Education Never Ends 03/13/2022
We have an ambitious schedule today. Breakfast, then learn about the Book of Kells and take a tour of Trinity College, find the statue of Oscar Wilde , followed by lunch at Queen of Tarts, then we will tour of EPIC (every person is connected). EPIC is also known as the Irish Immigration Museum. We will finish the evening at the Brazen Head Pub. (the oldest pub in Ireland). We will attend a sit down dinner, along with 20 to 25 other people. This will be a 3 course meal with commentary by our host, before the meal and between each course, of the history of Ireland.
A full day awaits. We walked to Trinity College and tried to find the student campus guides. We were standing in the middle of the University discussing our best course of action when a security officer walked up to us and said that we appeared to be befuddled and could he be of any assistance to this fine group of visitors. It was about 9:30 am. The officer told us the student guides were not available on Sundays. We said okay, we are here to see the Book of Kells. He said that perhaps, we should leave and return around 1:00 pm. This was when the Book of Kells would open for visitors. We offered our thanks and then adjusted our itinerary for the day. If anything, visiting a foreign country, you must have a flexible schedule. We changed things up, a bit. Oscar Wilde moved to the top of the list. We then went to Merrion Square and found Oscar’s memorial statue, made the customary photographs and then crossed the River Liffey and checked in at the Immigration Museum. We spent the next several hours following the history of Irish immigration from the beginning to present day. The influx of the Irish immigrants was felt worldwide. You can only imagine the conditions of poverty and despair these people lived in that made them leave their family behind and leave their country. Most to never return.
By now it was lunch, so off to the the Queen of Tarts. We ate here on our last visit to Ireland and decided to make a return visit. I will mention at this point, we already had walked nearly 7,000 steps.
We went back to Trinity College and learned about the Book of Kells. This book is one of the most famous, if not the finest illustrated manuscripts of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This manuscript was produced somewhere around the late 7th century. The Book of Kells is kept at Trinity College. Trinity was established in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I and modeled after Oxford and Cambridge. While on the tour, someone took a picture using a flash. That person was chastised very harshly by a dogen. I asked Harry if he could tell who took the picture. He said no. I told him it was me and I just kept walking.
We finished up at Trinity College and returned to our hotel to get ready for our dinner. Dinner started at 6:30 and they wanted us there by 6:00. Like I mentioned, dinner was to be had at the Brazen Head Pub. Brazen Head is the oldest pub in Dublin and they like to say they are the oldest in Ireland. I suspect this claim has everything to do with marketing. Sean’s Bar in Athlone has that distinction and is recorded in the Guinness record book. It does not really matter, tourists flock to Brazen Head. Us included. We had an entertaining evening. The food was good, the jokes were kind of funny, I enjoyed the history, and the music was great,
The curtain came down and we returned to our hotel. We have been here 5 days, walked a lot and learned a lot. Tomorrow we take leave of the Republic of Ireland, a member of the European Union, and travel to Northern Ireland, a member of the United Kingdom. Tomorrow, then. In closing, we walked 19,500 steps today.
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