Dublin, Ireland (British Isles Cruise)

For our day in Dublin, we decided to walk around the city on our own. We took a DART train into the city, and began with a walking tour of Trinity College, founded in 1592 under Queen Elizabeth I who was probably looking to exert her influence over Ireland by establishing this as a Protestant university. Their famous library with the Book of Kells (a medieval illustrated copy of the Four Gospels in Latin) was under renovation, so we didn't get tickets for that.

The campus of Trinity College was kind of interesting with many buildings scattered throughout the quad.

 

 

The campus is tucked behind the walls in downtown Dublin with a few public entrances like this.

We followed a walking tour in Rick Steve's guide book that meandered through the major walking streets of Dublin.  This is Dublin Castle, which was the seat of British power in Ireland for centuries until 1922, and today it is used by the Irish government for state functions.

Below is Christ Church Cathedral. Its origins date back to around 1038 when Viking settlers constructed a cathedral on the site.  There are many Viking artifacts buried in the lawn that still haven't been properly excavated.

 

In excavating to build in many locations within Dublin, construction crews found many old artifacts from Viking times.  It was a mad rush to excavate, catalog, and remove all the artifacts as the city wanted both to preserve history and also complete construction.  Many of the artifacts wound up in the National Museum of Archaeology, and casts of them were incorporated into plaques on the sidewalks showing the location where these artifacts were found.

 

We toured the National Museum of Archaeology and Chester Beatty Library.  Both had many history artifacts of Ireland and around the world.  The kids were tired by this point of walking around the city, otherwise we might have spent more time looking at the exhibits.

 

The archaeology museum had impressive architecture inside.

 

Derek was particularly interested in the displays of Viking and Celtic weapons in the archaeology museum - not surprising I suppose.

 

 

I also really liked walking around St Stephen's Green, a historic Victorian public park that was traditionally surrounded by the houses of the rich.