Ancient Sites and Manuscripts

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Sunday, July 12-Monasterboice,Knowth, Newgrange, Trim Castle, and Dublin
Today is predicted to be the best weather day of the next three that we have the rental car, so we head north to see the valley of the Boyne. I have our route from Google maps, so we leave at 7:30 for Monasterboice, the site of two of the best preserved, most ornately carved, and largest tall crosses in Ireland. It is an adventure driving through the city to reach the north side. Next time, we will use the loop highway. Even so, it is worth the drive. We are the only ones at the cemetery, and the crosses are unbelievable in their size and detail. I have to learn how to post pictures so you can see them.
We leave there at 8:30, and Google says it is only 17 minutes to Newgrange. Unfortunately, it plotted the Newgrange tomb itself, and we cannot enter without getting passes from the visitor center. The GPS is of no use. It shows that we are there already! We ask a farmer for directions. But 25 minutes later, after traveling over one-way bridge and several kilometers of one lane roads, we are still lost, and down to less than 1/8 tank of petrol. I flash my lights, and ask an oncoming car for directions. God must have felt we’d had enough, because the driver of the car happened to be a hired driver who was bringing his passengers to the visitor center! In 15 minutes, we were thanking him in the parking lot, and boarding the shuttle for Knowth.
Bru Na Boinne has two Neolithic (5000 years old) tomb/monument sites. Knowth has several mounds and many carved stones. As we are listening to our guide, the sky darkens, the wind picks up, and we see storm clouds blowing toward us. Just before entering the chamber passage, the rain begins in earnest. Inside, we see the passage and by the time we exit, the rain has ceased. We climb to the top of the mound, and then board another shuttle for Newgrange.
The chauffeur’s couple is on both shuttles with us. They have hired him to drive them around Ireland for 2 weeks. They will not have the joy of learning to drive on the left and negotiate narrow roads; a pity. At Newgrange tomb, we can actually enter the passage itself. We have to squeeze through parts of it sideways. In the chamber, there are three side alcoves, each with spiral carvings, one alcove has a large stone bowl/table where cremated remains were left. This is the tomb where the passage is aligned with the sun. On the day of the solstice, the sun’s rays shine in, illuminating the passage. The OPW has installed a light to emulate that effect, and our guide turns the switch that plunges us into total darkness, then the “sun’s rays” slowly light up the chamber, and fade after a few minutes. You can put your name in a lottery to be allowed to enter the tomb on the day of the real solstice, but we decide to pass.
Back at the visitor center, we see the exhibits and then leave for Trim Castle, by way of a gas station first! Trim castle was used for the movie “Braveheart”. As we walk through the portcullis to sign up for a tour, the sky opens. Luckily, we are under cover, and our tour does not begin for 30 minutes. We wait out the downpour (15 minutes), and then venture out to explore the grounds before our guide arrives. This castle is less preserved than Cahir, but much larger. The central keep has been restored, and there are many walls and outbuildings whose incomplete walls leave the rest to your imagination. Our guide leads us into the keep through the halls, up the spiral staircase, into chapels, bedrooms, and guard towers. She describes the garderobe, where one would use the toilet-hole. We learned that the “gong-boy’s” job was not to strike a gong, but to use a long stick to stir the gong/waste. That way, the ammonia fumes would rise up and kill the fleas and ticks in the clothing hung in the room- medieval dry cleaning. (I hate to think what the clothes smelled like!) This is where the expression “getting the wrong end of the stick” came from. If you were a gong boy, you didn’t want to do that! She told us that last week, a toddler from Germany must have gotten the gist of what the holes were for, because as the group was leaving the room, he went over, pulled down his pants and began to use it. Once he started, he couldn’t stop mid-stream. So that group had a live demonstration!
Since we were driving back through Dublin, we stopped and parked at Jury’s tavern, then walked the streets for a while. All the museums were closed, but we ate dinner at Gallagher’s ~Boxy house. Bowties are Irish potato pancakes. I had latkes, and thought they’d be gluten-free, but they were more like crepes. Dean, Jeff and I ordered 3 different kinds- ham and cabbage, beef, and lamb (they do have vegetarian ones, too), and Jackie had chicken stuffed with salmon and veggies with colcannon (potatoes) instead of a boxty. Jackie and Jeff were facing the window, and had a floorshow of some little redheaded Irish kids plastering their faces to the glass trying to make people laugh.
After that, we drove home and caught up on planning and rest.



Monday, July 13-Guinness Storehouse, Chester Beatty Library, and Double Decker Buses
Dean and I dropped Jeff in Dublin before going to the pool. We left Jackie sleeping in bed. Jeff had seen that the Guinness Storehouse had a special program at 11 on “Cooking with Guinness”, and the first people to sign up would be admitted. He wanted to take the tour and go to the demo. Jackie was not interested, and I needed to drive Dean to the pool. I told Jeff that I’d go to the Jameson distillery with him instead; so Jeff was on his own, and we would meet for lunch.
At the pool, we were sure to ask which bus went there, because we won’t have the car tomorrow. We’re back at the house by 11:30, and catch the noon bus into Dublin to meet Jeff for lunch. Since we have a half hour until 12:45, we browse through a few shops and a market. Jeff arrives at about 1:10. It took him a bit longer to walk over from the storehouse than he anticipated. Over lunch we found out why: there was a mix-up with the cooking demo. When he and several others asked at 9:30 about the demo, they were told to simply line up outside a certain room a few minutes before; “first-come first served”. Later on though, the desk began handing out lanyards to those who would be admitted. When the time arrived, Jeff and these others complained that they had been given false information, so they were given a “tasting tour” to compensate. Jeff learned how to pour the perfect pint, and ended up imbibing a total of 4 pints! No wonder it took longer to find his way, but he got his 9 euros worth, for sure.
It began pouring while we ate, but we couldn’t stay there all afternoon. So we walked to the info center, purchased bus passes, and headed to the Chester Beatty Library. Beatty collected books and illustrations from all over the world, but especially the ancient Middle East. There were papyrus scrolls and codexes from the 2nd century. Before the Dead Sea scrolls were found, the gospel on parchment in his collection was the oldest that had been discovered. There were also Korans, sacred Hindu and Buddhist texts, illustrations/etchings from all faiths, and a special Haydn exhibition on loan from Vienna. We saw his original, hand-notated manuscript for his cello suite. They are constantly rotating books and illustrations- only 1% of his collection is on display at any one time. A guard in the Library told us that once, someone offered to sell Beatty a letter “handwritten by Jesus”- he wisely passed. The guard said, “We don’t even know that Jesus could write!”
Christ Church Cathedral is impressive from the outside, but they are closed for services, so we just walk the grounds. We think about getting a bite at a pub, but the ones we pass with traditional music are packed, or only have a few high stools at the bar- ok for Jeff and Jackie, not great for Dean. Since Jeff has had his beer for the day already, we agree to head home for supper and map out our plans for tomorrow. On the bus ride home, there are no first level seats so we sit on the top deck. If we do that again, we’ll have to remember to descend BEFORE our stop because by the time we got down, the bus was moving. Luckily, there was a stop only one-block further- if not, it could have been a lengthy lesson.
At 9:30, Dean and I return the car to the airport- what an experience! We chose to drive the loop road, which has a toll, rather than go through the city. Cameras take a picture of your license plate, and you have until 8 p.m. the next day to pay it in person or with credit over the phone. We arrive at the airport just as the pay station is closing, but I convince the clerk to let me pay- thank God. Otherwise, we would have had to find a place to pay tomorrow. (We can’t use our credit cards until the 24th to avoid paying finance charges.) After dropping off the car a an airport hotel, we had planned on taking a hotel shuttle back to the airport, then taking the airport express bus back into Dublin and finally transferring to our #16 bus, but it didn’t work as planned. There is major construction near the airport, so both the shuttle and the airport express are stuck in traffic, so we arrive in the city after #16 stops running. At least we had a fantastic view of the traffic jam, because Dean and I rode the front seat of the top deck home (since everyone got off at the same place, we knew we wouldn’t miss our stop). We take a taxi home, but at least it’s done! No more left hand driving this trip. Our bedroom clock that projects the time in red on the wall says 12:30- good night.

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