Gary-Summer: July 20, 2025 - Dublin, Trinity College

Sunday, July 20, 2025

July 20, 2025 - Dublin, Trinity College

Title: July 20, 2025 - Dublin, Trinity College

St Patrick's Roman Church

Hike Info : Description : Extra Photo's

Hike Info:

Type:Touring

Description:

I did not sleep well last night. A bit after I woke up, my CGM lied to me that I was having a low on my blood sugars (I checked it out with my meter and the CGM was 30 points off.) I finally went back to sleep only to wake up at 6:30. Then went back to sleep again until 8. This is a long way to say, that I am not doing a lot today. Yesterday we talked and decided this is a NERO day (a backpacking term for doing nearly nothing-a portmanteau of nearly zero). Hopefully I will go out for a walk when the rain is not going bad. If Sherri gets up in time, I will see if she wants to go.

I had my granola breakfast, then talked with Andrea, then Rachel. They are going out. Then Steven is going out as well. They are going to the EPIC museum with its exhibit on the Irish Famine. Sherri gets up shortly afterwards. She would like to walk with me after doing some things. So I spend my time writing up some blogs and just reading Facebook a bit.

After a while Rachel comes back from her yoga class. On the way back she stopped at a coffee store and bought a pour-over coffee maker for Sherri. Such a good kid-I need to find another word for my off-spring than kid or child, particularly since they are older. But in some ways I will always feel that way about them. I suspect it is a natural parental thing.

Sherri is still getting ready until past 11:40. But Rachel thinks we still have time for a short walk and lunch before we go out to Trinity. We walk past St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, then on to Ringsend Park. I do not think this is the Park Andrea told us about. But it is nice and pleasant, even under an overcast sky. We walked around, and then saw a bunch of men with these paddles. I approached one of them and found out that they play a game called hurling, or as the man said Gaelic football-sort of like American football is a variation of soccer. But he says that hurling actually has its roots back centuries ago, well before soccer was established. We had a good conversation for about 15 minutes. I am now wondering what hurling look like?

We have lunch before we go out to Trinity. We will not all meet up until 5:30 at Boxty. Here is an outline of today’s activities by person:

Steven:

Whiskey tour-Teeling Distillery, right by Trinity. Steven shared some of what he found here.
EPIC-Both Andrea and him were here but not at the same time. We also heard tidbits of this as well.
Trinity College
Boxty

Andrea

On her trip downtown , the bus pass did not work. But the driver allowed her on anyway.
Bread 41-She saw this yesterday with a line and thought it should be a good place to have coffee and a pastry. Her experience confirmed it.
EPIC-Famine Tour. Talked about the Irish potato famine. There was a sense that the British used the famine as a way to hold down the Irish population. She noted that the population is less now than it was in 1900.
Jeannie Johnson-This was part of the EPIC museum and talked about the life of an individual in the Famine
Cemetery-Afterwards, Andrea spent some time in a cemetery. I do not know which one.
Boxty

Rachel:

Yoga
EPIC-Did not go
Trinity
Personal time-did not get this time
Boxty

Sherri:

Shower and dry hair
Trinity
Boxty

Trinity Bell Tower

Now that you have a recap of everybody else's, I will talk about what I did and bring in the rest as we go through.

Our first stop will be Trinity College where there is an exhibit of the Book of Kells. But you need a timed admission to this.The only tickets which are available are to do a college tour. O shucks. I guess I will need to walk around a college campus. But first to get there, Rachel, Sherri and I take the bus over to a stop close to Trinity. We passed by the Whiskey Museum Steven went to. Almost next door is a sweater place, the Aran Sweater Market. Sherri and Rachel go in and I guard the door-well actually I read.

Inside the Museum Building

When we get to Trinity, we do not see Steven there. We got in a line-wrong line, so we were directed around to the bell tower where the campus tour had just started. The guide, she talks about how this section has some of the oldest buildings. There are two identical buildings facing each other in the quad. The first is the chapel, which any Christian denomination can use. Across from it is the exam room. The students call these buildings heaven and hell-I will let you guess on which is which.

Our tour guide talks a bit about the who's who of Trinity College. The first female president was not too long ago: Mary Robinson-who also became the President of Ireland. But it was not too much before her that females were first admitted over the dead body of one of the previous presidents. Our female tour guide noted one of her exams was delayed because of the funeral of that president. She also noted several notable Trinity graduates with some Nobel Prize winners as well-see my partial list

Sphere in the Sphere

The guide noted that there was a building across from us donated by alumni which gave three groups full use of the building: history, theology and philosophy. Sounds like they could have interesting debates. This is the GMB-Graduate Memorial Building Then she moved on to the student housing area and explained the significance of having glass windows. She noted that if you had a window, you paid a special tax. So often a window would be bricked up. This was called “daylight robbery.” There was another building which was a bit ostentatious. The building was built during the 1850’s when the Great Hunger was going on. The British built it in an “in your face” effort. They were rich and you are starving. But the building is beautiful. It is now called the Museum Building, and we are allowed in to look at the main lobby. Around the exterior edge are 600 plaster flowers, none of which are duplicates of any other one. Then the inside has these beautiful columns. At the end of the tour is a bronze globe. This is Arnaldo Pomodoro’s Sfera con Sfera or Sphere within Sphere. Apparently there is some significance to this. Several places have one by the same sculpture, including UC Berkeley.

Notables

We then get let into the Book of Kells exhibit. There is an audio self-guided tour which I am able to get, but my earphones has gone dead-not sure why since I have not used them on this trip. Rachel loans me one of hers, so we are joined at the hip, going through the exhibit. Actually her earphone has a pretty good range, so we are able to wander some apart. The explanations of the Kells book are good, but the layout is trying to show a progression, but with the number of people going through, it is chaotic. The effect is that we only get a partial explanation. I think there is a good one online which I will need to dig up.

At the end of the exhibit area, Rachel spots a couple and asks if they are from the Central Valley-they are wearing clothing which is oriented towards our section of the world.. They are from Porterville. We talked for about 15 minutes. I guess with the number of people whom we see, it is inevitable we would run across someone. Still it seems rather serendipitous for it to happen.

One of the many shelves

Our next stop is to see the actual Book of Kells. The pages of the book are turned over periodically to minimize exposure. The tour guide said once every three months. I thought I read it was once every 6 weeks. She said that the page just got turned over today. When I saw it, the page was still vibrant. After 1200 years that is amazing. One wonders what it was like when it was fresh.

Ada and Gary-without Ada, Gary would have been digging ditches for a living

From there, we climb up to the Long Room or more commonly called the Old Library. It is just starting a five year renovation and most of the books have been put into storage. Still the effect of the room is one of amazement. I could only image what it would look like when it was full. The books would almost be like sleeping wisdom, just waiting to be awoken. The few remaining shelves with books leave a sense of aged wisdom. There are busts which guard each book case. I go down the line recognizing names and but about half I do not. They are not only Trinity scholars but those who have contributed to Western civilization. Recently four females were added: Rosalind Franklin and Ada Lovelace are those which I recognize. I think we spent at least 40 minutes just looking up and down the hall. This is the best part of what I saw at Trinity today. I should also add there was one thing which seemed out of place. At the far end of the hall, there was a plastic-I think it was plastic, glowing, giant spinning globe. It was named Gaia. It just did not match the room creating a discontinuity, at least to my sensibilities. When you saw the ancientness of the setting with the newness of the globe, all I could think of was how it cheapened the hall.

Our reservation for Boxty is at 5:30 and it is only 4 now. What to do? With our new found knowledge of hurling and the National Finals of hurling going on right now, we set off to find a pub which would allow us to experience it. We found it at Mulligan& Hayes. The barkeeper is friendly. Rachel and Steven order beers with Steven some garlic fries. We settled down to watch the game.

Steven watching the hurling match

I think we were the only ones in the pub which were engaged in the game, not that we cared who won. But just trying to understand it. It seemed like there were a limited amount of rules with the idea that you get rid of the ball as quickly as you could. You could carry the ball for a limited amount of time or catch it or carry it on your paddle-hurley is what this is called. The idea is to get the ball into the goal or at least through the uprights for points. It is played without padding, yet I did not see anybody injured. There was a lot of physical contact. If you were a player, not for the weak of heart.

The game ended at about 5. So we made our way down to Boxty.Along the way, Andrea joined us. Rachel has a friend who recommended this place. Andrea and I looked at getting a sampler of their stews, then others wanted to join in. All five of us enjoyed it. Then Andrea and I ordered a different sampler while others got their own meals. We failed in our endeavor finish it. The coup de gras was a dessert of Sticky Pudding. This all was a good meal, good tasting. When we exited, there was a feeling of contentment.

Evidently boxty is a dish more than a restaurant. According to Wikipedia, it is a traditional Irish potato pancake. The dish is mostly associated with the north midlands, north Connacht and southern Ulster, in particular the counties of Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo, Fermanagh, Longford, and Cavan. There are many recipes but all contain finely grated, raw potatoes and all are served fried.

After Boxty, there was a bit of an issue getting back to the AirBnB. The bus we were going to get was not going to run because of a disturbance. We walked around and eventually caught another bus which let off in a different place, close to our condo. We made it back at 8:30.

Tomorrow we will be picking up a rental car. The issue is that besides Rachel, we do not have a driver. Each of us is reluctant to drive. We are undecided about who will be the alternative drive-that will be decided between Andrea and Steven tomorrow before we go. With that concluded, we return to our rooms, and settle down for a good night’s sleep.

Sherri is last up and is turning down the lights. But she encounters an intruder. I will let her describe what she experienced:

I [I] was the on the second floor and came down to finish packing in [the] bedroom on [the] first floor. I had turned the light on to come down the stairs. … I closed my door to our bedroom. [The] lights were on and one daughter on the first floor and was talking on the phone. Gary and I were talking and had lights on in our downstairs bedroom. It was about 10 to 15 minutes before I went out to grab a jacket that I left on [the] stair railing and to turn off the light that I had left on to come down stairs. I was not sure which light controlled the light on second floor landing so I was turning lights on and off multiple times. When I was turning lights on and off I saw light through the outside door. Then I saw someone coming downstairs. I was not thinking there would be somebody in the house so was wondering if it was one of us. Then no, I thought this person was much smaller than my family. He came down very quick and mumbled something inaudible. He had a dark hoodies and dark bottoms. When He passed by very quickly He was thin faced with some facial hair but [not a] full beard. He was white had a thin build. in his early twenties.

All which I heard was Sherri screaming that someone was in here. Then, Rachel, are you all right? I got on my pants and looked, but nobody was there. This is rather unsettling. Rachel notifies the condo’s host about what happened and tries to have some sort of safe place for us. But there is no joy. I end up pulling some pads from the couch with some sheets and placing them before the door. This is where I will be sleeping tonight. I think this makes everyone feel a bit safer. There are some prayers going up tonight to keep us safe.