European Literary Trails 2003

Our next and final stop in Ireland was Dublin.

The sites we visited in and around Dublin are listed in pink at left.

Click on them for more information and pictures.

One of the many major attractions in Dublin in Trinity College which houses the Book of Kells. Trinity College has a gorgeous campus, in an old and intimidating kind of way. The green grass areas sharply contrast with the enormous, solid, grey stone academic buildings. I was thinking as we were wandering around campus that it must be pretty annoying to a student there to have all these tourists walking around campus while trying to get to class on time. Trinity College was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I. The famous playwright Samuel Beckett attended Trinity College as a student (as did Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde.) Here are a few pictures of Trinity College...

The Campanile at Trinity College

Main entrance of Trinity College, Dublin

Our main reason for visiting Trinity College was to view the Book of Kells which is housed there. There is a large display about how the book was made, including the parchment, the inks, the binding etc. The book contains the four gospels, written in Latin.

The book is called "an illuminated manuscript" because it has hand painted illustrations and text. These illustrations are highly detailed works of art. The letters are art themselves, often containing images of animals etc. inside the letters! (An example from the famous Chi Rho page is shown below).

*** This image appears in Eyewitness Travel Guides: Dublin 2003 and then altered in Photoshop by Kelin Kitchener ***

The pigments used on the pages were made from minerals as well as animal and plant extracts. Sometimes to make a certain colors the monks would have had to travel far or trade for minerals etc. found in far away areas. This paint was applied to vellum which is calf-skin parchment which is specially dried for manuscripts. There is still hair present on some of the pages!

The Book of Kells dates from the late 8th or early 9th century and contains 680 pages total. In 2000, the Book of Kells was made available on CD-ROM...for purchase at this link.

** The above information was confirmed in "Art: Across Time by Laurie Schneider-Adams.***

As a part of the Kells display we also visited The Old Library at Trinity College. The library contains a collection of 200,000 texts in the famous Long Room which is 210 feet long (Eyewitness Travel Guides: Dublin 2003). Photography is prohibited in the library, but it is an impressive room. It is long and narrow with the books stacked on either side in little alcoves...all the way to the ceiling! You just get the sense of antiquity here. The books on the shelves are mostly all hand bound. One can do research from these books with special permission from the University. This is not a place you see people mulling over books or checking any of the out. The books are roped off and under close security. One would have to be a very important person doing very important research to get permission to perform research using any of the books here.

*** Information on the Old Library comes from a brochure "Guide for Visitors" distributed at Trinity College Library. ***