Dublin Castle, Chester Beatty Library, National Museum of Ireland

September 4:  Dublin Castle, Chester Beatty Library, & National History Museum of Ireland

In the Chester Beatty library/museum

Lucas was hungry, so we ate at an Italian restaurant called Little Caesars. (not the same as the one in the US) This was last night.

Today, we slept in until about 9 am here and had another delicious breakfast in the hotel restaurant.  We headed out to see the Dublin Castle and the National Museum of Ireland.  The Castle is currently used for state events.  We walked into the chapel and around the garden in back.  It was quite impressive.  Next door was  the Chester Beatty Library which I had read about in my tour books.  Mr. Beatty was an American mining engineer who made his money and spent his life collecting rare historical books and Asian artifacts. He donated his library and collection to Ireland.  We saw some of the earliest Gospel texts dating from 200 ad.

Dublin castle

Gardens behind Dublin Castle

 inside Chester Beaty library (attached to the castle)

We had our first real Irish rain today and I was glad that I had my rain poncho with me.  We made our way to one of the National Museums of Ireland (History).  We saw many archeological exhibits from prehistoric era, the Vikings and Medieval Ireland.   

It was raining fairly hard at this point.  I saw this on the way to the other museum.

early copy of the NT from 800 AD

Tara Brooch (I need to do some research about this, but it's a big deal.)

This torso was found in the peat bog.  It is interesting to read about how he was probably killed.  It is amazing how his hands were preserved.

Nick took this and it looks kind of blurry.

The rain had stopped by the time we had finished touring the museum.  The sun had actually come out.  We found a nice coffee shop and rested a little bit before we found a taxi and headed back to our hotel.  We have a welcome dinner here in a few minutes with our tour group.  Our official tour starts tomorrow and we are supposed to see more sights in Dublin.  I think we head outside of the city on Tuesday.

 We met up with our tour group tonight for a very nice 3 course meal.  We  shared a table with a very nice couple from Maryland.  Our tour is supposed to start at 9:30 am in the morning.  We are supposed to go to Trinity College and St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Until next time!

xoxoPJ