We started out yesterday morning by heading to Christ Church Cathedral, which is right next door to our hotel. This cathedral was so beautiful! The building has been added on to several times over the years, but the original portion of the building has been there since the early 1100's! Just gorgeous!
I had never seen floors like these inside of church before but St. Patrick's Cathedral had similar floors too. This style of floor ran through the entire ground level.
The cathedrals we have been to all have a small chapel behind the altar that is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. This statue was at the entrance to this chapel. I thought it was very interesting.
The coolest part of the cathedral was the underground crypt. This is the original crypt of the church. There were tombs and areas where people had been placed if they broke the law. Kinda creepy, but cool. This area was set up like a museum with old artifacts from the cathedral over years as well as a short video to explain the history of the cathedral.
This room is the old dining room. These mirrors are set up so that when the viceroy was setting at his position at the table he could watch all the other guests. This was designed so that he could always tell who was talking to who and make sure that no alliances were being made that would be damaging to the crown. Sneaky!
The coolest part of yesterday was the Irish House Party last night! Oh Wow! I can barely describe how ! Shawn and I learned a few simple steps of traditional Irish dance from a girl that used to dance with Riverdance! How cool is that?! They played a bunch of traditional Irish music and explained the history of the music. They taught us about the instruments. For example. that young guy on the left is not playing the bag pipes, he is playing the ilen pipes. They are the Irish version (and were actually created first) and are called the ilen pipes because instead of blowing into the pipe you have a bellow that pumps air into the pipes and you pump it with your elbow (which is the ilen in Gaelic). There was a girl there that sang a beautiful ballad in Gaelic. It was gorgeous. The girl who did the dancing also played the accordian. There was also a guy playing the Irish flute which looked more like a recorder. When they all played together it was just amazing! Shawn got some video and I will post it when we get home.
Today we are off to the Guinness Storehouse as well as some other exciting things!
I had never seen floors like these inside of church before but St. Patrick's Cathedral had similar floors too. This style of floor ran through the entire ground level. The cathedrals we have been to all have a small chapel behind the altar that is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. This statue was at the entrance to this chapel. I thought it was very interesting.
The coolest part of the cathedral was the underground crypt. This is the original crypt of the church. There were tombs and areas where people had been placed if they broke the law. Kinda creepy, but cool. This area was set up like a museum with old artifacts from the cathedral over years as well as a short video to explain the history of the cathedral. After we left the cathedral we went to Dublin Castle. This castle had a guided tour and our tour guide was named Theresa! Lucky for us! The tour was very interesting. We learned the history of the castle and got to tour the inside of the building as well as an underground excavation area. The original castle was mostly destroyed back in the 1700's during war, but they have maintained portions of the original castle so you can see the difference. In the excavation area they have even unearthed an old rock wall that was used by the Vikings even before the Anglos settled there. We also learned a lot about Irish history. I didn't realized that Ireland had been fully under British control until less than 100 years ago! There is a room in the castle that has a coat of arms for each Irish President that has served. They serve 7 year terms and their current president is a woman (in her 2nd term) and their last president was a woman. That means that next year will be the 21st year in a row that Ireland has been under a female president. Nice!
This room is the old dining room. These mirrors are set up so that when the viceroy was setting at his position at the table he could watch all the other guests. This was designed so that he could always tell who was talking to who and make sure that no alliances were being made that would be damaging to the crown. Sneaky! In the main ballroom, named after St. Patrick, there are three large paintings on the ceiling. These were commissioned while the British still had control and you can tell by the nature of the art. In this painting, the King sets in the center while a woman in white is to his right. She is supposed to represent Britian while the woman in green with her breast hanging out is suppsed to be Ireland. This is designed to make her look weak and submissive to Britian.
Shawn managed to find a comic book store. Oh geez!
We found a memorial to the Irish men and woman who died to free the country from British rule. It was beautiful.
We also stopped in at the Irish Writers Museum. It was very intersting and I learned a lot about Irish writing over the years. I also discovered several books I would like to read! This statue and painting are of George Bernard Shaw.
The coolest part of yesterday was the Irish House Party last night! Oh Wow! I can barely describe how ! Shawn and I learned a few simple steps of traditional Irish dance from a girl that used to dance with Riverdance! How cool is that?! They played a bunch of traditional Irish music and explained the history of the music. They taught us about the instruments. For example. that young guy on the left is not playing the bag pipes, he is playing the ilen pipes. They are the Irish version (and were actually created first) and are called the ilen pipes because instead of blowing into the pipe you have a bellow that pumps air into the pipes and you pump it with your elbow (which is the ilen in Gaelic). There was a girl there that sang a beautiful ballad in Gaelic. It was gorgeous. The girl who did the dancing also played the accordian. There was also a guy playing the Irish flute which looked more like a recorder. When they all played together it was just amazing! Shawn got some video and I will post it when we get home. Today we are off to the Guinness Storehouse as well as some other exciting things!
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