Monday 18th April - Trinity College

Monday 18^th April
We are now reliant on public transport as the car has been returned.  We managed to clock up 1180 miles in the 9 days we had it, and we drove around and through 18 of Irelands counties.
The bus stops over here are not numbered but are known by the pub that is closest to them.  We bused into the city this morning and made our way to Trinity College and had a guided tour by a very amusing PhD Divinity student of the college.  There was a graduation ceremony being conducted as we started the tour and we saw the procession.  Having been to my fair share of university graduation ceremonies over the years, I thought that our processions are far more impressive than what we saw today. 
Trinity College is Ireland's oldest and most famous college. Some of the college's noted alumni are Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde.  For centuries, Trinity was owned by the Protestant Church and a free education was offered to Catholics, provided that they accepted the Protestant faith.  As a legacy of this condition, until 1966 Catholics who wished to study at Trinity had to obtain a dispensation from their bishop or face excommunication.
Trinity College is most famous for its fabulous library. The Long Room houses Ireland's largest collection of books and manuscripts.   Its main attraction is the Book of Kells, which is considered to be the most striking manuscript ever produced in the Anglo-Saxon world and one of the great masterpieces of early Christian art.
The Books of Kells is a beautifully illuminated version of the Christian Gospels dating from the 9th century. It was once thought to be lost - the Vikings looted the book in 1007 for its jeweled cover but ultimately left the manuscript behind.  If you are interested in the story of the book and others like it, the foyer rooms are great for learning about its history, composition and the inspirations before and after.  We did enjoy the display, though briefly because of the number of people there to view it.  Then poof! You're in the room with The Book. Two separate gospel pages are open to view at a time, along with a codex and the Book of Armagh, so you can get a sense of the evolution of the art form. If it were up to me, I'd want small groups of four or five in there at a time to view, since you're kind of squeezing/pushing in, looking over a shoulder or having your shoulder looked over, which isn’t really my cup of tea.
What was fascinating was the Long Room in the Old Library.  The Long room was staggering, it is lined with a grand series of marble busts, of which the most famous for me was that of Jonathan Swift.  The Long room in the old library is truly amazing, I have never seen anything quite like it. Photos don’t capture the majesty of the stack, nor the smell of old books that is so evocative of accumulated knowledge. With the digital age, this is definitely a historical treasure.
The Guinness storehouse was next on the agenda and that was a great visit. The Guinness Storehouse is Dublin’s leading tourist attraction. It is on seven levels surrounding a glass atrium in the shape of a pint of Guinness.  The seventh floor has the Gravity Bar where visitors can claim a complimentary pint of Guinness and enjoy the 360° views over Dublin City, which was grand on the great day we had today. The pint was well received.

Every day is a lovely day for a guiness in Ireland

This is our eleventh day in Ireland and we have only had ½ day of very soft rain, the Irish tell us that this is very rare for April.  Apparently last year, in Dublin it rained every day in April. However, Spock did his homework and his studies said that April had the least rainfall.  Whatever, we are happy.