The Black Pool

We've now spent two full days in Dublin and have kept very busy.  After our arrival early Tuesday, we spent the morning trying to stay awake and walking the city. We hit St. Stephen's Green, Merrion Square (where we would later meet Hal's buddy Sebastian) and strolled the Grafton Street shopping district and the Trinity College campus. Dublin's parks are lovely and the weather was sunny and blue. The city itself straddles the Liffey River and is quite walkable.

We also took in the National Art Gallery and the Natural Science Museum--known to locals as the dead zoo.  The latter was a rather funky, flea bitten place full of taxidermy from the late 1800's. I'm pretty sure a bunch of the dead animals there are now extinct. Most striking were the reconstructed fossilized skeletons of the giant Irish Deer. These black skeletons were straight out of Lord of the Rings and stood something like 10 feet. They put  the biggest of our modern day moose to shame.  Warning: do not visit if you have fur allergies.

Later we met up with Hal's Tumblr friend Sebastian at the Oscar Wilde statue in Merrion Square. Sebastian lives in Belfast and came to Dublin by bus to meet up with Hal. I turned the two of them loose in the city and headed back to the hotel for a nap.

Hal and his friend had a great time visiting the book of Kells and the old library at Trinity College. They came back to the hotel for tea and scones in the hotel lobby and chatted away for hours.  We had dinner and saw Sebastian to his bus before coming back and collapsing into a coma-like sleep.

After a good sleep, things always seem clearer.  Day two started with a fantastic breakfast at the hotel.  You hear the term "full Irish breakfast" a lot here. It consists of a small portion of each of the following: cooked tomatoes, black and white pudding, an egg, mushrooms, sausage and ham. Throw in some yogurt, toast, fruit and cereal and we rolled out to greet the day with full tummies.

First stop on day 2 was the Museum of Archaeology.  This place was top notch--lots to see yet manageable. We spent three hours there getting the low-down on Irish history, art and artifacts. We saw the Tara Brooch and probably a ton of gold bits found in bog hoards across the country. Turns out that Dublin was founded by Vikings in the 9th century.

Then it was off to the Dublin Castle for another history lesson about the city, its founding and English rule. Here we learned that Dublin comes from the words dub linn meaning "black pool". This was in reference to the black pool of water formed at the confluence of the Liffey and another small river just outside the castle. The castle itself wasn't as striking as those we've seen elsewhere, but the tour was entertaining.

Next to the castle is the Chester Beatty library.  Chester was a rich American mining engineer who spent his fortune collecting rare and antique books. He retired in Dublin and left his collection to the state to found a museum.  It's a great little museum covering the history of writing, books, religion and papermaking.