so we looked in the windows of shops that would never let the likes of us in the door, noting with no small amusement one shop that had apparently found a cache of 1920's finery in some long-forgotten closet: the mannequins in the windows were garbed in uproariously funny flapper regalia, complete with necklaces that dusted the floor and feathers protruding from head bands. I like O'Connell Street; the atmosphere isn't nearly as stuffy as you'd think if you judged from the shops alone.

After a series of turns, we found ourselves standing in front of an Enterprise Rent-a-Car establishment, and, seizing the moment, we decided we'd turn the day into a road trip. We left with a gunmetal-grey Opel, Tom placidly navigating the city traffic (never mind shifting left-handed, and driving on the opposite side of the road from usual). Leaving Dublin via the N2 (after a minor bit of inadvertent touring), we we went north towards the town of Slane, outside which are the Neolithic sites of Knowth, Newgrange, and Dowth.

It was nearly 1:30 when we arrived, which meant we had time to either take the tours of Knowth and Newgrange, or do Dowth, whereat the visitor is left to fend for himself. Deciding, since we had just the afternoon, it was more effective to do two sites, rather than one, so we opted for the Knowth/Newgrange doubleheader, and set off to Knowth.

Knowth has one large burial mound, surrounded by something like 15 smaller mounds, two of which seem to be older than the largest one. (Better details over here at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowth) The decorative carvings on the kerbstones were particularly fascinating: I found myself wondering who had carved them—what were those people like? It's amazing that, given the subsequent occupation of the site by other cultures, anything at all is left of the Neolithic people who once lived there. Normally, Tom and I both tend to look for early Christian or Norman artifacts as all-but-wiped-out things that are pointers to our own culture's beginnings; here, we found ourselves outraged at the early-Christian Normans, who had almost completely obliterated the Neolithic structures—even going so far as to tunnel UNDER the large mound to use it as a refrigerator, emerging through the top center of it. They also spoiled any remaining evidence of solar or celestial alignment by digging a defense ditch inside the kerbstones. (Philistines!) Shame the Norman monastics who later finished the mangling the site via agriculture didn't have a tradition of archeology, like the Jesuit tradition of scholarship!

Where Knowth lets visitors walk around, amongst, and over the mounds to examine them closely, Newgrange (full details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange) does not. As at Stonehenge, visitors are kept to approved pathways. However, the newest parts of Newgrange are a thousand years OLDER than Stonehenge. They're 500 years older than the Great Pyramids at Giza. In fact, the roof at Newgrange is something like 5000 years old, and all that time, the structure beneath has been dry—no small feat, in Ireland. The guides at Newgrange take groups of about 20 inside the burial mound, and once there, do as the guides inside the cave in Hannibal, Missouri, made famous by Mark Twain: they turn out the lights. Why? To demonstrate a) how bloody dark it is in there, and b) to show how the upward-sloping entry path allows in a single beam of dawn sunlight on the morning of the winter solstice (9:02 a.m., local time, if you're wondering.) Of course, these days, this is achieved by means of a 40-watt lightbulb for the benefit of the punters. It's stunningly effective, even if nowhere near as bright as natural sunlight.

Despite being able to infer enough from the remains of the structures to rebuild them, archeologists have no real understanding of the religion (if, indeed, it was that) that led to their being built. We know that these people were at least two culture changes pre-Druid—and we don't really know anything about the Druids, either.

The inside of the tomb is small, compared with the external diameter of the mound; getting 20 people in is a considerable squeeze. And, given the narrowness and low ceiling of the entry passage, claustrophobes would do well to steer WAAAAAAY clear of the place.

Both sites allow photography outside; Knowth will allow interior photos, but only allow access one passage of the large mound. Newgrange allows full interior access, but no photos. Considering modern digital cameras neither produce photographic waste nor sufficiently intense light to degrade artifacts, I wish they allowed pictures inside the mound at Newgrange. One is highly tempted to suspect their intent is to sell approved photos to tourists.

With respect to the later societies' wanton destruction of the Knowth and Newgrange sites, I can now view annihilation of the native American mounds in and around St. Louis is the continuation of a proud tradition of thoughtless waste. Somehow, this isn't encouraging at all.........

Dublinia and Christchurch Cathedral: Sightseeing via the Wallowing Method

Originally posted on Posterous, April 30, 2012

If you don't like museums, move along now. If you don't like churches either, run—don't walk.
Yesterday's walk was chiefly a hunt for Viking and medieval areas and artefacts, and we spent today—yes, the ENTIRE day—at a delightful small museum called Dublinia, which recreates both delightfully. Both of us, back in the dim past, were avid medieval recreationists. (Tangent: We met at a meeting of the Society for Creative Anachronism. The Spouse introduced himself to me as a member of the Lecher's Guild, thereby very nearly losing his chance with me...not to mention his testicles.)

I love museums in general, and get lost in them. I look at every display; I read every sign; I listen to every recording. You heard it here first: I am a Museum Bore. That goes double for old churches and cathedrals. So, today was a double-header, history-nerd style.

Dublinia seems to be popular with the tourist types. (I ain't neither no tourist...I are a classy traveler.) Families, students, young couples—all interested in the representations of life as it used to be lived here. The stripped-down presentation must make it economical to run: I hope so, since I hope it stays open forever! It has the traditional signage and audio recordings, to explain the displays. It also has computer-generated animated displays to amplify the more-usual stuff. Very well done, indeed!

I've been eyeing Christchurch ever since we got here. Its early-Gothic style appeals intensely to me, and we spent several hours looking around both church and crypt. Only thing I'm in two minds about the pulpit; I think I prefer Anton Pilgram's, at St. Stephen's in Vienna. Pilgram's is full-bore high-Gothic, and, though it would have been painted in period, the paint is long since gone. That at Christchurch uses several colors of stone, which I found less appealing.

The crypt is fascinating in that it looks as though it's been cleaned out—you can admire the arches, and the gear they have in storage/on display there (Christchurch keeps its junk in the basement just like everybody else!). Besides being easier to see the way it's put together, it's far less creepy than the crypt at St. Stephen's, where the bones of plague victims are still stacked like cordwood.
GREAT day, great museum, gorgeous church—loved every second!