earringproject: St. Patrick's Cathedral & the Book of Kells

Today will be our last full day in Dublin. We had another breakfast at our hotel and then we were to board our tour bus at 9:30, which we did. Our tour director, Tom, is a witty guy with a thick brogue who has kept us entertained. Not only did he tell us about our sites for the day, but he also pointed out other points of interest along the way.

Our first stop was St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Both St. Patrick’s and Christ Church are Protestant churches, which is kind of surprising since the Irish are predominantly Catholic. Tom told us how Mr. Guinness, the brewer, spent lots of money restoring the church and the Irish drank because they were supporting the church. J St. Patrick’s was beautiful and I took lots of pictures there. Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, was a dean there. He was actually buried there with his lady friend. We also saw the covered baptismal fount where St. Patrick was said to have had baptized the Irish.

Covered baptismal fount

Jonathan Swift was buried here.\\

We drove through Phoenix Park, where the Dublin Zoo and the President of Ireland lives. It is the largest park in Europe, according to our tour guide. We stopped and took pictures of an area with a large cross where the pope came and said mass to the people of Dublin several years ago. The US Ambassador to Ireland also lives there also. Our bus driver joked about stopping by for a bit of tea.

President of Ireland lives here. The person who designed the White House designed this also.

Our next stop was Trinity College where we saw the Book of Kells. Unfortunately, it was very crowded and it was hard to get a very good look at the ancient books. The Book of Kells is an illuminated Bible from 800 ad. The Long Library where the Book was kept was really awesome. We weren’t allowed to take pictures there, but I will find one to borrow from the internet. We were free for the rest of the day and Nick and I walked back to the hotel and browsed at some shops. We stopped for lunch in a little café. I also stopped for coffee at Butler’s Chocolate Bar where I found out that I got a complimentary piece of chocolate. It was delicious, of course. . Some of our group will be touring the Guinness Factory this afternoon. I’m not sure what we will do for the rest of the night, but we will be checking out of our room fairly early tomorrow, so we may make it an early night. Tomorrow, we are to head to see the monastic ruins of Glendalough, the crystal factory of Waterford, and end in Cork.