A Cultural Week

I have had quite the cultured week...I've visited the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral, St. Auden's Church, Trinity College (including the Long Room in the library and the Book of Kells), the Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery, the National Concert Hall (for a performance in their summer lunch hour concert series) and spent a day touring the Wicklow Mountains, Glendalough and Avoca.

The Wicklow Mountains are just south of Dublin in Wicklow County, which is known as the Garden of Ireland. Sure enough, everything was appropriately green and lush and full of sheep and cattle and horses. It was beautiful.

Glendalough (pronounced Glen-da-lock) is a lovely valley site that features the ruins of a 6th century monastery, founded by St. Kevin (a local boy who had such a great spirituality that the monks of monastery where he was ordained left to follow him to this new site). The ruins are lovely, and feature a rather spectacular tower of unknown purpose. There's also a great cemetery there (you know how I love cemeteries), and the who thing is really set off by the lovely mountains and forests that surround it. I took a ton of photos, and will post some when I've sorted through them a little more!

Avoca is a tiny village that features the oldest working weaving community in Ireland. It was fun to see the weavers at work, and the more modern, automatic machines they also have. The scale was spectacular!

All of this was part of a bus tour, which was well done. We also saw a number of other sites in passing, including the smallest village in Ireland: 2 houses and a church! Our guide told us that he didn't really consider it a village since it does not include a pub, but also revealed that the stunning location of the church (right in the middle of the mountains) has made it the choice of so many Irish brides that it is booked 3 years in advance. In fact, if my guide is to be believed (and he swore that he was), women who don't even have boyfriends, let alone fiances, are booking the place in anticipation!

The Chester Beatty Library is a great facility, and one that I'd never head of before coming here; it houses the collection of manuscripts, books and artifacts collected by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, an American mining millionaire who died in 1968 (I think). More info can be found at http://www.cbl.ie/. If you ever come to Dublin, I highly recommend it...the facility is great (and free!), the cafe is delightful and the gardens are lovely--full of lavender and rosemary.