Art is the magic mirror you make to reflect your invisible dreams in visible pictures. You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul. (George Bernard Shaw)

Wednesday 21^st May

Dublin Day 3

Another full day, covering lots of ground, visiting many places, experiencing Irish culture in many forms.

We took a Sightseeing Tour on the Green Bus, seeing all sorts of interesting things:

• ·  Phoenix Park, about 1150 acres of gardens, parks, playing fields, monuments, Dublin Zoo and the residences of the Irish President and the American ambassador

·         Guinness Storehouse, which started out covering 4 acres and now covers 64 acres. We did not do the tour, because today is all about CULTURE and Jameson’s not the Distillery, but the “show”

·         Molly Malone, a statue of the cockles and mussels girl. The boobs are shiny and bright- it looks like people rub them for luck.

·         Kilmainham Gaol, no longer a gaol, but still a gloomy and sad place. Back in the day, starving Dubliners tried to get into the gaol, because the food was seen as a luxury. More people were jailed for debt than any other crime.

IMMA – Irish Museum of Modern Art

·         Is housed in a beautiful building that was once a military hospital, surrounded by acres of well-maintained lawns and gardens. Sculptures are scattered around

·         There are two very old cemeteries – one for the officers and one for the ordinary soldiers

·         The conceptual art left us underwhelmed. There were several videos, and one was in a completely darkened room and showed a very dark brown rectangle high up on the wall. I could not see where to go in the space and just hovered in the doorway worried that I might walk into someone or something in the utter blackness. Lucky I had a little torch with me! Perhaps that was the art – finding your way in and out????????????????

Trinity College

·         We were shown around by a Trinity Masters student, he has been studying Literature for years, admitted he was completely unemployable, even with a Trinity degree, but did do a good job of telling some of the history of the university

·         Book of Kells was amazing, beautifully illuminated and decorated Gospels from about 800AD

·         Trinity College’s Old Library (Long Room) is magnificent, filled with thousands/millions of old books, stored and being restored. The timber barrel  vaulted ceiling soars above the shelves and circular staircases. There was also an exhibition on Myths in Children’s Literature, which I found very interesting. This is one of the original posters from 1916.

·         Also on display was the Brian Boru Harp, which we later learnt at the Museum, was not Brian’s, but it does add a bit more of the romance to the legend to say it was

National Museum of Archaeology

·         Fabulous Gold jewellery from ancient Ireland

·         Fabulous silver and gold in the Treasury display

·         Bog Bodies – despite my fascination with the relics of the saints, I felt quite sad about these people being on display. Each of the three on display had been murdered and/or sacrificed and lain the peat bog for about a couple of thousand years, before being discovered, chopped up  by ploughs and excavation equipment

·         Brian Boru - a great display that didn’t really clarify much – I’m still not sure if he did fight the Vikings, or sent a team along to deal with them, but lots of artefacts

Dinner

·         At an Italian restaurant on Stephens Green, that did a special pre-theatre dinner.

“The Field” at the Gaiety Theatre

·         Several people have told us we should see this paly as this is “our story” about “land”. At first it seemed to be about bullying, greed, murder and deception, but on reflection it is probably an analogy of Irish history.