DOIN’ DUBLIN: day one

September 23, 2014
The Big City!  Enough of these picturesque idylls, it’s time for wall-to-wall crowds and diesel exhaust.  We’re off to Dublin, our final stop in Ireland.  Made-to-order omelets (ham-cheese-mushroom/salmon-tomato) and homemade scones were just the right complement to the “soft” morning generated by the light rains last night.  We had found in our research for the trip that it was very expensive to stay in Dublin, and parking would have been a nightmare.  We also figured that we would be catching the ferry to Wales that left from Dun Laoghaire, a seaport just south of the City, which had excellent public transportation (train) into Dublin.  So we booked a B&B in an adjacent town called Sandy Cove.  It wasn’t until later that we found out that the DL ferry stops running for the season in mid-September, and we had just missed the cutoff.  Oh, well, the Windsor Lodge in Sandy Cove was just fine, and we found some excellent restaurants in walking distance that wouldn’t break the bank for dinner.  The owner, Mary O’Farrell, kindly allowed us to show up early and to park in her courtyard during the day while we trained off to Dublin.  We are 1/2 block from the water and 1/2 block from the train station.  It was only 20 minutes from here to Pearse Station by Trinity College, our principal destination.  But first, a bus tour to get the lay of the land.  We took the Green Line hop-on hop-off tour, but stayed on for the full circuit so as to end up back at Trinity.  The driver told some funny stories, but wasn’t much for pointing out particular sights as we drove along.  These guys ARE, however, masters at fitting an oversized bus into an undersized street.  I couldn’t believe some of the maneuvers.

One of the sights we did identify was this elliptical arch bridge, opened in 1816, to offer foot passage across the River Liffey to any Dubliner willing to pay a ha’penny, the exact price of the then redundant ferry and payable to William Walsh, ferry owner and alderman of the city. He retired his leaking ferries and was compensated with £3,000 and the bridge lease for one hundred years.  It became known as the Ha’penny Bridge, and he and his descendants must have made a fortune over the years.  It’s good to be an alderman! It retained its position as the only pedestrian bridge to span the river until the opening of the Millennium Bridge in 1999.  (Pic taken behind glass on bus.)

Lots of photos taken but, on review, very few held any interest.  Dublin has both wide boulevards and narrow, tortured streets.  This is an example of the former.

Our great circle tour completed, we beetled off to Trinity and latched onto a tour being given by a recent graduate, awaiting his graduation papers, called a “finished” student, who apparently had no particular job to go to.  He clearly was hustling for tips, as he gave a spirited and funny tour, but I think he was playing fast and loose with the facts.  He got his beer money and then some.  Trinity is a mixture of old, classic structures like this entry courtyard (you come in through the arched opening at left-center),

. . . and the butt-ugly modern like this library.  What the hell is that shed-like protrusion behind the lamp pole?  Not that eliminating it would do much for the aesthetics of this place.

Old dormitories abound, like the one below.  The statue at the right has to be one of the ugliest portrayals in marble.  He looks like he just rolled out of bed after a drunk.  But it probably was accurate, as he was a nasty sort. 

Mr. Salmon was the Provost here from 1888-1904.  During his reign, as before, Trinity was a male-only institution.  When a proposal was made late in his tenure to admit women, he fulminated that women would be admitted only over his dead body.  He died a week later, and was buried in the inner courtyard near a little-used entryway.  They raised this statue to him because he left a lot of money to the school, but stipulated in his will that an effigy be erected.  It wasn’t long after his death that the first women were admitted.  However, they were required to avoid use of the main entrance and instead come in through the smaller, above-referenced passage.  Yup.  Upon entering they walk right across old Salmon’s grave.  Poetry.
All is not old statuary.  This “Sphere Within A Sphere” sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro is a puzzler, but I since learned that there are a dozen more iterations of it scattered around the world, including one at the De Young Museum in San Francisco.  This one was donated by the artist, which probably eased the decision to install it here.  The thing rotates, exposing different aspects as it turns.

One of the interesting sidebars we learned from our guide was that the school has a “Trinity Scholars” program whereby those students who elect it can get 5 years’ free room, board, and tuition if they pass a difficult exam after their 2nd year.  He allowed as he didn’t try, but his younger brother made it!  Talk about pressure.  Last year, only 70 out of the 3,000 students here made the grade (not everyone opted to take it).  OK, on to the architectural gem of the place, the old library, longer than that of Oxford, and home to a unique filing system.  Here’s a shot of the barrel ceiling and looking down about half the length.

I really liked the artwork they had hanging, although I don’t know what it was representing.  The displays change periodically, so I was happy to see this bizarre and colorful stuff.  Looks like it escaped from Comic-Con.

You can see the stacks arrayed to the sides of this main hall, as well as above in the galleries.  All the books in the library are arranged by size, in no specific topical or author order, biggest on the bottom, and smallest on the top.  To find anything, you have to use an index that tells you where it’s located.  This was done, we are told, to make it look orderly.  I think its to prevent big volumes from falling on your head from a great height. Only in Ireland.

The true gem of the place is, of course, the fabulously illustrated Book of Kells, the collection of the four Gospels that was created and copied by painstaking monks, ca 800 AD.  The intricate detail is something to see, and it is stunning that the colors have survived so well for all these years.  Unfortunately, only two pages are on display at any one time.  Fortunately, the entirety is now available online at this link. 

One other interesting item on display was the Brian Boru harp, the model for the harp that appears on Irish coinage (and Harp beer as well!).  Brian Boru was the Irish Warrior King (1002-1014) that united all the Irish tribes against the onslaught of the Vikings in Ireland in the 10th century. When praying and giving thanks on his great victory after the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, he was assassinated by a rogue Viking.  The harp is a magnificently decorated and bejeweled medieval harp of cedar wood that was made for a person of great significance. However, it was not in fact made for Brian Boru himself as research has shown it to have been crafted about 300 years after his death





All the foregoing notwithstanding, the most important structure in Trinity was this student union, home to the only available public loo in the area (see sign in foreground).  We would return here often!

After a quick snack, Chuck & Alice decided to head back to the B&B, but we decided to walk around town a bit.  We poked around the Grafton shopping area, marveled at the prices,

and hightailed it back to the train station.  We caught one almost immediately, and made it back only 15 minutes after C&A, who had to wait quite a while.  For dinner, we strolled a few blocks from the B&B and found Le Petit Cochon, rated 4.5 on the TripAdvisor scale.  It was worth every star, and more.  I rated it the 4th best meal of the trip.  Mussels to start, then pan-fried Hake over leeks and boiled potatoes in a fabulous prawn-mussel cream sauce.  YUM.  Loni scored with a lamb ratatouille and garlic potatoes in a wine sauce. 3 kinds of homemade ice cream for dessert.  My three cohorts all were stunned at how powerful the pistachio tasted.  Sadly, I couldn’t taste it at all.  Seems that savory and salty are all I can get these days.  A great end to day 1 in Dublin.