Ahh, but the Trinity College and Book of Kells visit was
well-worth our scarce time! First,
visiting college campuses is (almost) always very enjoyable – It is fun to talk
about college with the kids and of course the spaces are so walkable and
usually feature interesting architecture and manicured quads. The Book is a beautifully written and
illustrated manuscript of the four Gospels, written in Latin. It is what’s
called an illuminated manuscript, meticulously scripted by young monks with
incredibly good eyesight and steady hands around 800A.D., on calf velum. OK, I thought upon reading the description,
it’s a very old book… Ahh, but this is
where museum curators can shine! The
caretakers of the Book created a great experience; the timed tickets, the
app-audio tour for the adults, and very well-done kids-activity allowed Scott
and I to learn about the time, place, and manner that the Book was written
while our kiddos were happily and actively engaged in their (educational and
interesting) activities related to the Book. Once we were property hyped up on
the info (how many calf-skins are in the 340 velum pages? what material did
they have to make the purple versus the yellow pigments?) we entered the
chamber and saw The Book.
The tour continues into the Long Room, an incredible library
– Most college libraries are impressive, but this room was breathtaking. We lingered a while; among the items in the
200,000 volume library are artifacts from Ireland’s early political history
like the 1916 Proclamation which was read at the start of the Easter Rising
that ended with Ireland’s independence in 1922.
The library also contains the oldest harp in Ireland and tributes to
philosophers and writers. I am not doing
it justice, but it was just open-mouthed, inspiring…
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| Hello Trinity College! |
Left: Luke looking at the different lettering types in the Book of Kells; Right: Luke and Katie searching a blown up Kells-page for their learning activity.
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| Our first glimpse of the Long Room. |
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| Selfie in the Long Hall - Seriously, the photos cannot capture the space. |
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| Katie longing to touch that oldest harp in Ireland. |
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| Luke, doing what you are supposed to do in the Long Hall (pen and paper-work!). |
Scott had work, so we found a burrito place for dinner and
after dinner Scott and I managed to make it to a pub for a short outing while
the kiddos played on their computers in the hotel room.
The next day, we traveled to Cork via train which was an
excellent day of traveling – We took a cab from our hotel to the Dublin train
station (didn’t have enough time to figure out the Dublin busses) – Our cab
driver was maybe Russian (he didn’t say and we didn’t ask) and he was chatty
and had good advice on places to go (go to the Gap in Killarney park, take a
horse! It’s an amazing sight!) The train was great, easy, comfortable, and we
took cabs to our lodging in Cork (see Scott’s post, he had an excellent cab
driver 😊).
Ahh, it’s exciting to arrive in a new place and assess how
comfortable we’ll be. We booked at University at Cork, we had a three-bedroom
suite, it was so… college! Three
bedrooms+three bathrooms and a living room/kitchen. This was a luxury of bedrooms and bathrooms,
only issues we had were: kind of not great wifi (for a university, c’mon) and
each bedroom had a “double bed” but they were some kind of smaller kinds of
doubles (my theory is they discourage uni kids from “doubling up” too often 😊).
We had a nice town-walkabout on day 1; repeat readers will
be glad to hear that we had several excellent parks nearby and only encountered
very nice kids in these parks. We walked to town and visited St. Ann Shandon church
(where you can climb to the bell tower, don ear protection, and ring songs on
the bells (much to the neighborhood’s delight, I am sure). We took in the
excellent view, made a racket, and walked past the Butter Museum. I looked into
renting a car while Scott and the kids checked out the nice pedestrian walking,
street corner musicians, and English food market (similar to Burrows in London,
a whole lot of food stalls and a whole lot of people). In the evening, each of
the kids took turns on the violin (Luke is starting at the beginning, since he
can’t practice piano). And oh, I stood for a few minutes in the quad down below
our 3rd story window and listened to the music waft down and I was
just so delighted all over again that we had reunited with that violin in
Wales!
I rented our car from Great Island rentals, a real family
place, Dee, the woman at the single desk took all my information down on paper
and placed it into a stack of other paper-based rentals and entertained me with
stories of customers who.. stole rental cars (ah, she was a hoot) while her co
worker drove the car from.. a long way away. They brought me the car and told
me all about the ongoing road construction (“has been going on for a year and
they say two years more!”) which is so lovely and familiar to hear the usual
complaints of road work (“they didn’t think about the building cellars under
the road before they started digging’! Bloody hell!”). We finished up at
Crawford Art Museum (some risqué modern art and classical sculpture copies and
a huge, open floor called the Wiggle room where the kids enjoyed doing some
sketching on their own) and the big park ( ).
I picked up the car and drove all by myself back to the apt (good job me😊).
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| These cool kids are doing their walk about Cork on our first day in town. |
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| How college dorm room size small "double" bed that we squeezed into for a week. |
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| Ringing the bells, at St. Ann's church in Cork. . |
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| From the top of St. Ann's. |
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| And from the front of St. Ann's. |
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| Crawford Art Gallery, this very cool "wiggle room" for drawing and hanging out. |
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| Learning about the game of cricket, at a field near the big park in Cork, Fitzgerald Park. |
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| Luke in Fitzgerald Park in Cork, getting some rare sun! |
First thing on the car-agenda, traveled to Cobh where we
experienced the Titanic (Cobh was the last stop in Europe for the ill-fated
ship, Luke and I died on the ship, Katie, Scott, and Alex somehow drew
passenger-cards of real people who survived the sinking). More important than
the Titanic stop, Cobh was the departure point for millions of Irish seeking
better lives, more than 2.5 million people left the city (~1850-1950, of the
total 6M Irish that emigrated during those 100 years), many through Heartbreak Pier,
where their loved ones said goodbye, anticipating that that “goodbye” would be
forever. We went on to the emigration
museum where Scott spent some time at the Ancestry search computer (his parents
both have some Irish-ancestry).
Unfortunately, by lunchtime, the port-city looked like a hurricane was
about to hit; we forced the kids to try to ride it out but didn’t last past a
quick peanut butter sandwich.. |
| At the Cobh Titanic Experience museum. |
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| With our many cruise-passenger co-visitors, also at the Cobh Titanic Museum. |
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| At a Cohb open space, fog rolling in! |
And... the fog is in kids.. We didn't stay in Cobh much longer.
Next car rental day, yes, Killarney National Park! Location of the Ring of Kerry! Incredible
mountainous vistas! We drove the almost 2 hours with some SUPER happy travelers
in the backseat (I jest, they are not loving at all the curvaceous roads) and
arrived in the excellent jumping off point town (also called Killarney). We
made it with time to piggyback onto this cool tour – Bus to the Gap of Dunloe,
horse-buggy ride a few miles, walk a few miles, hop on a boat across the Loch
Leane – Our kids were not enthusiastic and it was expensive so we skipped it.
Scott and I were a bit miffed.. Upon closer inspection, Luke looked a little
pale. Into the pharma Scott went, and
out came the positive-Covid test. Poor
guy, he was the first kid to get it in 2022 (last time we came to Europe. Oh
Europe and covid). He was feeling ok
though, just a bit tired from the car ride and we carried on to the Gap of
Dunloe where we rented a horse and buggy and road to the Gap of Dunloe. Buster
was a strong horse but maybe had a few too many miles on him for our bulky
group of 5+ the driver. We enjoyed the
driver Cayn’s hearty calls of “C’mon Busta! Wake up Buster!” as we breezed
trudged past people pushing strollers, walking, biking, and driving cars (ok,
some of those parties passed us, I won’t mention which). We managed to convince the kids to take a
short walk to the Muckross Abbey and made it to a lookout point on the
Loch. And then we got back on the road.
Sigh, no hiking but the view at the Gap was very good. Boo, the Ring of Kerry
drive was out of the question with the kids’ lack of excitement for car rides
and now with Luke covid-positive, Alex and Katie of course were not excited to
sit with him. Luke was really bummed
that first night, sad to be a bit “quarantined” in his room (he watched a movie
with us, but sat far away, and could hear Katie and Alex giggling) and he was
muttering that maybe he would die; I can’t stop myself in those moments, I have
to give him snuggles, covid or not.
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| In our buggy, Katie looking perturbed! |
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| More buggy photos! |
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| At the Gap of Dunloe. |
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| At the Gap, wind taking Katie's hair for a ride. |
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| With our buggy friend Buster the horse and Khan, our driver. |
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| Thanks for the photo, Katie! At the Loch Leane. |
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| Oh, poor Luke - Waiting outside while others go into the grocery store to get dinner. |
Alas, can’t have totally smooth travels.! One silver lining, one-covid positive person
means no fights about who gets to sleep alone in a bed each night, that person
was Luke.
Third day with the car rental; we made it a short 30-minute
drive to Kinsale and Charles Fort – the Fort has a very interesting history. It was initially built in 1682, named after
then-King Charles II. During the Williamite Wars (super important in English
and Irish history; the war followed the 1688 Glorious Revolution when a bunch
of nobles invited King James’ daughter’s (Mary’s, she was a Protestant)
husband, William of Orange to come take the throne from James (a
Catholic). William and Mary bloodlessly
took over, but James landed in Ireland and attempted to retake the throne over
the next two years. William and Mary won
and this settled the question raised when Henry VIII created the Anglican
Church and robustly replaced papal authority in 1534 with the Church of
England. Great Britian was firmly
Protestant. This of course did not
settle the same question in Ireland; the conflict that began when Henry VII
split from Catholicism in 1534 would have strong tailwinds for 400 years, until
Irish independence in 1922 and then for another 70 years until the Good Friday
Agreement in 1998 ended The Troubles in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the
UK (this is when history really comes alive for me.. when you go back and then
keep going back to almost sort of understand how conflicts began).
I digress! James’
forces defended Fort Charles, however, when William’s forces laid siege, the
fort was overrun in 13 days (turns out it was well-defended from the water but
not as much from land). William’s forces
finally won in the Battle of Boyle (incidentally, we learned this Protestants-beat-Catholics
Battle is pointedly and hotly celebrated in the Protestant areas of Northern
Ireland and Belfast even today, more on all that later). The was in 1691; we learned the last battle
at the Fort was in the 1920s after the Irish war for independence was ended
with a treaty and the partition of Northern Ireland – Irish forces opposed to
the peace treaty burned the fort to prevent the Irish government’s forces from
occupying it.
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| At Fort Charles. |
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| More Fort Charles, Luke apparently bird-watching :) |
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| At Fort Charles, Alex and cannon. |
And we arrived home and Alex tested positive for covid; he
moved into Luke’s room and Katie glowered.
She feels they are recklessly breathing at or near her too much. I get that.
Last day with rental car: we decide to split forces, I take
the car and Katie to Blarney Castle and gardens and Scott walks with Luke and
Alex to the City Gaol (the old Cork jail that they’ve turned into an
attraction). The Blarney Castle was built around 1200 and rebuilt in the 1500s.. A
prime activity is kissing the Blarney Stone which legend says will give the
smoocher the gift of gab (the source of the legend is uncertain). Nevertheless,
thousands come and kiss it each year including Churchill, Ronald Reagan, and Mick Jagger. In Gaelic,
“blarney” means to flatter and persuade with such humor and wit, that the
listener of course comes to see your side of the argument. We approach the very well-laid out visitor
spaces and see that the line up through the castle walls and stairs and up to
the Stone is more than an hour – Katie has no interest in kissing stones (yuck,
not hygienic) and I sorta think I already have the gift of gab and we’ve both
climbed up more than enough castle walls for a long while so we watch some
people kiss the stone and move on to the rest of the castle and gardens. We have just a lovely walk together, enjoying
the poison plants garden, the apothecary garden, and make our way to the
bee-hives observing area. We watched a fascinating video of the keeper checking
the bees and identifying the queen (only marred by a French family who would
not quiet their noisy kids). We stopped
for a quick beverage, got chased by bees inside the café from the courtyard
(ironic, as we enjoyed observing the hives), called the outing successful and
headed home.
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| At the Blarney Castle. |
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| The Blarney Stone is up this tower.. |
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| .. and here is someone else (not us) lining up to kiss the Stone. |
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| Katie enjoyed this plant in the poison garden at Blarney Castle. It stimulates cats and, if humans ingest, causes humans to become quarrelsome. She said, "like you, Mom, you're quarrelsome." I argued the point vociferously. She smiled serenely and said, "See." |
I woke up that night coughing and coughing, had some water
and a bunch of cough drops later, and I finally fell back asleep, but not
before Scott had gotten up and fled to Katie’s room to let me sleep and try to avoid
whatever I had. We woke up the next day,
I felt fine, Katie tested positive for Covid and I was still negative (wrong
room, Scotty! - Don't worry about him though [spoiler alert], I am writing this several weeks after the fact and Scott and I avoid Covid, all three kids get it with minimal symptoms and recover.
We just hung around town
that last day in the Republic, all the kids were feeling fine but were not in a
mood for more driving, we played frisbee at the park and Alex and Luke played a
little soccer pick up with two kids from Ukraine and two Irish kids.
The final night of playing in the park was cathartic.. I
stood, having gotten muscled out of the game by the Ukrainian and Irish kids,
watching them enjoy their pick up match, and letting go of my disappointment at
not having gotten to see the Cliffs of Moher or the Ring of Kerry or the other
wild coastlines in Ireland. Rain and cranky-covid kids stymied our pace. Alas,
at least we are getting the covid out of the way and then hopefully will be
healthy the rest of the way through (no cure I know about though for “cranky”
other than…..sleep and bananas!).
Travel day! We packed
up and said goodbye to our university digs.
After a little stress, our little local car rental company came through
– They initially thought it would not be possible for us to return the car
before 10am (because of the road work, you see, they cannot get into the office
before then!) which would put us on a real late train the Belfast – Dee did not
let me down though, she called a co-worker and he picked up the car from me
right at the train station parking lot, wow, great service! Elation washed over me as I handed over those
rental car keys to rest that part of my brain that kept me on the left side of
the road, and hopped on to the train; saying goodbye to one awesome feature of
train stations in Ireland – each one we traveled through had brightly painted
upright pianos with signs that said “Play Me”.
Luke plucked out Star Wars, but the pianos were often taken with
travelers entertaining the room.
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| Traveler playing one of several pianos we noticed in Irish train stations. Pretty nice thing to put in a public transit station. |
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