Book of Kells, Emigration Museum
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Our last day in Ireland
was full! We began with a visit to the
primary GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) stadium Croke Park:
It seats 85,000 people and
two games are played there, both of which are extremely popular in Ireland, and
both of which are played by amateur club teams representing towns, villages and
cities all over Ireland. The two sports
are hurling, sort of a combination lacrosse and hockey, and Irish football,
sort of a combination of soccer and basketball.
They are each played on a field much larger than an American football
field, 130-145 meters long and 80-90 meters wide. There are both men’s and women’s teams, and
as there are no payments to the players, both are widely and deeply supported for pride. We saw great videos; here’s one on hurling:
And here’s one on Irish
football:
Both are very fast and
incredibly intense games! We toured the
locker rooms where there are jerseys from loads of teams, including a New York
one:
On the walls of the locker
rooms are motivational posters such as this one:
The winner of the Sam
McGuire Trophy (Irish Football) gets bragging rights for a year. The finals are so big they’re like the Super Bowl,
with everyone involved, talking, and the country shut down during the game.
It sounds like everyone
goes to their favorite pub to watch rather than having parties at home. We left the stadium and went to Trinity
College to see the Book of Kells (no photos allowed). It is “Ireland’s greatest cultural treasure
and the world’s most famous medieval manuscript” of the Gospels. The crowds were very large, and the books
(there are two) are ordinary sized, and the exhibition you walk through on the
way to the books is extensive. One book
was open to writing and one to an illustrated page. We saw them.
The Book of Kells is
housed in the old library of Trinity University, and it is impressive:
We were on our own for the
rest of the day, and we chose to walk over to the Jeanie Johnston tall ship
which is a replica of a ship which took many Irish emigrants to America (https://jeaniejohnston.ie/). We toured the ship:
And heard stories of the
horrible conditions on board the “famine ships” which traveled between Ireland and
North America. Some ships were so awful
that fully half of the passengers died en route. Outside the ship, on the Quay, is a very
moving sculpture of the starving masses who left their homes in desperate
attempts at survival:
Adjacent is EPIC, the
Irish Emigration Museum (https://epicchq.com/
) and we spent the rest of the afternoon there.
Once again we were impressed with the fact that the Great Famine and its
consequences were primarily political, not agricultural. The brutality of the British and their series
of laws which resulted in the deaths of literally millions is another story of
man’s inhumanity to man, of which we were mostly ignorant before this
trip. I had always understood the Great
Famine to be an agricultural event; that was only the core. Ireland had sufficient food and clothing for
twice its population during the famine.
The issue was political.
We went back to the hotel,
washed up and went to our farewell dinner which was lots of fun. We had Irish music at the dinner, extremely
well done, and we all recited the limericks we wrote. Not a one was worthy of repeating here.
Home tomorrow!
Your blog today reminded me of a book I read called "How the Irish saved civilization ". I think the book of Kells and the wonderful old library stirred this recollection. I hope book library's won't become museum attractions ...
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