Moderation is a fatal thing, nothing succeeds like excess. (Oscar Wilde)

Tuesday, 20^th May

Dublin, Day 2

We experienced nothing fatal today, although we learn a lot about people dying for their freedom.

At the entrance of St Stephens Green are two amazing statues by Edward Delaney: Wolfe Tone, an Irish patriot and The Famine, depicting a starving family.

We then walked to the National Gallery of Ireland, which is undergoing renovation. Just two galleries were open. The first we visited was dedicated to Sean Scully, an Irish born artist. It was a retrospective, celebrating his 70^th birthday. Then a gallery of old Masters – an interesting range from Fra Lippo Lippi, Caravaggio, Titian, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Picasso to Jack B. Yeats. George Bernard Shaw bequeathed significantly to the gallery and the royalties from Pygmalion are given to the gallery. Pygmalion was made into My Fair Lady, so the dollars/euros/pounds add up!

We then walked up O’Connell Street, seeing many commemorations of the fight for Irish independence. There are statues in the centre of O’Connell St of many of the leaders.

The GPO is a very impressive building, taking up almost a whole block. The enormous pillars at the front still show the bullet holes from the  1916 Easter Uprising.

There is an incredible 398 feet stainless steel spire that has replaced a statue of Lord Nelson which was blown up in 1966. The spire has several nicknames - Stiletto in the Ghetto, the Pole in the Hole, Spike in the Dike, nevertheless a spectacular piece of engineering.

We walked to the Garden of Remembrance, honouring the victims of the 1916 Uprising, a beautiful, quiet place for reflection. A large cross shaped pool has mosaics of Irish weapons, signifying the tradition of warring factions declaring peace by breaking their weapons and throwing them into a river or lake. At the end of the pool is a beautiful sculpture, The Children of Lir.

Our next place of interest was the Dublin Writers Museum, a small museum dedicated to Irish writers and Irish literature. It was interesting, but the displays stopped at Brendan Behan, so very little of later 20^th Century and no 21^st century Irish literature. It left us wanting more.

The Wow! Moment was at the Hugh Lane Gallery, housed in a magnificent Georgian mansion. Mostly Impressionist and Modern Art. Francis Bacon‘s London Studio was dismantled and recreated/reassembled in the gallery. It is an amazing insight how the artist worked.

Our friend Joan organised her cousin, John, a professor at Trinity College , to invite us to a free concert in the Senior Common Room. The Senior Common Room is a club that certain staff at Trinity may belong. A current student and a graduate of Trinity performed songs by Mahler and Schubert, as well as some English and French cabaret songs. We felt very privileged to be seated in at the front row of the audience, sipping wine, as the beautiful soprano voice wafted through the gorgeous Georgian room, lush carpet, authentic Georgian wallpaper, leather armchairs and sofas, and us in our sensible walking shoes and waterproof jackets.

After the concert John took us on a short tour of Trinity’s buildings and grounds. Wow! Moments plus!

Joan has been marvelous showing us many fabulous parts of Dublin, and on the way to Dublin’s oldest pub, The Brazen Head, (est. 1198), we saw The Ha’penny Bridge, ancient walls that once encircled Dublin, and Christ Church Cathedral.

At the Brazen Head we had dinner and strolled back to our hotel, stopping at a pub for a nightcap – Irish coffee and a Baileys hot chocolate; absolutely necessary as we were freezing! People say Melbourne has four seasons in one day. So does Dublin! Today we have had bright sunshine early, then drizzle, then hail, then very windy,followed by warm sunshine in the afternoon, and  icy cold in the evening..