DUBLIN–IRELAND–In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty……

I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,

As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,

Through streets broad and narrow,

Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

"Alive, alive, oh,

Alive, alive, oh",

Crying "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh".

Molly Malone is also known by Dubliners as the Dolly with the trolley or the Tart with the cart.

She is very shiny on the part that people rub,,,,

We started today at Trinity College which was a short walk from our hotel.

We had a guided tour which ended at a viewing of

The Book of Kells.

This is a beautiful book which was lavishly decorated by the monks of Iona in the 9th Century.

A pic from Wikipedia of the Book of Kells

The tour ended in the long room library.

Wow, what a room, huge and shelves and shelves of ancient books, and I wasn’t allowed to take photos but here it is above thanks to the magic of the www.

It reminded me of Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University Library – although minus the smell of bananas.. Oook.

 

We then went to Kilmainham jail, and learnt about the various Irish up risings.

(They seem to spend a lot of their past history fighting each other and everybody else) 

Do you know that Kil or Kill means church – so that Irish towns starting with Kil mean church of somebody.

 

A  couple of observations on the Irish.

They have a reputation for being odd, in an Irish kind of way.

1/ There is a library in Trinity college that does not file the books in order of subject or alphabetically.

It took them six years to put the books on the shelves according to size…

2/ They once had a statue of Nelson to commemorate the battle of Trafalgar.

They blew this up because he was English.

So for the millennium they had a competition to design a piece of street art as a replacement.

They winner was to be the millennium spire, which wasn’t  finished until 2003 (as they had trouble getting planning permission), so its now just called the spire.

It is the worlds tallest piece of street art.

It has a light on top to stop air traffic flying into it.

However no one thought of what would happen if the globe blew.. which it did a few years later.

They had to get the tallest crane in Europe in to replace the globe at great expense.

However, its just not the Irish..

Overheard by Graham during our tour was an American tourist asking their companion what accent the guide had.

(the guide was Irish of course).

 

We are to get another hire car tomorrow and are off to County Clare.

They are predicting a Hurricane, 80 mile an hour winds! .. – really.

Until next time, Kim