What a great day!
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| The Bell Tower |
At 8:30am I met with a group at the Bell Tower, with our student guide Catherine who took us on our Trinity Trail, with some history of Trinity College Dublin. It was a grey morning, and rain was (just) in the air – not enough for raincoats, but enough to have us keeping eyes open for possible shelter. We were introduced to the two NeoClassical 18th century Classic buildings: Heaven (the multi-faith chapel) and Hell (the Examinations Hall) which face each other across Parliament Square, to the student traditions surrounding the statue of the Provost and the Bell Tower, to the red-brick student residences and the ghost that haunts them.
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This cat has a mouse; and notice the little goblin on the right;
the carvers put these in when they weren't being paid on time |
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| I love the squirrels - and notice all the mice above the window! |
We heard about the history of the place – it was built on the foundation of an Augustinian Priory which was destroyed by the Protestant invasion 400 years ago, and for many years it was an Anglo-Irish institution that was not open to Catholics at all. Now it’s multi-faith, with many students from other countries, and with more women than men among staff and students. Catherine took us through her favourite space in Museum Hall, with its wonderful variety of Irish stone, and all its external carvings done by just two brothers in the 1850s, with constant new images and very little repetition.
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Extraordinary stonework; Connemara marble has a green tinge (see above);
Cork marble is reddish; Kilkenny marble is black; Wicklow granite with a golden tint |
At 9:15 our tour ended at the Old Library, where the Book of Kells is housed; Catherine told us that perhaps twice a year they clear everyone out, don hazmat suits, and turn one page in the book – and that they’d done that just a couple of weeks ago, so the new page was visible for the first time in a couple of hundred years.
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| St John |
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| A treatise on beekeeping |
Upstairs in the Long Room many of the books have been removed for better preservation, but there were interesting displays, and the room was dominated by the Gaia art installation which features NASA imagery of the earth – quite mesmerizing!
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| Many of these shelves of books are now in storage, for preservation |
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| Gaia dominates |
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| Kells images in embroidered linen |
For me, it was just too crowded – they have timed entries and enormous demand, but there’s no rush to get people through, and the really interesting illustrations were hard to view with the crowd flow. I should have gone on to the immersive Kells Experience section, but by 10:30am, I’d had enough and needed some space. So I headed off-campus, to the Tara St station to catch the DART local train to Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun Leery). This was family history stuff; my grandfather was the Presbyterian minister there from 1927 till his death in 1942, and the Manse, next to the church, was where my mother and uncles were brought up. Dublin Bay is a deep semicircle, with Dun Laoghaire about halfway along the southern side, and Howth (pronounced Hoath) isthmus on the other side. The DART train runs the full length of the curve, and there are great views across the water.
I’d heard about a place called The Oratory, which has a wonderful display of early 20th century celtic art. In typical Irish fashion, there was no info to be found about opening hours or access, and it’s location was not clear, but I walked uphill in the general direction I thought it was. There was a shopping centre and I stopped for a coffee – and while having my drink, I noticed there was a back entrance and a narrow stairway, so I exited by that route and found myself exactly where I needed to be! It was a rather weird red building, but I’d hit just before noon and a small group was gathering for a tour.
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| The lobby, on to the display room, and the oratory entrance beyond |
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| The altar frontal was where she started; patterns rather than images |
They started with a rather dated DVD about the history of the Oratory, and of the nun who was responsible for the art-work, Sister Concepta Lynch, who taught at the Dominican convent. She came from an artistic family, and the abbess permitted her to use her “spare” time to decorate the Oratory – intially just the altar and the surroundings, as a tribute to all the young soldiers who never returned from WWI – but once that was done, she extended her work to the whole room, using celtic-themed intricacy and images that owe much to the Book of Kells.
After her death in 1939 the convent dwindled in personnel, and finally was sold – but with a clause that the Oratory be maintained. In 1995 a grant was made by the European Commission called Kingfisher in Flight, and the original oratory was enclosed in a shell building to protect it.
Sister Concepta’s work was done with the aid of stencils, and the designs are balanced from one side of the building to the other. The lowest level uses muted earthen colours, and the creatures are earthen ones – worms, snakes, lizards.
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| I love her happy worms! |
More colours are added in the central section, with human figures and animals, and many interlaced decorations. Above are the birds, full of vibrancy and noise. There is a wonderful kingfisher-phoenix-pelican which Sister Concepta’s father had used as a symbol in his art studio, and which represents resurrection and triumph over death, a symbol for the fallen soldiers. The ceiling is unfinished but evokes heavenly light.
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| composite birds |
One of the things that fascinates me is that Grandfather Rutherford may well have known her – a Presbyterian Minister and a Dominican Nun might not have much in common, but the Oratory is just down the hill from the Manse, and he took great interest in the possibilities for ecumenism.
Having soaked up all that wonderful Celtic colour, I headed uphill to find the church. I suspect a lot of the local building is post-war, but the Church building and the Manse next door to it maintain that strong Scottish quality that was so much a part of 19th century protestantism in Ireland.
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| Dun Laoghaire Presbyterian Church, with the Manse to the left |
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| and the sign on the door says "The Manse" |
The Rutherfords and the Adams and the Robbs had their roots in Scotland (we used to say, they were probably cattle thieves, run out of the country!). Sadly, there was nobody around the church – there was a car parked outside, but nobody I could ask about records. Online research had not been helpful; even though James Spence Rutherford had been the minister 1927-1942, there were no digital records I could find.
I headed back down the hill to the harbour – a very busy mooring; there are two long quays that curve together, and make for a safe space for a lot of boats. Out in the bay, I could see one of the ferries coming in from Holyhead – I’ll be going the other way tomorrow. I treated myself to lunch (fish and chips again – but hake, rather than cod or haddock; nice – and now, fingers crossed that it doesn’t do to me what snapper/rockfish does!
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| See the ferry, through all the masts? |
I’d hoped to visit Howth as well, but it was heading towards the end of my 24-hours transit ticket, so I got myself back to TCD, lay on my bed and went to sleep! It’s been a 14000-step day, so I feel entitled... When I woke, I went to finish my Kells day with the last part of the program, an immersive experience in a temporary red building in the square in front of the Museum building. It was interesting – probably much more so for youngsters than the stuff I’d seen in the morning – with talking statues, projected information, lights and colour and a couple of surround-experience-narratives about the Book of Kells origin and about the Long Room – but perhaps a bit too much in terms of movement and light; I can see it might be hard for people who struggle with stimuli. And of course it decanted us through the obligatory gift store at the end!
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