Dublin

Dublin was founded by the Vikings as a trading centre, and there may have been a monastic settlement prior to the Viking settlement.  Later, another settlement was established where the Liffey and the Poddle rivers meet, and this became the walled village of Viking Dublin.

We headed out today to see the city centre.  It is a very busy city with a lot of traffic and people on foot.  At every crosswalk, they have painted the words ‘look left’ with an arrow or ‘look right’ with an arrow, we imagine this is to prevent visitors from getting hit by vehicles.  There is construction on the roads everywhere, I think they are expanding the light rail system.

There are a lot of pretty interesting buildings all over the place and loads of pubs.  A lot of visitors are floating around as well.

We then made our way to the Archaeology Museum, which is really well done.  We spent a lot of time there, more than we anticipated.  The museum mainly covers prehistory, the Vikings and the period of the Irish kingships.

Bull and Castle Bar

Dublin Street 

Archaeology Museum

This was found in 1902 in Galway, the canoe dates to 2500 BC.  It is made out of an oak tree and is 50 feet long.  Dugout canoes were in use from the Bronze Age to the Later Middle Ages.  There is a ridge running along the floor of the canoe, which likely functioned as an internal keel.

Dugout Canoe

These are oldest known musical instruments found in Ireland.  On display, are both side-blown and end-blown horns, which were usually found together, suggesting that they would have been played in pairs.  The chain link collar is dated from 900 to 500 BC.  The other objects are known as crotals, which may have been used in some type of fertility cult associated with the bull.

Horns, Late Bronze Age, 1200 - 500 BC

The people of the Iron Age often buried many groups of objects, they are referred to as hoards.  They may have been simply hiding the objects or possibly making an offering to a god, but we really do not know.  This is the most exceptional hoard found in Ireland, a hoard of fine gold objects which was found on the ancient shore of Lough Foyle, which is a lake.  Note the mast, little rowing benches and oars, this little gold boat is exquisite.

The Broighter Hoard

We started to fade a bit after spending some hours in the museum so we took off to have a coffee.  We went to CoffeeAngel, a great little place with good coffee.  The staff were super friendly, we had espresso with hot water and they added steamed milk for us.  When we dropped our cups off at the counter, the attendant suggested it was now time for a Guinness, I told him it was too early for Guinness and he said it was too late, we laughed our heads off.

Originally built in 1204, the Dublin Castle was completely rebuilt in the 18th century.  It was the political seat of English power in Ireland.  You will read about the English invasion of Ireland later on when I get into the long history of the English control of Ireland.

Dublin Castle

We walked around the city centre, and then walked to the Chester Beatty Library, which is unbelievable.  Beatty, born in 1875,  was an American mining engineer who began collecting as a young child.  He began by collecting Chinese snuff bottles and stamps.  As an adult, he began to collect Persian and European manuscripts.  In 1914, he visited Egypt and purchased copies of the Qur’an, he then began collecting Japanese and Chinese paintings, texts and calligraphy.

After living in London for many years, Beatty moved to Ireland in 1950, and built a library to house his extensive collection.  His collection is so vast that the library can only display less than 1% of his collection.  We were most taken with polished jade with engraved Chinese characters inlaid with gold.  The attendant then approached us and gave us a lot of information with regard to Beatty, and then he told us to have another look at the Chinese dragon robe, which is currently on display.  He then described the amazing and painstaking style of embroidery that went into the robe.

After we left the Chester Beatty Library, we walked across the Liffey to the General Post Office.  This was one of the buildings that was occupied by the rebels during the Easter 1916 Rebellion.  When I get into the turbulent history of Ireland later on, you can read about the Easter Uprising.

Tomorrow we pick up our rental car and take off to Northern Ireland.  Northern Ireland is part of Britain, they use the GBP currency and politically, there is a power sharing agreement with both the Unionists and the Nationalists for the governing of Northern Ireland.  Today is election day in Northern Ireland.  Northern Ireland has had a very tumultuous history, the reasons will become clear, when you read about the history of Ireland in the coming days.

The rest of Ireland is the Republic of Ireland, they finally got out of the grip of the English in 1922, when they became the Free Irish State.  Later on, they withdrew from the Commonwealth and became a Republic.  The Republic of Ireland is part of the EU and they use the Euro currency.