Book of Kells, Kilmainham Jail

Bus Bhaile Átha Cliath - ní speicis i mbaol!
(Dublin City Bus - not an endangered species!)

After breakfast we walked down the 6-8 very long Dublin blocks to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells exhibit and the Long Library section of TC Library. Trinity is quite pretty inside its high walls with (chained off) areas of green lawn surmounted by old old stone buildings all around. The photo above is a TC gardener trimming one of the lawns with long clippers. Note the blue sign with information in both English and Irish. Ireland is officially a dual-language country and almost all signage that we've seen so far is in both languages. Excellent for me as I've been lightly studying Irish for the past 3-4 weeks.

Photos aren't allowed in the Book of Kells exhibit but we got some very nice pictures of the Long Library. You'll see where it gets its name.

On the subject of buses.... Dublin has a huge number of buses roaming its streets. Big ones! Big buses that turn very tight corners into very narrow lanes and manage to miss the thousands of pedestrians scurrying (and I do mean scurrying) in every direction at every street corner. The typical yellow and blue Dublin Bus is often found six or seven deep waiting at traffic signals, but those lines are augmented by bright green and bright red "Hop On, Hop Off" tour buses that circle the key city sights making 24 stops every 90 minutes or so. Now add the Airport buses and dozens and dozens of tour buses (really!) and for good measure mix in a heaping load of personal cars. Dublin is one BUSY city.

So, we caught the Green Dublin Bus (HOn-HOff) near Trinity and got off at Kilmainham Jail (with a brief stop at the Guinness Storehouse -- awful stuff). Built by the British in 1796 as a humane Victorian alternative to previous "just keep-em-off-the-streets" madhouses, Kilmainham was the latest in prison design. Prisoners were kept alone and silent in separate cells complete with fresh air windows (sadly, no glass or covers so the winters were a bit cold). After the 1916 'Easter Rising' Kilmainham housed (briefly) most of the leaders of the rebellion. It's a long long story (over 600 years long) but at the end the British executions of the 1916 rebel leaders, one by one in the prison yard, finally convinced the Irish people that they no longer needed the help of England to run their country. One war with England and a bloody civli war later, Irish Republic was founded in 1923.

Here's a picture of the prison's central area. Here it looks a bit neat and tidy but believe me the many outward-facing cells (not seen here) are gray, cold, and depressing. The "rug" in the photo foreground is a sort of 20' x 30' quilt made from bonnets, each representing a woman who was held in Kilmainham before deportation ("transportation") to a sentence of hard labor in Australia. 

MM