Finally.....Saint Patrick's Cathedral

Yes, you guessed it, I finally arrived at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, and it was well worth it.  The grounds were actually more impressive than the interior, at least to me.  The inside was very dark, and not well maintained.  I did get some really good pictures, so you will be able to see for yourself.

Saint Patrick is said to have baptized converts to Christianity at the well that once existed in the park alongside the Cathedral.  Because of this association with Saint Patrick, a church has stood here since the fifth century.  The Normans built a church in stone on this site in 1191.  This was rebuilt in the early thirteenth century and is the building that is seen today.  in 1370, after a fire, the west tower was rebuilt and the spire was added in 1749.  Saint Patrick's is the National Cathedral of the Church of Ireland, a member church of the Anglican Communion.

A couple of the famous Irish writers that are buried at Saint Patrick's

 

 

Different view

 

Looking down to the Choir

 

Closer look at the Choir - Above are the banners and hatchments of the Knights of Saint Patrick, a chivalric order founded by King George III in 1783.

This is the South Aisle and it is dedicated to military memorials and memorials to distringuished Irishmen.  Also gathered together are memorials and items commemorating the writer, Jonathan Swift.

I love stain glass windows

 

Memorial to Thomas Jones, Dean of St. Patrick's from 1581 to 1585

 

Celtic cross discovered near the church in the 19th century.

 

Statue of Saint Patrick by Melanie Le Brocquy

 

I am glad that I persevered and was able to visit Saint Patrick's Cathedral

When all else fails, have CHOCOLATE

My next point of interest was Saint Patrick's Cathedral, but of course, I got lost.  It was because I got lost that I was able to experience two happy mistakes as first I ran into (literally) city hall.  It is a beautiful building that had a really nice musuem in the basement that went into more detail about the history of Dublin.

 

Dublin City Hall was built between 1769 and 1779 and was originally used as a financial centre by the merchants of Dublin. Designed by Thomas Cooley, it was first known as the Royal Exchange. In 1851 it was bought by Dublin Corporation and later renamed Dublin City Hall.  The Royal Exchange, or City Hall as it is now known, is without doubt one of Dublin's finest and most sophisticated 18th century buildings and marks the introduction to Ireland of the European neo-classical style of architecture.

Immediately when you enter, you are in a beautiful domed area, the Rotunda. Twelve columns support the dome with a mural between each one. There are twelve murals in total, eight of which depict a famous legendary or historical scene such as St. Patrick baptising the King of Dublin. 

The remaining four show the Coat of Arms of the four provinces: Ulster, Leinster, Connacht and Munster. In the centre of the floor,  standing right beneath the dome , a mosaic depicting the Coat of Arms of Dublin is encircled by four statues. These four statues are of figures that played an important role in the development of Irish society.

 

 

The second mistake was running into (again literally) Butler's - Purveyors of Happiness

If you ever get to Dublin, you need to go to Butlers and have a hot chocolate with a short bread cookie with carmel and chocolate on top.  It was absolutely wonderful and it set me up for the rest of the day.

Day in Dublin

What have I learned today? It is really easy to get lost in Dublin. Twice! I thought that I had gotten a handle on the city with all of the wrong turns that I had taken yesterday, but nope. Just when I thought that I knew where I was going I found that no, I really didn't because I had just taken a trip in a nice big circle and I came back to where I started, but from the opposite way that I had gone in the first place. How that happens, I don't know but it happened to me twice today. But the fun thing is I saw some things that I would not have seen so it ends up a wash on the things that I could have seen and missed. This first point of interest was Dublin Castle and this was where I got a huge deluge of information about the history of Dublin City.

I almost missed the entrance because of the the work happening in the front of the Castle

This is the courtyard, just inside the outer wall.

 

This is how it would have looked during Medieval times.

 

Dublin gets its name from an ancient Black Pool harbour or Dubhlinn in Irish.  This was a strategically important location during the almost 300-year Viking reign.  In 1169 AD, the Anglo-Normans invaded and captured Dublin.  A castle was established by King John of England in 1204, which became the most important fortification in Ireland and functioned as the seat of colonial rule and the centre of military, political and social interactions.  Although much of the present design dates from the 18th century, sections of the original moat, curtain and town walls, as well as the Record Tower and the bases of the other massive corner towers can still be seen.  In 1922 the British administration handed over power to the new Irish State.  Since independence, the Castle has been transformed into a palace of national prestige and the State Apratements now host imporatant State functions.

This is the Battleaxe Landing.  If you look at top of the door you will see a harp, which is the "arms of Ireland".  The tapestries are by Layniers and they are early 18th century.

 

This is the James Connolly room (he is the one on the left). 

James Connolly was the Commandant of the Dublin Brigade during the Easter Rising of 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic.  The Rising was suppressed after seven days of fighting and its leaders were court-martialled and executed.  Because he was severly wounded, Connolly was not held in the gaol, but in this room, which had been converted to a first-aid station for troops recovering from the war.  He was taken to Royal Hospital Kilmainham across the road from the gaol and then taken to the gaol to be executed. He was so badly injured from the fighting (a doctor had already said he had no more than a day or two to live, but the execution order was still given) that he was unable to stand before the firing squad.  Instead of being marched to the same spot where the others had been executed, at the far end of the execution yard, he was tied to a chair and then shot. The executions were not well received, even throughout Britain, and drew unwanted attention from the United States, which the British Government was trying to lure into World War I.  While the rebels did not succeed outright, it did force republicanism back to the forefront of Irish politics. Less than two years after the Rising, republicans (then represented by the Sinn Féin party) won 73 Irish seats out of 105 in the 1918 General Election to the British Parliament, on a policy of abstentionism and Irish independence. In January 1919, the elected members of Sinn Féin who were not still in prison at the time, including survivors of the Rising, convened the First Dáil and established the Irish Republic. The British government refused to accept the legitimacy of the newly declared nation, precipitating the Irish War of Independence. 

A State Room

 

 

Hallway on the other side of the State Rooms

 

 

Ceiling of the hallway

The Drawing Room

See the screen on the side of the fireplace? Our tour guide told an interesting bit of trivia. Back in the day it was fashionable to have very pale skin resulting in the powdering of hair (wigs) and skin. The problem was that the powder was made of wax and when anyone got to close to the fire, their faces would crack - hence the phrase "losing face". The creation of the screens allowed people to stand near the fire without the heat causing cracking, allowing them to "save face".

 

The Throne Room

 

This room was also known as the Presence Chamber.  Dating from the 1790s, the canopy has a unicorn, crown, and a lion, representing the British coat-of-Arms.  The chandelier has a shamrock, thistle and a rose (the only place you will find all three together) representing Ireland, Scotland and England.

The throne itself was installed for the state visit of King George IV in 1821.  He was a very large man so the throne was built to hold his frame.  The legs of the throne were cut down and a stool was added to accommodate Queen Victoria.  It was last used by George V in 1911.

St. Patrick's Hall - This is the most important ceremonial room in Ireland - the focal point of important State functions, including the inaugurations of Irish presidents.

 

We are going down into the Undercroft.  This is to give you and idea of what Dublin would have looked like way back when. 

One of the four corner towers

They dug so deep that they found "The Poddle", Dublin's underground river

 

The Chapel Royal

 

 

The Chapel was finished in 1814 and designed by Francis Johnston.

 

I don't have my Dad's sense of direction

The theme of the first part of my trip is "how to get lost without really trying".  Actually you could say that I learned that I have absolutly no sense of direction, even with a map.  After visiting Trinity College, I decided that I was close enough (according to the map) to go and visit point two...Christ Church Cathedral.  Let's just say that after getting lost twice, I finally ran into it, literally.  I cannot complain too much, as I was able to see a lot of old Dublin and learn that it is a city that is very proud of its history, but I could have done without the back tracking (twice). 

The church in the background is actually the city's information center and anonther important directional landmark for me.

Here is a Dublin Pub (cool, right?)

 

Words to live by

Christ Church is officially claimed as the seat (cathedra) of both the Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic archbishops of Dublin. In practice, it has been the cathedral of only the Church of Ireland's Archbishop of Dublin, since the English Reformation.  Christ Church Cathedral is located in the former heart of medieval Dublin, next to Wood Quay at the end of Lord Edward Street.  The cathedral was founded probably sometime after 1028 when King Sitric Silkenbeard, the Hiberno-Norse king of Dublin made a pilgrimage to Rome.  The cathedral has undergone some major renovations over the years, the last taking palce in 1871, when the seven year restoration was completed. 

It is a very big Cathedral
 

The Baptistry was a gift of the 1870's architect of the rebuilt cathedral, George Edmund Street.

 

Strongbow was the leader of the Cambro-Normans that captured dublin in 1170 and was buried in the cathedral in 1176.  The oringinal tomb was destoryed when the wall and roof collapsed in 1562.  The replacement is from the 14th century.
 

This is what the priest and the assisting ministers would look at during a service.

 

In the Crypt, along with the tombs, was a museum showing what clothing and artifacts would have been like during medieval times.

I am alive and well and in Dublin...

Hurray, I arrived in Dublin just fine. I have to say, it was daunting to realize that I was in a foreign country all by myself. This is not the first time I have traveled to Europe, but it is the first time I was completely alone. I got here just fine, found my bus just fine, was dropped off on the main street to then find the next street that my hotel is on just fine then promptly got lost, for about an hour. The directions that I was given would have worked out really well if I would have been traveling on the opposite side of the street and coming from the opposite side of town. Thanks to a very nice man I found my way, dropped off my luggage (too early to check in), picked up a map of the city and started out. It was chilly and there was a nice cool wind, but it was not bitter cold so I was happy and I had a plan (sort of).  I realize that these blogs will be really long if I do them by day so I am going to do them by historical point.  The first place I planned to visit was Trinity College, by way of a big beautiful park just a couple of blocks from my B&B.

This looked like a movie set, with the gardaí just there.

 

Lakeside View

 

My first dream house

To get to Trinity College and the Book of Kells I also had to go through the "shopping district". It is completely for pedestrians and just full of shops and places to eat. All of the cities that I visited during my stay had them and it was a good directional landmark for me.

My first and only Leprechauns

See.....only people

Trinity College was founded by charter of Queen Elizabeth in 1592. While the college is extremely old, the actual buildings on campus date from the 18th and 19th centuries. The oldest building on campus is the Old Library, build between 1712 and 1732. The Library Dublin is one of the world’s great research libraries, holding the largest collection of manuscripts and printed books in Ireland. Since 1801 it has had the right to claim a free copy of all British and Irish publications and has a stock of nearly three hundred million volumes housed in 8 buildings. The Old Library houses the Irish medieval gospel manuscripts, principally the Book of Kells, the Book of Armagh and the Book of Durrow. I took a guided tour of the main campus and then ended with a look at the books that are located in the Old Library. It was amazing look at history.

Entering Trinity College

 

Me on Parliament Square (The Campanile is the tower in the background)

This tree is from Oregon. They normally don't grow this large but because Dublin is on the Poddle (the underground river) it is a tree on steroids.
 

This is the Philosophy professor that was our tour guide. He was very good and highly entertaining.

 

At the end of the tour, we ended up at the Old Library, where the Book of Kells is located. It contains lavishly decorated copy, in Latin, of the four gospels. It has been associated with St. Colum Cille (c. 521-597) who founded his principal monastery on the island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland in about 561. The Book of Kells was probably produced early in the 9th century by the monks of Iona, working partially at Iona or at Kells, where they moved after 806 A.D. The Book of Kells was sent to Dublin around 1653 for security during the Cromwellian period.

This page is of Christ enthroned

 

The lavishly decorated text that opens the Gospel of John

 

The Old Library's Long Room
 

 

A different view