We have a lot of ground to cover for this trip, and rather than pluck out different meals or activities as I did with the Italy trip, I plan to blog this day by day. The hardcore library stuff will be mixed in with the more social and touristy stuff. Ready? Let’s do this!
I’m starting this draft on a Monday morning at Shannon Airport. Eight days ago, almost exactly to this time of morning, I was exiting customs and the baggage claim at Dublin Airport and meeting my group. I knew our leader, Camila, a past ALA president, and as it turns out, I knew of two of the others from their leadership work in ALA. The other seven were new to me. Most of us converged on a meeting point where our tour guide was stationed, and from there we set out on a drive around parts of Dublin in the rain.
Don’t ask me to identify all of the buildings (but the first is the convention center and the last is part of the Guinness brewing complex - no, I did not drink a Guinness in Ireland, I don't care for stouts)! Des, our guide, explained things throughout the tour and answered our questions no matter how basic or inane with good grace.
It wasn’t raining too hard that day - I brought an umbrella to Ireland and never once used it - so we were barely dampened when we got out of the bus at Phoenix Park to stretch our legs, use the restroom, and take a few photos in the kitchen garden.
From there it was back on the bus and a bit more sightseeing - yes those are bullet holes in that statue -
before the driver took us to go park near the National Gallery
where some of us grabbed a quick and light lunch.
Our little group then skipped seeing the artwork and instead used the rest of our free lunch to walk around the corner to the National Library.
I wish we had had a formal tour of the National Library and an opportunity to meet colleagues there. It wasn’t to be. We had to settle for seeing what we could, and that was the free exhibit on Nobel laureate W.B. Yeats.
Friends, I am not a poetry person. Those words will come back on me later in the trip, I know. But no, I know no Yeats works. Others in the group were enthralled, and - lighting aside - it was a terrific exhibit. Yeats did have a predilection for the occult, and he seems to have dabbled in eugenics and fascism. Shall we call him a complex figure based on only a superficial view of him from the exhibit? Sure, lovely. I've posted from the National Library earlier in the trip, so you can see some photos in that blog entry instead.
Our first real stop/visit of the tour came in the afternoon, at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI),
just next door to the handsome Newman University Church.
Simon, the museum director, spoke to us all about the mission of the museum, its relationship to other libraries and cultural institutions, and its accomplishments and challenges.
And then he took us on a tour through the facilities and garden,
highlighting things such as the very first copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Hey look! Historic intellectual freedom challenges.
Censorship happens the world over, doesn't it?
One thing that happened at pretty much every library we visited was that staff would bring out the old and rare stuff for us to marvel over. And marvel we did. Simon didn’t do too much of that, but it was the start of something of a trend. Not a complaint! Simon was terrifically engaging, and we appreciated the tour.
Late afternoon, and it was finally time for us to check into our hotel. We stayed three nights at the Iveagh Garden, and it was comfortable.
I didn’t explore the area much, but the hotel seemed pretty convenient to a lot. Dinner was in the hotel restaurant as a group,
and you know, it was fine.
I hate when people dump on the foods of the British Isles, but I admit that I didn’t eat or drink exceptionally well whilst on the tour. Plenty, and there were some decent dishes and meals, but much of it was just fine and a little uninteresting. Sorry, but true. To be fair, many of our meals were from limited menus provided to tour groups. But still....
I think I was in bed and asleep by 9:00 that night. I had had not even two hours of sleep in the flight from Newark to Dublin, and I needed rest. The next day, the Monday, was the first non-travel day for us, and we had things lined up to do!
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