Manuscripts and something out of a movie

Today we walked around the city, having a late start because of my illness, and went to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College. We began the day with scones and tea and all sorts of yumminess at the Queen of Tarts, a fabulously delicious bakery and tea room on Dame Street across from Dublin Castle.

Dublin is a walking city. There is no subway, but there is a great and reliable bus service and taxis galore. But when the main stretch of the city is about 3 miles across, you can really get around just by walking .

The Book of Kells is located in Trinity College's library on permanent display. Trinity College was established in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I of England. It's a compact college, right in the heart of the city, with the Bank of Ireland building (former location of the Irish Parliament) across the way.

The Book is a set of ornately decorated and written manuscripts done by Celtic monks in the 1st century (around 800.) The Book contains the 4 gospels of the New Testament in Latin. The exhibit also features other famous Dark Age-period illuminated manuscripts, as well as offers a timeline based around these books and the history of Ireland at the time. There are videos detailing how these books were made and how these monks – artists in their own right, really – decorated and wrote these texts. I love calligraphy and the art of book-making and this exhibit fascinated me.

We later walked into the College's Old Library Long Room and it was something out of some period film, just utterly amazing. JD was floored. The Long Room is wall-to-wall first editions and bound books, many of them hundreds of years old. It's just hard to describe this place. I looked up information about the Long Room on wikipedia and supposedly, the Jedi Archives featured in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones was inspired by the Long Room.

After leaving the College, we spent some quiet time in Ireland's National Gallery. We are culture-heads, yes. We are not ashamed.

Hate to say it is an early night for us, as I was feeling a bit worse by late afternoon.

We depart for London in the morning!