Saturday 17 March 2007

St. Patrick’s Day!!

We had grandstand seats at the start of the parade which kept us away from the majority of the 630,000 spectators (mostly Americans... seriously… it was like Spring Break – Dublin). It was somewhat entertaining with high school and college marching bands (again… from America), some International groups, including one bagpipe group from Spain (I kid you not), and several local “pageants”. Pageants, from what we can tell, were local community groups (made up of ALL ages) all dressed colourfully with different themes.

Prior to the parade we visited Trinity College and viewed the Book of Kells, an original illustrated Latin translation of the New Testament created by Celtic monks in 600 AD. For me, the coolest thing I saw the WHOLE trip was walking through The Long Hall, which is where the oldest books of the college’s library were stored. We couldn’t take photos of it or the Book of Kells, but here is a photo found on the web. It really was awesome seeing all those tattered splines stored up to the ceiling.

After the parade we fought the crowds, sitting in a couple pubs watching Ireland play its 6 Nations rugby match. THAT was a blast!! Then we wandered through St. Stephen’s Green and Merrion Square. As in most European capitol cities there are ample statues commemorating national legends. Among those honouring Oscar Wilde and James Joyce, to name a few, was my favourite of the bunch that we accidentally stumbled across while roaming the streets.

John G… this one’s for you.