Sailing Past St. Kilda

Today we had a lecture on Viking Ecxplorations of the North Atlantic by Jon Sigurdsson. Themain record we have of the Vikings is from the “Icelandic Sagas” from the 12-13th centuries. There are some Viking graffiti markings in the Hagia Sophia—our lecturer joked that it said, “Olaf was here.” The Vikings from Norway attacked Lidnisfarne in England in 793 and Ireland in 795, establishing Dublin in 841. They arrived and settled in the Faroes in 800-850. They also discovered Iceland in 850 and in 930 established the world’s oldest parliament there. With the Battle of Brian in 1014, the Vikings were thrown out of Ireland.

In 950, they discovered Greenland and settled there in 985, slao going on to Labroador where they saw trees. Leif Ericsson (Leif the Lucky, son of Eric the Red) went to Baffin Island, Labrador, and Newfoundland, where they found grapes and called it Vinland. He also brought Christiantiy to the new lands. The first Europena born in the new world was named Snorri and was born in 1000. By 1450-1500, the Nordic settlement of Greenland ended because it was getting colder.

The Vikings sailed with Ravens in cages which they could release to see whether they went toward land or returned to the ship. America gave Greenland a statue of Leif to commemorate his founding of America. Funny how this gets glossed over with all the Columbus stories.

Tomorrow we will be visitng the Faroe Islands—18 islands, 17 of which are populated. The Faroes have a population of 46,000 and Torshavn, where we are landing, has 17,000 people. The first people here were 600 Irish monks, but they left then Viking settlers from Norway came here. They have their own language similar to Icelandic. They are Danish but have their own rule. There are many roads and tunnels under the sea that link the islands. There is a warm climate here with not much snow, surprisongly. Twenty years ago, you had to buy beer from the government and it took 2 weeks to get it as they had to be sure you didn’t owe the government any money. The houses are very pretty and colorful. Very clean. With sod roofs. The name Faroes means Island of Sheep and in town you won’t see statues to people but to famous sheep! The oldest part of the city of Torshavn is the peninsula where the 1st parliament was and where now are very pretty houses and cobbled streets.

Our astronomy lecture today was about our solar system. Nothing I didn’t already know though.

We passed by St. Kilda on our port side today around 4:30pm. On the horizon, shrouded in fogginess, we could see the grey silhouette of lonely, abandoned island.
Tonight is formal night so we’ll be dresing up for dinner in the Rembrandt Dining Room. Entertainment is virtuoso pianist Elena Ivanina.

Dublin once again August 28, 2011

The Vikings, or Norsemen, came in the 9th century and built above the river’s south bank in Dublin, on the spot where Dublin castle rose 400 years later. These invaders beat off most Irish attacks until 1014 when they were defeated at the Battle of Clontarf on the north shore of the bay. Nevertheless, the Vikings managed to reoccupy the town and Viking Dublin grew, although eventually the Norse kings were reduced to earls under Irish rule. Until the middle of the 17th century, Dublin remained a small, walled, medieval town, dominating only the Pale—the thin strip of English settlement along Ireland’s eastern seaboard. Over the next 500 years, three uprisings in the city were suppressed, and Scottish invasion and the ravages of the Black Death were endured.

Dublin is very easy to walk around as from DublinCastle, it is little more than four miles to the farthest city boundary in any direction. The medieval castle was built in 1204 by order of King John to suppress the rebellious Norman-Irish clan chiefs. The castle has suffered serious damage in several natural catastrophes. Only the original tower remains. Its Gothic church of the most Holy Trinity is very ornate.

The Temple Bar district was a gift to Sir Henry Temple after Henry VIII seized Irish church lands. “Bar” is a term meaning “riverside walkway.” This area is a center for artists, filmmakers, and writers. Half of Dublin’s residents are under 30. The name Dublin comes from “Dubh Linn” which means black pool. The referenced pool is now at the center of the penguin enclosure in Dublin Zoo. Food specialties include Irish Stew and Dublin Coddle. Most of the architecture is Georgian—loved the Georgian colorful doors.

College Green, the eastern end of the Temple Bar district, is the very place where Vikings once held meetings and buried their dead. The green is now the main entrance to Trinity College. Established in 1592 by order of Queen Elizabeth I, Ireland’s top university recently celebrated its 400th year. Cobbled lanes and squares surround the quadrangle where the Campanile was built in 1852 by Charles Lanyon. The classical view of Trinity College is actually hidden behind the small wooden doors that are the original entrance. Pass through them and you see the glorious Campanile, in front of the old Rubrics. This is the view that launched a thousand postcards--Parliament Square. The red-brick Rubrics are the oldest buildings here (with the Dutch gables being a later addition). The Examination Hall and the Chapel are exact mirror images of each other. The entrance to the Old Library where “The Book of Kells” is located is in Fellow’s Square. It has 200,000 antiquarian books, busts of writers (including Jonathan Swift) and philosophers—a collection begun in 1743, a copy of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, and "Brian Boru's Harp" (the oldest one in Ireland but some say not as old as the thousand years that is claimed—probably from from the 15th century). This is the harp which appears on Irish coins. It is made from oak and willow with brass strings.

The Book of Kells (originally a single-bound manuscript, but now 4 calfskin-bound tomes) is an illuminated edition of the first four gospels in Latin. It is a lavishly decorated, unique and illustrious manuscript created in 800 AD that was all but lost and then miraculously pulled out in an amazing state of preservation from a bog. This manuscript dates from around 700 hundred years before Columbus landed in the New World.

Apparently in the year 1006 the Book of Kells was stolen from the abbey of Kells and hidden under a sod where it was later recovered having had its precious gold decorated cover removed. The book was brought for safekeeping to Dublin by the Protestant bishop of Meath during the seventeenth century and from that time kept on open display in Trinity College.

It is kept in a low-lit gallery with only two pages displayed at a time, although they are turned after some period. The vellum (calfskin) manuscript contains transcriptions of the four Gospels, lavishly illustrated and ornamented. It is the most elaborate manuscript of its kind to survive from the early Middle Ages.

The scribes and artists who created the Book were Columbian monks who lived in a monastery on the remote island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland. The monastery was founded late in the sixth century by an Irish monk, St Colm Cille. Iona was attacked by Vikings in a raid which left 68 monks dead.

At the time the book was produced, Irish monks were renowned throughout the rest of Europe for their work as scribes and illustrators. The Book of Kells contains 680 pages (or 340 folios). Just two of the pages are without ornament, while about thirty folios, including some major decorated pages, have been lost.

The decoration combines traditional Christian iconography with the ornate swirling motifs typical of Insular art. Figures of humans, animals and mythical beasts, together with Celtic knots and interlacing patterns in vibrant colours, enliven the manuscript's pages. The decoration of these texts is so elaborate that the text itself is almost illegible.

Also in Trinity College Library are some Celtic works. Irish laws weren’t written down until the 7th century. In these laws, women are given many more rights and privileges than in other cultures, mostly especially Rome. Women could divorce their husbands for many reasons and took all the wealth they had brought with them into the marriage. They could marry again without problems. Children, the elderly and the physically and mentally challenged were also protected.

We took the shuttle bus into the city center then headed straight for Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. The line wasn’t very long at all. Two pages of the Book of Kells was displayed under glass—one an illuminated page and one a page of text. The Book of Kells is insured for $20 million dollars. There were two other books displayed also. Yes, I loved the Book of Kells, but I must say that when I walked into the Old Library, I truly got choked up. It was so beautiful to think of all those amazing old books stored here in one place. And the library itself—wow! It was like something out of harry Potter with its two floors of arches and shelves and ladders. Truly an amazing place.

We walked into the College Green to see the Campanile then caught a Hop On Hop Off bus and took a tour of the city. We got off the bus at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for another visit. This is the National Cathedral for the Church of Ireland (Anglican) and was built by the first Anglo-Norman Bishop, John Comyn, in 1191, on the site of a little wooden church dedicated to St. Patrick. St. Patrick is said to have baptised converts to Christianity at a well in the park next to the church. A church has stood here since the 5th century. The stone chruch from 1191 was rebuilt in the early 13th century and is the building we see today. Handel’s Messiah was first performed here in 1742 with the combined choirs of St. Ptrick’s and Christ Church.

Christ church Cathedral is bearby, the original casthedral of Norse Dublin founded in 1030 by Kiung Sitric and is Dublin’s oldest building.

From the bus guide, we learned lots of interesting facts about Dublin:

--Jonathan Swift is buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral with his TWO girlfriends, both named Esther. To tell them apart, he renamed one Stella and the other Vanessa.

--Swift gave money to start a lunatic asylum. In old age, he was declared incompetent but not insane.

--Marsh’s Library (the oldest library in Ireland, from 1702) had a problem with pilfering of books, so to read a book, you were put into a cage and the book was chained to the wall. Jonathan Swift once worked here.

--Mr. Guinness and his wife had 21 children. They and the children of the employees of the Guinness Brewery were the only children lucky enough to have shoes. He began brewing his famous “Proter” in 1759. It is now produced around the world at the rate of over 10 million glasses each day.

--The Kilmainham Gaol (Jail) in Dublin from 1796 was the scene of location filming for “In the Name of the Father” & “Michael Collins.” This jail detained the leaders of 5 Irish rebellions between 1798 & 1916.

--St. Patrick was believed to be British but was captured and enslaved by the pagan Irish until he escaped.

--The movie “The Night Train Robbery” with Sean Connery was filmed at Dublin’s Heuston Station from the 1840s.

--Phoenix Park, near city center, is five times larger than Central Park in New York. The Pope gave a huge papal mass here and 1/3 of the Irish population was in attendance!

--The only still-operating gas streetlamps left in Europe are around Phoenix Park. There was a race of some sort happening here as we passed by.

--The American Ambassadors House is the only ambassador’s house allowed to be in Phoenix Park as it is a way of the Irish showing their gratitude for America’s help during the famines.

--The Irish president’s house was modelled on the US’s White House. The president is a woman at the present time. Presidents are elected for 7 year terms and can run twice.

--Ryan’s bar (one of Dublin’s original Victorian pubs dating back to 1896) was visited by Clinton and by Julia Roberts.

--Finn’s Hotel is where James Joyce met his wife who was a maid there. Molly Bloom also worked there.

--It was so cool how our bus driver pronounced thirty-three as “tur-tee-tree.”

--O’Connell Street was named for Daniel O’Connell who was the first to rise up in the Irish Freedom Rebellion. There is a huge monument to him there.

--The River Liffey has a fairly new bridge over it that was made in Holland and shipped here and erected overnight. It looks like a huge white harp.

Ray has fought a good fight and came up with us a regular table for two for dinner every evening. Yay Ray! This evening’s dinner was turkey roast, but the REALLY good thing about it was the dessert I had. Oh my goodness. I have to remember this because I have to repeat it when I am home. Warm brioche toast with caramalized apricots with a dollop of cream and square of chocolate and a scoop of clove ice cream! The apricots on toast were excellent and paired with the clove ice cream—which I had never even heard of but LOVED—was out of this world. My new favorite dessert.

Pictures from top: The Old Library at Trinity College; Molly Malone; Christ Church Cathedral; 2 pictures of the Stained Glass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral—the first telling the life story of St. Patrick.

Georgian doors and interesting buildings in Dublin.

The first picture is through a rain soaked window and is of an ivy-covered Gentlemen’s Club.