Book of Kells and EPIC Museum of Emigration

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Since I blew a fuse the evening before, I began the day by fessing up (by What's App) to the host who replied that it was not unusual for North American electrical items to cause that problem and she would 'pop up and check' during the day.

Had a reservation for 9:30 for the Book of Kells in Trinity College. Got up early, took a taxi in to Trinity. Certainly looked different from our last visit--not the College but the streets around the College. In 2017, there was a massive Roads Project and it was a mess. Some of the entrances to Trinity were closed by it even. This time, we easily walked across the street and in, had a great visit with the Book of Kells and went up to the Long Room. A LOT of the books were gone!!! They've got a major project going on, taking each book off the shelf, tagging it, dusting it off, packing it and moving it to storage. See the pics of empty shelves!! They will be returned once the work on the Room is completed. The restoration and construction phase will require the closure of the Room from the end of 2023 (https://libguides.tcd.ie/olrp) so good thing we visited this year!

Found our way out and onto Nassau Street, picked up the Hop On Hop Off and rode most of the loop. Got off near O'Connell Bridge, ate a great lunch, and went to the EPIC museum, the museum of Irish emigration (epicchq.com). We each collected our passport and visited the 20 rooms that covered why so many emigrated, where they went, the contributions they made to their new homes, and then looked at some of the many people around the world with Irish ancestry. Very interesting and a great approach.

Caught a taxi back to our AirBnB in Rathmines, rested a bit, then wandered down the road to Mother Reilly's, restaurant with a beer garden--it was a gorgeous sunny afternoon/evening and people were taking full advantage of it. The host had been in and reset the wifi and TV so all's well there!

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Photos

Book of Kells introduction
History of how/when they think the Book was written, taken prisoner, returned, and finally gifted to Trinity.

Another page
these would make a heck of a quilt or stained glass!

Long Room stairwell
and there were employees using it very easily!

Video
This is a shot of the video showing what they were doing to each book--that's a little vacuum cleaner dusting the side of the book.

Rathmines Pub for dinner
This is the entrance we walked into to get drinks, paying for a round when you bought it.

Rathmines town houses
Nice neighborhood for walking.