A Week In Ireland, Part 5

Friday-Sunday, June 29-July 1, 2018  **  Remember I drowned my phone/camera

 Friday was a travel day, which included a trip around Dublin with a local tour guide. As Wayne and I had already rambled around town last week, we had seen most of the places on her list. We then went to the hotel which was located on the Irish Sea at the mouth of Dublin Bay in Dun Laoghaire. (Dun Lear-ah). I only have my Kindle Fire to take photos, not nearly as good as my phone was.

 The East Pier was out in front of the hotel

 On Saturday we went to Glendalough, to the ruins of St Kevin's church and monastery. St. Kevin (Died 620) was the founder of the ecclesiastical settlement. He actually lived in the area as a religious hermit but after his death and canonization many pilgrims came and settled here later.

 Our guide for the day telling us about the remaining entrance gates

 Round towers were built at important church sites in Ireland from the middle of the tenth century until the later twelfth century. This type of tower is almost exclusively in Ireland, although 3 have been found outside Ireland.  Two in Scotland and one on the Isle of Man. There are remains of 80 in Ireland.

 After our tour we had time to hike up to the two (da) lakes (loughs) that give Glendalough its name.

 What a beautiful setting

The bus returned us to Dublin where we spent the afternoon wandering around and ended up at Trinity College and the Library where the book of Kells resides. It is over 1000 years old, with colors that are still bright and lavishly decorated.  No photography is allowed of the book. It was thought to be produced in the 9th century by the monks of Iona, after they had moved to Kells in county Meath.  It contains 4 of the Gospels in Latin, highly decorated as was the norm at that time. It was moved to Dublin around 1653 for security during the Cromwellian period.

The Long Room is the main chamber of the Old Library and houses around 200,000 of the Library's oldest books. From here we walked to the train station and took the DART back to Dun Laoghaire.

That evening was our last with the tour group.  We had a farewell dinner at the hotel, but an early night in, as most of the group had to be up at some horrible hour to get the bus to their flights.  As we made our own arrangements, I had us flying out in the late afternoon. We spent the day walking along the shore of the Irish Sea.

We walked along the shore toward the town of Dalkey

 The tide was out a bit

 We stopped at the James Joyce Museum, not because we are a fan (we recognized the name but if I read anything of his it was back in the 70's). We stopped because it is in one of the round towers that have dotted the shoreline all around Ireland.  These towers were built in the 1800's as a defense against Napoleon.

It has a great view of Dalkey.

 On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a street fair for lunch, then went to the National Maritime Museum.

It was a pleasant way to spend some time while we waited for the Airporter Bus. Then it was off to the Dubin Airport for our flight back to the UK. My cousin David along with Louise and her son Morgan picked us up at the other end, to start our last week in the UK. Ireland was wonderful, we had such a great time and saw so many beautiful places.