For more photographs, see: http://anatolianphotos.shutterfly.com/
Apologies to friends and family members who have been looking forward to reading about our trip to Dublin. I have had my first major attack of writer’s block since arriving in Turkey in September. But I finally broke through the block. Thanks for your patience.
March 24 to 30 was spent in Dublin, Ireland, ostensibly to attend the 2010 conference of the European Association for American Studies, a joint effort between Trinity College, Dublin, and University College Dublin. The theme of the conference was: “Forever Young.” Larry was to deliver a paper on Saturday on the American painter, Thomas Cole, and his series of paintings depicting the rise and fall of empires as synonymous with youth, maturity and old age of man. Since we were paying for our visit -- no institutional support from UConn, Hacettepe, nor Fulbright -- we decided that we would spend six days in the Emerald Isle and do as much sight-seeing as possible between conference sessions.
First, a few words about the conference. Friday was registration day in the Art Building of Trinity College. I have organized meetings and attended many conferences over the years. So I was not prepared for the lack of signs directing people to the proper building and/or rooms. And Trinity College itself seems to have no interest in naming their buildings, at least not visibly. So finding the registration room was tricky. There were many, many other organizational problems with this conference. But the next one, in two years, will be held in Turkey. With Meldan serving as the newly elected Vice President of the European organization, we talked about the logistical problems of the Dublin conference, and the need to ensure that they are not repeated in Turkey.
Despite the organizational bloopers, the workshop session I attended was excellent and included Meldan’s paper, with which I had helped her in her preparatory research. She is a good speaker and the paper, dealing with Amy Tan and the literary canon, was very good. I didn’t attend Larry’s session, as I had read his paper twice already. It too was excellent. He attended more workshops than I did, and reported that they were generally very good, with at least one exception, where the speaker’s Irish brogue was so thick he was not understood by anyone in the room.
Which brings me to the two “keynote speakers” I heard. In all my conference attendances, I have always found keynote speakers to be good to excellent. This is generally why they are selected as “keynote.” The two I heard at this conference were horrible. Enough said.
Apologies to friends and family members who have been looking forward to reading about our trip to Dublin. I have had my first major attack of writer’s block since arriving in Turkey in September. But I finally broke through the block. Thanks for your patience.
March 24 to 30 was spent in Dublin, Ireland, ostensibly to attend the 2010 conference of the European Association for American Studies, a joint effort between Trinity College, Dublin, and University College Dublin. The theme of the conference was: “Forever Young.” Larry was to deliver a paper on Saturday on the American painter, Thomas Cole, and his series of paintings depicting the rise and fall of empires as synonymous with youth, maturity and old age of man. Since we were paying for our visit -- no institutional support from UConn, Hacettepe, nor Fulbright -- we decided that we would spend six days in the Emerald Isle and do as much sight-seeing as possible between conference sessions.
First, a few words about the conference. Friday was registration day in the Art Building of Trinity College. I have organized meetings and attended many conferences over the years. So I was not prepared for the lack of signs directing people to the proper building and/or rooms. And Trinity College itself seems to have no interest in naming their buildings, at least not visibly. So finding the registration room was tricky. There were many, many other organizational problems with this conference. But the next one, in two years, will be held in Turkey. With Meldan serving as the newly elected Vice President of the European organization, we talked about the logistical problems of the Dublin conference, and the need to ensure that they are not repeated in Turkey.
Despite the organizational bloopers, the workshop session I attended was excellent and included Meldan’s paper, with which I had helped her in her preparatory research. She is a good speaker and the paper, dealing with Amy Tan and the literary canon, was very good. I didn’t attend Larry’s session, as I had read his paper twice already. It too was excellent. He attended more workshops than I did, and reported that they were generally very good, with at least one exception, where the speaker’s Irish brogue was so thick he was not understood by anyone in the room.
Which brings me to the two “keynote speakers” I heard. In all my conference attendances, I have always found keynote speakers to be good to excellent. This is generally why they are selected as “keynote.” The two I heard at this conference were horrible. Enough said.
Now for the fun part: sight seeing in Dublin, Ireland.
For those of you who know Ireland at all, you know it is a wet country. The forecast called for rain the entire time we were there. But we got lucky and had plenty of dry patches for most days. The wettest (and coldest) was on our last day of sight-seeing, when we were trekking through a national park and a small, charming Irish town, Kilkenny. Each day we were in Ireland the temperature dropped slightly from the previous day, until it snowed on the day we left.
Wednesday, March 24 - Gaining two hours on the flight West, we arrived late afternoon in some rain, which soon cleared up. On the bus from the airport, we found the bus driver to be one of the most helpful and friendliest drivers we’ve ever encountered. After six days, I found that he was pretty much the norm among Irish people, at least those whom tourists are likely to encounter. Once we found our hotel, with excellent directions from the driver, and checked in, we went off on our own to investigate the immediate vicinity of the hotel, which turned out to be centrally located and within walking distance of nearly everything we had hoped to see, including most of the conference sites. (One conference day was accessible though only by bus).
Walking to the hotel, we had already discovered Grafton Street, an Istiklal Caddesi look alike (in Istanbul). Another pedestrian walkway, it was a central shopping area, with lots of upscale shops, pubs and street entertainment. Nearby, we wandered through the beautiful St. Stephen’s Green, a central urban park that had formerly been private and accessible only to the wealthy inhabitants in the Georgian mansions nearby. Now a public space, it is still surrounded by a gate which is locked at sundown. The periphery of the park, just inside the gate, is full of trees and thick vegetation, rendering the surrounding traffic and buildings virtually invisible from inside the park. Within this circle of vegetation is a more manicured park, with two nice ponds (with swans and ducks, naturally), pretty park buildings, and lots of flower gardens, statues and open space.
After emerging from the opposite end of the park from where we entered, we followed signs to various national museums, all of which were about to close for the day, so we kept walking, only to find another pretty urban park, the Archbishop Ryan Park, another plot formerly open only to the local wealthy. This one has a nifty recently installed statue of an insouciant looking James Joyce reclining on a large granite rock. Another unusual feature of the park is a large, irregular grassy mound which, according to a nearby sign, is the entry way to a WWII underground air raid shelter, large enough to hold more than 1,000 of Dublin’s inhabitants during an air attack. Most beautiful in the park are the heather gardens, showcasing the ubiquitous plant that grows throughout the country.
Feeling hungry, we found one of the restaurants I had researched on the Internet that caters to vegetarians. Govinda has four restaurants in Dublin; the one we frequented was between the two parks and across from so many of the museums on our list. Great food at a reasonable price, partly because the server lowered the price when we requested from the buffet only the vegan choices. We came back here the next day, because nearly every other restaurant, and everything else in Dublin, is really expensive!
Our hotel, Camden Court Hotel, is a three star hotel. Most of the online reviews I had read in advance said it is too noisy and the beds are uncomfortable. We found it very quiet. And the bed, although unusual, was comfortable enough for us. Another Internet complaint was that it was too hot. It certainly was the first night, but then Larry figured out how to turn the heat down. Duh! What we really liked were the breakfasts – lots of choices, including lots of fruit, and Irish porridge, which was my favorite. Another favorite in the hotel was the pool/sauna/Jacuzzi/steam room/gym complex. Despite the price of 115 Euros per night, we really liked this hotel. Given that it was the cheapest conference hotel listed, we had been a bit wary.
Thursday, March 25 – The next day was a serious sight-seeing day for Larry and me, since the conference didn’t officially open until the next day, Friday.
Dublin Castle http://www.dublincastle.ie/index.html This does not look like your typical castle. That’s because it is fairly recent in its current manifestation. Built originally by the Vikings, it was rebuilt many times over the centuries, first by the Normans, then the English, later the Irish. When we asked a tipsy gentleman outside a pub how to find the castle, he pointed vaguely in the direction of where we should walk, but warned, “it doesn’t look like a castle.” He was right. Some of the exterior sections have even been painted bright, contrasting colors. Very odd. Several of the rooms are still used for ceremonial state functions. But mostly it is a tourist site. The best part of the tour was venturing underground to view part of the Viking city walls recently found under the castle.
Chester Beatty Library – http://www.cbl.ie/ On the Castle grounds, this library was the passion of Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, an American mining magnate, whose collecting specialty was the Book Arts, something of particular interest to me, the rare book librarian. Alas, the Books Arts gallery, which is what attracted me to the building, was taken over by a display of Chinese brush paintings from the 15th century to current times. Although I was disappointed to miss the Book Arts exhibit, the gorgeous Chinese paintings and calligraphy, on loan from the Shanghai Museum, were worth seeing. On another floor, a large display of artifacts collected by Beatty highlighted some of the world’s major religions: Christianity, Islam, and three Far Eastern religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. Here I was able to see some of the miniaturist paintings from the Qur’an, as well as (amazingly!) some fragments of the earliest known writings, on papyrus, of the four Christian apostles. Wow! Note: I wonder how the web site translates the 8 Euro admission price – each! – to “Admission Free.”
Christ Church Cathedral - http://cccdub.ie/ This is one of two Anglican cathedrals in Dublin, the other being St. Patrick’s. The older of the two, originally a Viking church constructed 1,000 years ago, this is now Cathedral of the Dublin Diocese, whereas St. Patrick’s is the national cathedral. There is a third, Catholic cathedral, St. Mary’s, that serves as a proxy; the Catholic church apparently also laying claim to Christ Church (I think; the history is long and confusing to this layperson). Christ Church is a gorgeous building, with centuries of changes and renovations, to the point where it is hard to distinguish the medieval from the more recent sections. One of the unique aspects of this cathedral is the huge, eerie, medieval crypt that occupies the basement of most of the structure. I took two photographs before realizing that photos were not allowed down there (they were, upstairs).
Connected to the cathedral by a pedestrian bridge constructed in the 19th century is a separate building that once served as an administrative center for the church. Now it hosts two exhibitions on the history of Dublin: Viking Dublin, and Medieval Dublin. Did you know that Dublin was originally a Viking town, then for many centuries an English town, the latter surrounded by “Irish tribes”? We didn’t. The exhibitions were playful and designed for both adults and children, with lots of wax figures representing individuals from Viking and medieval times. One Viking served as host to the earlier exhibition. He was a life size drawing of a Viking, with the face cut out, within which a hologram face talked to us. I don’t know about Larry, but it made me jump when he started talking to us.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral – http://www.stpatrickscathedral.ie/index.aspx was founded in 1190, making it the “younger” of the two cathedrals in Dublin. It serves as Ireland’s national Anglican cathedral, after a late 19th century agreement that settled once and for all the anomaly of having two cathedrals for one branch of Christianity in a single town. After centuries of upheaval and neglect, a mid-19th century renovation was subsidized by the local brewer, Benjamin Guinness. Unlike Christ Church, headed by an Archbishop, St. Patrick’s is headed by a Dean, the most famous of whom was Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels. His grave and epitaph are found in the church. The church and surrounding park sit on the site of a holy well, where St. Patrick converted the local populace to Christianity in the 5th century.
National Gallery – We saw all the sights above in one day. Ouch! My aching feet! Nonetheless, we had noticed yesterday that the National Gallery, normally open until 5:00 p.m., would close later today, at 8:30 p.m. So, after another dinner at Govinda’s, off we went to see some art. To our feets’ relief, we arrived just in time for a free concert of Chopin pieces in a beautiful concert hall in the museum. After the concert, we exited to a fairly heavy rain, feeling grateful that it had held off during our sight-seeing marathon. NOTE: mid-day the next day (Friday), we were able to return to the gallery to see the paintings there, including Rembrandt, Vermeer and, of course, Irish paintings. Very nice art museum; good food, too, in the café, though a little pricey (as is everything in Dublin, we discovered).
Friday, March 26 - Trinity College and the Book of Kells - http://www.tcd.ie/Library/old-library/book-of-kells/ The next day, Larry and I went to Trinity College, one of the hosts of the conference, for the first time. After registering for the conference (Larry, that is, I got in for free – nobody challenged me and I wasn’t about to pay an additional 90 Euros), we headed for the Trinity Library and the famous Book of Kells. This book is the most famous illustrated Bible in the world and was transcribed by monks in approximately 800 AD. It is considered a masterpiece of calligraphy and manuscript illustration and is truly beautiful. The college did a spectacular job of creating a lengthy exhibition of illuminated manuscript techniques and discussions of the book itself, before we were finally able to see the tome itself. I had seen it once before when it was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, but it was worth seeing again. It is considered to be Ireland’s finest treasure.
When I was new on the job as a Special Collections librarian – several decades ago at UConn -- one of the first requests to me from a patron was to see the Book of Kells. “We have the Book of Kells?” I stuttered. Turns out it was a reprint in our collection—very expensive in its own right. But what did I know then? (not much, obviously)
After exiting the exhibit, we walked through “The Long Room,” a huge vaulted library room, with 200,000 old, old books. As a rare book librarian, I was eager to take pictures, but, understandably, not allowed to.
The remainder of the day was spent at the National Gallery of art.
Saturday, March 27 - Bus Tour of Dublin – The next day, Saturday, Larry was to give his talk at one of the dozens of conference workshops, as well as attend some other talks. Since I had already read Larry’s talk about the painter, Thomas Cole (great talk!), I decided to go sight-seeing on my own. Hopping on a “hop on, hop off” tour bus, with a reduced rate for this senior citizen, I sat on the upper deck of the double-decker to view the sights and hear the guide’s comments about this pretty, if sometimes grim, city. My intention was to take the tour in total once, lasting about 90 minutes, then start a second time, this time “hopping off” to visit specific sights, then back on another tour bus to continue to another sight. But I got awfully cold up there in the fresh air. So, after passing by three particularly interesting tourist spots, Kilmainham Gaol, the Guinness factory, and Phoenix Park (about 2.5 times the size of New York City’s Central Park), I settled on the National Museum of Decorative Arts.
After disembarking from the bus, I found myself alone in a section of large old warehouse looking buildings. Following signs for the museum, I entered a forbidding courtyard surrounded by what looked like huge military buildings. Alas, they WERE huge military buildings, although no longer used by the military, and turned over to the National Museum, which consists of most of the major museums in the city, similar to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. This one is newly occupied – but only partially – by the Decorative Arts museum -- and was a big disappointment to me. The costume and fabric exhibitions, although very nice, were small. One section of the museum consisted of a temporary exhibition on Natural History, to compensate for the main Natural History museum being closed for many months for renovation.
Anyway, after leaving the museum the way I had come in (which turned out not to be the main entrance), I could not find the bus stop to “hop” back on another tour bus! A nice woman nearby, with a brogue so thick I understood almost nothing she said, likewise didn’t much understand me. And so she directed me to “hop on” the local tram, which seems to be free, at least I didn’t pay, where I disembarked somewhere near the center of the city, enabling me to get back on a tour bus. Unfortunately, between the museum and the place where I picked up the bus again, were several of the literary sights I had hoped to see. So I missed those too. I think I need to return to Dublin for another week or so.
The little I was able to see again that day included beautiful Georgian houses, with their colorful doors. The guide said that the residents were instructed (by whom, I didn’t hear) to paint their doors black out of respect (for whom, I didn’t hear). “But, Dubliners being Dubliners,” he said, “they painted them every color but.” Finally, a longer visit to the National Museum for Archaeology and History, which houses a huge collection of gold artifacts from the Bronze Age, extracted from Irish bogs. Also extracted from the bogs were mummified bodies that had been victims of ritual sacrifice or other murders and thrown into the bog where, due to a lack of oxygen, the bodies did not deteriorate. These poor people’s remains were very grim indeed.
Sunday, March 28 - Conference, shopping and more museums
The next day I decided to attend more of the conference. Specifically, I wanted to hear my friend Meldan’s talk about Amy Tan. I had earlier helped her locate materials in preparation for her talk, which was one of four in the workshop that focused on Asian American writers. She did an excellent job. Since Larry had more workshops he wished to attend, but I didn’t, I headed back to the National Gallery to see some more paintings. Then I had a few hours to go shopping on the famous Dublin shopping street, Grafton St. Finding some things I liked in Marks and Spencers, I decided against them (no room in my luggage) and headed back to the conference to find Larry and a colleague, Ozge. They wanted me to show them where the Archaeology and History museum was so they could see the bog artifacts and more on Vikings and Egyptians. Alas, it was closed, not because it was Sunday, but because of a labor action. We had been seeing picketers in various places, but we were never faced with having to decide not to cross a picket line (in any case, we wouldn’t have done so). So back we went to hear another keynote speaker.
We rewarded ourselves for having to sit through another dreadful keynote (although, as I said, the workshops were quite good in general), by heading for a restaurant for really good pizza, a surprise to us given that we were in Ireland, not known for pizza. Then we found an Irish pub where the three of us finally had a Guinness. It was surprisingly mild; either that or my tastes have changed—I used to think Guinness was bitter, and awful. Fittingly, the pub was called International Bar, where two Americans (us), a Turk (Ozge) and someone we met there from Spain mingled with local Dubliners waiting for the nightly comedy show to begin. We left before the show, being pretty tired by then.
Monday, March 29 - Tour of the Countryside: Glendalough & Kilkenny
Our final tourist day was spent on a bus tour of part of the Irish countryside. The entire Turkish delegation went on this tour, originating early in the morning and ending about 6:00 p.m.
Because we were outside all day, except when in the bus, naturally it was cold and rainy. It was Yedigoller revisited, in that the first stop was at the Glendalough portion of the Wicklow Mountains National Park, http://www.wicklowmountainsnationalpark.ie/ where we followed paths, umbrellas aloft, to a medieval monastic settlement. Of particular note was a 1,000+ year old bridge to the settlement,that had just been washed out from excessive rains. Sounds like New England this winter. We were able to approach the ancient cathedral and monastic grounds from an alternative route. Cold and wet, we took refuge in the park’s hotel restaurant, where Ozge was eager to try a scone, something she had never had before. She’ll have to keep waiting, though, as the rest of our group, about 28 people, ate all the scones before we could order any.
Next stop was the town of Kilkenny, http://www.virtourist.com/europe/kilkenny/index.html a beautiful little town, with a big castle (Kilkenny Castle) that is peculiar in that it is missing one of its four sides surrounding the central castle courtyard. Apparently blown out during one of several sieges, the wall was never replaced, because, during more recent renovations to the entire castle, it was decided that the view of the grounds from that angle was too pretty to block with another wall. We didn’t spend much time in the castle, as we didn’t have a whole lot of time in the town. This is a shame, since it is very pretty, and we would have liked to explore more on our own.
Our guide did take us to various churches, and also showed us a small structure that served as a soup kitchen during the Famine. Also, he pointed out one small street, with seven (!) charming pubs all in a row. And, pointing out an old inn, he told us a gruesome story of a woman accused of witchcraft after four husbands died, reminding us of our own New England history. After a brief lunch and a sample of Kilkenny beer, which Larry, Ozge and I preferred to Guinness, we had little time left to explore on our own.
For those of you who know Ireland at all, you know it is a wet country. The forecast called for rain the entire time we were there. But we got lucky and had plenty of dry patches for most days. The wettest (and coldest) was on our last day of sight-seeing, when we were trekking through a national park and a small, charming Irish town, Kilkenny. Each day we were in Ireland the temperature dropped slightly from the previous day, until it snowed on the day we left.
Wednesday, March 24 - Gaining two hours on the flight West, we arrived late afternoon in some rain, which soon cleared up. On the bus from the airport, we found the bus driver to be one of the most helpful and friendliest drivers we’ve ever encountered. After six days, I found that he was pretty much the norm among Irish people, at least those whom tourists are likely to encounter. Once we found our hotel, with excellent directions from the driver, and checked in, we went off on our own to investigate the immediate vicinity of the hotel, which turned out to be centrally located and within walking distance of nearly everything we had hoped to see, including most of the conference sites. (One conference day was accessible though only by bus).
Walking to the hotel, we had already discovered Grafton Street, an Istiklal Caddesi look alike (in Istanbul). Another pedestrian walkway, it was a central shopping area, with lots of upscale shops, pubs and street entertainment. Nearby, we wandered through the beautiful St. Stephen’s Green, a central urban park that had formerly been private and accessible only to the wealthy inhabitants in the Georgian mansions nearby. Now a public space, it is still surrounded by a gate which is locked at sundown. The periphery of the park, just inside the gate, is full of trees and thick vegetation, rendering the surrounding traffic and buildings virtually invisible from inside the park. Within this circle of vegetation is a more manicured park, with two nice ponds (with swans and ducks, naturally), pretty park buildings, and lots of flower gardens, statues and open space.
After emerging from the opposite end of the park from where we entered, we followed signs to various national museums, all of which were about to close for the day, so we kept walking, only to find another pretty urban park, the Archbishop Ryan Park, another plot formerly open only to the local wealthy. This one has a nifty recently installed statue of an insouciant looking James Joyce reclining on a large granite rock. Another unusual feature of the park is a large, irregular grassy mound which, according to a nearby sign, is the entry way to a WWII underground air raid shelter, large enough to hold more than 1,000 of Dublin’s inhabitants during an air attack. Most beautiful in the park are the heather gardens, showcasing the ubiquitous plant that grows throughout the country.
Feeling hungry, we found one of the restaurants I had researched on the Internet that caters to vegetarians. Govinda has four restaurants in Dublin; the one we frequented was between the two parks and across from so many of the museums on our list. Great food at a reasonable price, partly because the server lowered the price when we requested from the buffet only the vegan choices. We came back here the next day, because nearly every other restaurant, and everything else in Dublin, is really expensive!
Our hotel, Camden Court Hotel, is a three star hotel. Most of the online reviews I had read in advance said it is too noisy and the beds are uncomfortable. We found it very quiet. And the bed, although unusual, was comfortable enough for us. Another Internet complaint was that it was too hot. It certainly was the first night, but then Larry figured out how to turn the heat down. Duh! What we really liked were the breakfasts – lots of choices, including lots of fruit, and Irish porridge, which was my favorite. Another favorite in the hotel was the pool/sauna/Jacuzzi/steam room/gym complex. Despite the price of 115 Euros per night, we really liked this hotel. Given that it was the cheapest conference hotel listed, we had been a bit wary.
Thursday, March 25 – The next day was a serious sight-seeing day for Larry and me, since the conference didn’t officially open until the next day, Friday.
Dublin Castle http://www.dublincastle.ie/index.html This does not look like your typical castle. That’s because it is fairly recent in its current manifestation. Built originally by the Vikings, it was rebuilt many times over the centuries, first by the Normans, then the English, later the Irish. When we asked a tipsy gentleman outside a pub how to find the castle, he pointed vaguely in the direction of where we should walk, but warned, “it doesn’t look like a castle.” He was right. Some of the exterior sections have even been painted bright, contrasting colors. Very odd. Several of the rooms are still used for ceremonial state functions. But mostly it is a tourist site. The best part of the tour was venturing underground to view part of the Viking city walls recently found under the castle.
Chester Beatty Library – http://www.cbl.ie/ On the Castle grounds, this library was the passion of Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, an American mining magnate, whose collecting specialty was the Book Arts, something of particular interest to me, the rare book librarian. Alas, the Books Arts gallery, which is what attracted me to the building, was taken over by a display of Chinese brush paintings from the 15th century to current times. Although I was disappointed to miss the Book Arts exhibit, the gorgeous Chinese paintings and calligraphy, on loan from the Shanghai Museum, were worth seeing. On another floor, a large display of artifacts collected by Beatty highlighted some of the world’s major religions: Christianity, Islam, and three Far Eastern religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. Here I was able to see some of the miniaturist paintings from the Qur’an, as well as (amazingly!) some fragments of the earliest known writings, on papyrus, of the four Christian apostles. Wow! Note: I wonder how the web site translates the 8 Euro admission price – each! – to “Admission Free.”
Christ Church Cathedral - http://cccdub.ie/ This is one of two Anglican cathedrals in Dublin, the other being St. Patrick’s. The older of the two, originally a Viking church constructed 1,000 years ago, this is now Cathedral of the Dublin Diocese, whereas St. Patrick’s is the national cathedral. There is a third, Catholic cathedral, St. Mary’s, that serves as a proxy; the Catholic church apparently also laying claim to Christ Church (I think; the history is long and confusing to this layperson). Christ Church is a gorgeous building, with centuries of changes and renovations, to the point where it is hard to distinguish the medieval from the more recent sections. One of the unique aspects of this cathedral is the huge, eerie, medieval crypt that occupies the basement of most of the structure. I took two photographs before realizing that photos were not allowed down there (they were, upstairs).
Connected to the cathedral by a pedestrian bridge constructed in the 19th century is a separate building that once served as an administrative center for the church. Now it hosts two exhibitions on the history of Dublin: Viking Dublin, and Medieval Dublin. Did you know that Dublin was originally a Viking town, then for many centuries an English town, the latter surrounded by “Irish tribes”? We didn’t. The exhibitions were playful and designed for both adults and children, with lots of wax figures representing individuals from Viking and medieval times. One Viking served as host to the earlier exhibition. He was a life size drawing of a Viking, with the face cut out, within which a hologram face talked to us. I don’t know about Larry, but it made me jump when he started talking to us.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral – http://www.stpatrickscathedral.ie/index.aspx was founded in 1190, making it the “younger” of the two cathedrals in Dublin. It serves as Ireland’s national Anglican cathedral, after a late 19th century agreement that settled once and for all the anomaly of having two cathedrals for one branch of Christianity in a single town. After centuries of upheaval and neglect, a mid-19th century renovation was subsidized by the local brewer, Benjamin Guinness. Unlike Christ Church, headed by an Archbishop, St. Patrick’s is headed by a Dean, the most famous of whom was Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels. His grave and epitaph are found in the church. The church and surrounding park sit on the site of a holy well, where St. Patrick converted the local populace to Christianity in the 5th century.
National Gallery – We saw all the sights above in one day. Ouch! My aching feet! Nonetheless, we had noticed yesterday that the National Gallery, normally open until 5:00 p.m., would close later today, at 8:30 p.m. So, after another dinner at Govinda’s, off we went to see some art. To our feets’ relief, we arrived just in time for a free concert of Chopin pieces in a beautiful concert hall in the museum. After the concert, we exited to a fairly heavy rain, feeling grateful that it had held off during our sight-seeing marathon. NOTE: mid-day the next day (Friday), we were able to return to the gallery to see the paintings there, including Rembrandt, Vermeer and, of course, Irish paintings. Very nice art museum; good food, too, in the café, though a little pricey (as is everything in Dublin, we discovered).
Friday, March 26 - Trinity College and the Book of Kells - http://www.tcd.ie/Library/old-library/book-of-kells/ The next day, Larry and I went to Trinity College, one of the hosts of the conference, for the first time. After registering for the conference (Larry, that is, I got in for free – nobody challenged me and I wasn’t about to pay an additional 90 Euros), we headed for the Trinity Library and the famous Book of Kells. This book is the most famous illustrated Bible in the world and was transcribed by monks in approximately 800 AD. It is considered a masterpiece of calligraphy and manuscript illustration and is truly beautiful. The college did a spectacular job of creating a lengthy exhibition of illuminated manuscript techniques and discussions of the book itself, before we were finally able to see the tome itself. I had seen it once before when it was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, but it was worth seeing again. It is considered to be Ireland’s finest treasure.
When I was new on the job as a Special Collections librarian – several decades ago at UConn -- one of the first requests to me from a patron was to see the Book of Kells. “We have the Book of Kells?” I stuttered. Turns out it was a reprint in our collection—very expensive in its own right. But what did I know then? (not much, obviously)
After exiting the exhibit, we walked through “The Long Room,” a huge vaulted library room, with 200,000 old, old books. As a rare book librarian, I was eager to take pictures, but, understandably, not allowed to.
The remainder of the day was spent at the National Gallery of art.
Saturday, March 27 - Bus Tour of Dublin – The next day, Saturday, Larry was to give his talk at one of the dozens of conference workshops, as well as attend some other talks. Since I had already read Larry’s talk about the painter, Thomas Cole (great talk!), I decided to go sight-seeing on my own. Hopping on a “hop on, hop off” tour bus, with a reduced rate for this senior citizen, I sat on the upper deck of the double-decker to view the sights and hear the guide’s comments about this pretty, if sometimes grim, city. My intention was to take the tour in total once, lasting about 90 minutes, then start a second time, this time “hopping off” to visit specific sights, then back on another tour bus to continue to another sight. But I got awfully cold up there in the fresh air. So, after passing by three particularly interesting tourist spots, Kilmainham Gaol, the Guinness factory, and Phoenix Park (about 2.5 times the size of New York City’s Central Park), I settled on the National Museum of Decorative Arts.
After disembarking from the bus, I found myself alone in a section of large old warehouse looking buildings. Following signs for the museum, I entered a forbidding courtyard surrounded by what looked like huge military buildings. Alas, they WERE huge military buildings, although no longer used by the military, and turned over to the National Museum, which consists of most of the major museums in the city, similar to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. This one is newly occupied – but only partially – by the Decorative Arts museum -- and was a big disappointment to me. The costume and fabric exhibitions, although very nice, were small. One section of the museum consisted of a temporary exhibition on Natural History, to compensate for the main Natural History museum being closed for many months for renovation.
Anyway, after leaving the museum the way I had come in (which turned out not to be the main entrance), I could not find the bus stop to “hop” back on another tour bus! A nice woman nearby, with a brogue so thick I understood almost nothing she said, likewise didn’t much understand me. And so she directed me to “hop on” the local tram, which seems to be free, at least I didn’t pay, where I disembarked somewhere near the center of the city, enabling me to get back on a tour bus. Unfortunately, between the museum and the place where I picked up the bus again, were several of the literary sights I had hoped to see. So I missed those too. I think I need to return to Dublin for another week or so.
The little I was able to see again that day included beautiful Georgian houses, with their colorful doors. The guide said that the residents were instructed (by whom, I didn’t hear) to paint their doors black out of respect (for whom, I didn’t hear). “But, Dubliners being Dubliners,” he said, “they painted them every color but.” Finally, a longer visit to the National Museum for Archaeology and History, which houses a huge collection of gold artifacts from the Bronze Age, extracted from Irish bogs. Also extracted from the bogs were mummified bodies that had been victims of ritual sacrifice or other murders and thrown into the bog where, due to a lack of oxygen, the bodies did not deteriorate. These poor people’s remains were very grim indeed.
Sunday, March 28 - Conference, shopping and more museums
The next day I decided to attend more of the conference. Specifically, I wanted to hear my friend Meldan’s talk about Amy Tan. I had earlier helped her locate materials in preparation for her talk, which was one of four in the workshop that focused on Asian American writers. She did an excellent job. Since Larry had more workshops he wished to attend, but I didn’t, I headed back to the National Gallery to see some more paintings. Then I had a few hours to go shopping on the famous Dublin shopping street, Grafton St. Finding some things I liked in Marks and Spencers, I decided against them (no room in my luggage) and headed back to the conference to find Larry and a colleague, Ozge. They wanted me to show them where the Archaeology and History museum was so they could see the bog artifacts and more on Vikings and Egyptians. Alas, it was closed, not because it was Sunday, but because of a labor action. We had been seeing picketers in various places, but we were never faced with having to decide not to cross a picket line (in any case, we wouldn’t have done so). So back we went to hear another keynote speaker.
We rewarded ourselves for having to sit through another dreadful keynote (although, as I said, the workshops were quite good in general), by heading for a restaurant for really good pizza, a surprise to us given that we were in Ireland, not known for pizza. Then we found an Irish pub where the three of us finally had a Guinness. It was surprisingly mild; either that or my tastes have changed—I used to think Guinness was bitter, and awful. Fittingly, the pub was called International Bar, where two Americans (us), a Turk (Ozge) and someone we met there from Spain mingled with local Dubliners waiting for the nightly comedy show to begin. We left before the show, being pretty tired by then.
Monday, March 29 - Tour of the Countryside: Glendalough & Kilkenny
Our final tourist day was spent on a bus tour of part of the Irish countryside. The entire Turkish delegation went on this tour, originating early in the morning and ending about 6:00 p.m.
Because we were outside all day, except when in the bus, naturally it was cold and rainy. It was Yedigoller revisited, in that the first stop was at the Glendalough portion of the Wicklow Mountains National Park, http://www.wicklowmountainsnationalpark.ie/ where we followed paths, umbrellas aloft, to a medieval monastic settlement. Of particular note was a 1,000+ year old bridge to the settlement,that had just been washed out from excessive rains. Sounds like New England this winter. We were able to approach the ancient cathedral and monastic grounds from an alternative route. Cold and wet, we took refuge in the park’s hotel restaurant, where Ozge was eager to try a scone, something she had never had before. She’ll have to keep waiting, though, as the rest of our group, about 28 people, ate all the scones before we could order any.
Next stop was the town of Kilkenny, http://www.virtourist.com/europe/kilkenny/index.html a beautiful little town, with a big castle (Kilkenny Castle) that is peculiar in that it is missing one of its four sides surrounding the central castle courtyard. Apparently blown out during one of several sieges, the wall was never replaced, because, during more recent renovations to the entire castle, it was decided that the view of the grounds from that angle was too pretty to block with another wall. We didn’t spend much time in the castle, as we didn’t have a whole lot of time in the town. This is a shame, since it is very pretty, and we would have liked to explore more on our own.
Our guide did take us to various churches, and also showed us a small structure that served as a soup kitchen during the Famine. Also, he pointed out one small street, with seven (!) charming pubs all in a row. And, pointing out an old inn, he told us a gruesome story of a woman accused of witchcraft after four husbands died, reminding us of our own New England history. After a brief lunch and a sample of Kilkenny beer, which Larry, Ozge and I preferred to Guinness, we had little time left to explore on our own.
Larry’s family at home has been at work recently constructing a family history of their somewhat convoluted heritage. It turns out that one of their ancestors is from Kilkenny! What a nice coincidence!
On returning to Dublin, we noticed that a movie theater near Trinity College was advertising Michael Moore’s new movie, “Capitalism, a Love Affair.” Instead of eating dinner, then, we decided on the movie. As usual, it was terrific; we are great fans of Michael Moore. By the time we got out of the movie, it was 9:00 p.m. and we were starving, especially since we had only soup in Kilkenny earlier. So we decided on an Indian restaurant nearby, where we paid way too much money for food that was so spicy hot it was barely edible. And we had ordered “2” level dishes, with “4” being the hottest. (We didn’t see any “1” level dishes that appealed to us). Lesson learned; we should have returned to our staple, Govinda’s.
Tuesday, March 30 - The following day we returned to Ankara, leaving Dublin in more cold rain and, before long, snow! The flights were uneventful. Turkish Air is a good airline, serving very good food—even vegan food, if we ordered in advance for Larry, which we didn’t, alas. The only comment about the flight was the crowded airport in Ankara, where hundreds of people, mostly women it seemed, were returning from the Hajj in Mecca. (There is actually another word for “Hajj” when people make their pilgrimage off season, as these people did, but I cannot remember the word). We were surrounded by a sea of headscarves and white clothing! Larry had experienced this in Erzurum, but this was a first for me.
Addendum: I have been selectively photographing foods while in Turkey, including some meals I have prepared, with the thought that I would write a separate “food” post for my blog. I thought people might be interested in the types of food we eat here. Alas, today’s New York Times (Apr. 7) has an article about the large number of people who photograph their food and post the photos on their web sites. Now I feel weird, so I’m not sure I’m going to go through with this. Damned NYT—they scooped me!
On returning to Dublin, we noticed that a movie theater near Trinity College was advertising Michael Moore’s new movie, “Capitalism, a Love Affair.” Instead of eating dinner, then, we decided on the movie. As usual, it was terrific; we are great fans of Michael Moore. By the time we got out of the movie, it was 9:00 p.m. and we were starving, especially since we had only soup in Kilkenny earlier. So we decided on an Indian restaurant nearby, where we paid way too much money for food that was so spicy hot it was barely edible. And we had ordered “2” level dishes, with “4” being the hottest. (We didn’t see any “1” level dishes that appealed to us). Lesson learned; we should have returned to our staple, Govinda’s.
Tuesday, March 30 - The following day we returned to Ankara, leaving Dublin in more cold rain and, before long, snow! The flights were uneventful. Turkish Air is a good airline, serving very good food—even vegan food, if we ordered in advance for Larry, which we didn’t, alas. The only comment about the flight was the crowded airport in Ankara, where hundreds of people, mostly women it seemed, were returning from the Hajj in Mecca. (There is actually another word for “Hajj” when people make their pilgrimage off season, as these people did, but I cannot remember the word). We were surrounded by a sea of headscarves and white clothing! Larry had experienced this in Erzurum, but this was a first for me.
Addendum: I have been selectively photographing foods while in Turkey, including some meals I have prepared, with the thought that I would write a separate “food” post for my blog. I thought people might be interested in the types of food we eat here. Alas, today’s New York Times (Apr. 7) has an article about the large number of people who photograph their food and post the photos on their web sites. Now I feel weird, so I’m not sure I’m going to go through with this. Damned NYT—they scooped me!
Hello your blog is sharing great information. Thanks for share this blog, semtasyapi providing best Dekoratif parke tasi iskenderun hatay
ReplyDeletein Turky.