Books and Music

 At breakfast Martina told us about her day trip yesterday and gave us some advice given we have planned a similar excursion tomorrow and then we started the walk into the city.

From the number of folk walking the streets in team colours it was obvious that there was going to be a game of something in town today and as we walked three lasses were coming the other way in team colours so I asked them what their team was - “Galway”.

One of them picking up that we obviously had a non-Irish accent asked where we were from so I told her. She then asked which area and said she was in NZ last week for Fieldays. We asked her had she enjoyed it “Yes, I love that f..king country” - laughs all round & as she walked away “I loved the men”.

The city centre was crowded with supporters of both teams, the other being Cork, and there was an obvious air of excitement.

After stopping for a Starbucks coffee we continued our walk through and out of town as we were heading for a vegan restaurant in an outer suburb managed by our host’s son.

Found it and had a tasty meal

after which we walked to St Patrick’s Cathedral being the significant Anglican Cathedral in Ireland.

There were many wall plagues honouring various individuals both religious and war heroes but it presented as being “untidy” a bit like a lad’s bedroom. There were areas however which were typical of Cathedrals

and externally it seemed well maintained 

Then it was a walk back into the centre of the city to view the statue of Molly Malone a semi-legendary figure and the subject of Dublin’s unofficial anthem “cockles and mussels” which tells the tragic story of a beautiful working class fishmonger who plied her trade through the streets of the city before dying young from a fever

We then had a stroll through a well frequented park, St Stephens, and then onto Trinity College  effectively the University of Dublin and which was founded in 1592.

From a tourists point of view the main reason to visit the College is to view the Long Room in the Old Library which houses over 30,000 old books with the highlight being the 1200 year old Book of Kells which is an illustrated manuscript of the four books of the New Testament in Latin. Currently there a restoration of the Old Library and the majority of the books have been removed to allow for the restoration and also their own restoration where necessary. Luckily there is an excellent digital show which provides a visualisation of what the library looked like

To top off the day we then had a booking for a meal and show of Irish music and dancing. Both the music and the dancing were excellent well appreciated by the crowd in attendance as was the warm-up singing who had the place rocking.

A bus back to Avoca ended another excellent day