Last day in Ireland

The wet, cold, windy weather of the previous day made the cold and cloudy day that followed seem perfectly sublime.  No rain!  What could be better?  (And don’t suggest sun or warm weather … it just wasn’t going to happen.)

Since we’d been scuttling place to place yesterday, always hurrying to get out of the rain, we decided to walk through St. Stephen’s Park today. Apart from the flooded sections, it was very nice.  We headed over to Marsh’s library, a completely lovely and fascinating institution.  It was the first “public” library in Dublin (admitting only gentlemen, not the general public), and it currently houses 25,000 volumes.  There are always some books from the collection on display, so we got to see some 16th-, 17^th-, and 18^th-century volumes on various branches of science, including early editions of works by Tycho Brahe and Descartes.  Of even more interest were the “cages” that the gentlemen had to sit in, while reading the books that were chained to the shelves.  As Emma pointed out, this isn’t really so different from the modern practice of having our bags searched every time we exit a library.  No photographs were allowed, but the docent quite happily told us he would go and investigate the other parts of the library while we did our business discreetly.  I love appropriate respect for authority.

from http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/st-michans-church

Another destination was St. Michan’s church, yet another church in Dublin founded in the 11^th century.  This one boasted crypts which—due to limestone walls and the methane gas seeping up through the ground—had mummified the people interred there.  Most of the “cells” (how similar they looked to the prison cells at Kilmainham …) were still officially active: the families that had purchased them are still permitted to use them, if they choose.  For the most part, we could see dimly lit stacks of coffins from several past centuries, some decorated with velvet and some quite plain.  There were also several mummified corpses on display, including one that’s 800 years old and is supposed to be a crusader.  Like generations of vistors before us, we made our way over to the crusader and “shook his hand,” that is, touched his mummified hand. For good luck, of course.

One of the things I set out to prove with this trip is that a one-week vacation to a moderately distant locale would be satisfying and worthwhile.  I do feel I’ve made that case to myself (and to Emma).  I don’t feel by any means that we’ve “seen” Ireland, or even any of the places we visted—Cork, Kerry, and Dublin.  But we saw a lot, and did a lot, and enjoyed ourselves. A lot.

On the last day, the exhaustion kicked in.

By the end of the day, Emma was feeling a bit under the weather, so we returned to our room for a nap and a rest—something we hadn’t needed to do before then.  And once we were so comfy (and warm), we found it hard to leave again.  So a few other evening items dropped off the itinerary, leaving only dinner.

And a very nice dinner it was.  My contention is that anywhere you travel, pizza (the food of the gods) is a safe thing to eat, and the pizza we had on our last nite in Ireland was no exception.  We didn’t go for anything as obscure as the “Pronto Cheese Party” pizza Emma had in Iceland, with cream cheese and jam.  But it was yummy, and the rolls with Nutella that Emma had for dessert were the perfect end to the evening—and to our stay in Ireland.