It’s just gone five in the morning. I’ve been awake for an hour and a half. Not up and about doing things - I don’t want to wake anyone up. Just relaxing, sitting up in the spare bed and browsing all over online. Enough of that, though, Peter. Let’s do something productive while we have that very early morning energy. The jet lag is still very real, by the way, and given that I am exceedingly drowsy late in the afternoon (which corresponds to midnight or later Ireland time), I decided to work from home today and not do my commute for one more day.
Enough of that, onward to day two of the trip and a full day in Dublin.
I never had problems waking up early in Ireland. Not super early like this morning, but 6:00ish. I thought I might walk a lot on my own on my mornings on the trip, but this turned out not to be the case. That first morning was the only time I did even a little of that, and it was mostly to find a bank machine and then nearby Starbucks. It did give me a chance to get a construction photo for Conrad.
And yes, he appreciated that. But otherwise it was a short bit of walking near the hotel.
Our first stop that day as a group was at EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum.
EPIC apparently stands for Every Person Is Connected, but the approach inside was more like every-person-is-Irish-even-if-only-a-little-and-that-is-nothing-but-a-source-of-pride-even-if-there-is-a-whole-room-devoted-to-less-than-savoury-folks-but-wouln't-it-be-fun-to-make-a-Christmas-totebag-celebrating-those-rascals-as-well? But I'll get to the museum in a moment. First, let's appreciate the views on the River Liffey
where Des pointed out landmarks old and new.
Ireland, and especially Dublin, has had some uptick in its fortunes thanks to Brexit, something we heard about again the next day. A lot of tech companies have built up on the south bank across from EPIC, but the north bank of the river has its own development. And it has its memorials - I learned later in the trip that population of the island only just recently reached the same level as before the famine in the 1800s. What an awful statistic to consider. An assembly of statues memorializing the terrible migration and loss near EPIC really hit the point home.
Look how anguished, haunted, and hungry the figures look.
Well done to the artist - I couldn't look away.
Into EPIC with us after that. We had no guide, no staff person working with us directly. Instead, we each were handed an audio device
and invited to walk through the exhibits.
And that was fine for the most part. I do wish we'd been able to talk with someone about what sort of archives or other materials they may be ingesting and processing to learn about their own work. Do they have a library in the museum? We didn't learn. But we did learn about the Irish emigration experience at our own speed (within the constraints of the time limits we had that day). And there were some interesting rooms in there - it wasn't all famine and other horrible circumstances.
There was immense pride in Irish accomplishment, including by those of Irish descent abroad.
The interactive nature of so much of the content set it apart from other museums as well. No, I didn't really care about the sports (sorry!).
Yes, the food and wine room was a wasted opportunity that seemed only to be about Irish pubs.
Indeed, the gift shop didn't have much that related to the actual content of the museum and absolutely no postcards (I mean, come on!). But it was an excellent museum all in all, set in a space that was effective reuse of an older structure.
Lunch came next, though as I previously noted, Des took us past where Handel's Messiah (I love that work so much) was first performed
and then around about Temple Bar before we headed in to the place booked for lunch.
Temple Bar was very touristy, and Leigh later told me that she would never take visitors there unless they asked. Lunch was lunch: Irish stew, correctly made with lamb but with a curious dollop of mashed potatoes.
It was fine. Dessert never came, and we left but not before Des had words with the management.
After lunch Camila joined us, meeting up with us at Trinity College Dublin.
Hooray! I'm so sorry she had a flight cancellation that caused her to miss a day, especially since she was our tour leader. Once we were all together, we went in to get a guided tour through the Book of Kells exhibit
and the Long Room
before meeting with our librarian tour guide and a colleague of hers to discuss libraries and then go see the other part of the exhibit.
We did get to see the Book of Kells, we did not get to photograph it. And we barely got time to shop for souvenirs. I did like the tour, but I greedily wanted it to be a bit slower to allow us to take in things more, and I also wanted more time to meet with our colleagues from the college. Ah well. I did get a nice sweater from it!
We were running behind at that point, and that spilled over into our visit to Chester Beatty.
It's funny, but when we went elsewhere on the tour and folks asked where we'd been, they always oohed and aahed over Chester Beatty. And yet we got there not far before closing and had only a little time there with no guide (a mix-up, our lateness, I don't know). So I enjoyed seeing items in one room and then it was done. Alas.
I made it to the hotel with no time to turn around to meet Leigh for dinner,
but I freshened up and showed up slightly late. It was so great to see her, and to get a meal away from the set menus of the tour meals. She invited me to join her at Amy Austin,
a tiny place tucked in beside a parking garage entrance. Funny location, good food and drinks. Leigh and I caught up over a cocktail
and then bread with black garlic butter,
monkfish,
roasted cabbage,
lamb,
and a praline tart.
I heard about her move to Ireland, her work at UCD where we were due to go the next day, and recommendations for where to eat and drink if I had a chance. A fine evening.
A long entry, I know. Our days in Ireland were jampacked, I can't deny it. Day two was a success, and day three, another Dublin day, lay ahead.
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