Extended Touring 03/22/2022
We are tourists and we do tourist stuff. I am interested in the story behind the story. Europe has churches all over the place that were built in medieval times. Ireland has its share. Today we will visit two of those. Christ Church and Saint Patrick’s Church.
Christ Church, located in the heart of medieval Dublin, was founded in 1028 by Sitric Silkenbeard, King of the Dublin Norsemen. Sitric’s father was a Viking and his mother was Irish. Christ Church is the eldest medieval church in Dublin, the second being Saint Patrick. This church has served its membership for over 1,000 years. Like anything else, its fortunes rose and fell through the years. After 800 years, there was a certain amount of restoration and renovations that needed to be done. A Dublin whiskey distiller, Henry Roe, became a benefactor for the church. Between 1871 and 1878 a tremendous fortune was spent on this work. There is a fable associated with this church about a cat and the rat. For several centuries, there seemed to be a problem with the organ. An organ pipe was not functioning correctly. It was thought the pipe was clogged. Remember, this had been going on for a long time. The worker reached his hand in the organ pipe and pulled out a mummified rat. The pipe was still clogged. He reached in and pulled out a mummified cat. Afterwards, the organ played beautifully. The cat and the rat are on display in the church museum. I have pictures.
Next on the church list is Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Saint Patrick’s Cathedral was founded in 1191. The church was constructed between 1220 and 1260, in honor of Ireland’s patron saint, Saint Patrick. Saint Patrick baptised Christian converts on this site over 1500 years ago. Where Christ Church was heavily subsidised by the whiskey distiller, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral had its own benefactor, Benjamin Guinness, grandson of the founder of Guinness stout.
These churches are old, they serve their community, and I hope they will be here for another 1,000 years.
The last thing we did today was tour the Jeanie Johnston Tall Ship. The Jeanie Johnston was built in Quebec in 1847. The primary purpose was cargo, to carry lumber from Canada to Ireland. Passenger capacity was 40 people. In April 1848, 193 emigrants boarded the Jeanie Johnston to be transported to the United States. Between 1848 and 1855 she made 16 voyages to North America, between Quebec, Baltimore, and New York. The average transatlantic crossing was 47 days. The most passengers she ever carried was 254 in April of 1852. Many of these ships were called “coffin ships”. What made the Jeanie Johnston stand out from the others, there was never a loss of life among the crew or the passengers. A remarkable feat. It cost 3 pounds, 10 shillings to travel on one of these ships. Often families could only afford for one member to travel to America or Canada. The husband would go, work and save money, and then send for his family. It was not easy for family members to find each other and often they never did. Over 100,000 people paid for it with their lives, During the famine period disease and starvation killed 1,000,000 people and over 1,000,000 people emigrated. Almost 1/4 of the population either died or emigrated. A truly dark period in the history of any country.
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