February 2014
We had a few moments to kill when we had a flat tire on our bus, so we headed over to University College Cork (UCC). The UCC collection was started in 1861 and the last stone was added in 1945. With the exception of one all are from County Cork.
Ogham (pronounced Om) is the earliest form of writing in Ireland, it dates to around 4th century A.D. and was in use for around 500 years. The Ogham alphabet is made up of a series of strokes along or across a line. Ogham is sometimes referred to as the “Celtic Tree Alphabet” as a number of letters are linked to old Irish names for certain trees. The alphabet was carved on standing stones to commemorate someone, using the edge of the stone as the center line. They normally read from left-hand side bottom up, across the top and if need be, down the other side.
Back in Dublin for our last night before heading out. We had a moment to see a few more things. We stopped in at the Natural History Museum. I must admit, a natural history museum is not really my thing, but I had read about this one, and it was worth the visit.
The museum was built in 1856 to house the Royal Dublin Society’s collection. The building is a “cabinet-style” museum designed to showcase the collection that had expanded considerably in the 1800’s. It has 10,000 exhibits and was designed by architect Frederick Clarendon.
There are a lot of these little vignettes.
The Irish Elk was one of the largest deer that ever lived. Although most skeletons have been found in Irish bogs, the animal was not exclusively Irish. I can not even imagine how large the animal must have been to hold up those antlers to say nothing of the muscles in their necks.
Unable to adapt to the subarctic conditions of the last glaciation the largest deer that ever lived became extinct, the last one in Ireland dying around 11,000 years ago. The elk may have possibly survived in continental Europe into historic times. Some found in Siberia have been dated to 7, 700 years ago.
So I am going to leave you this afternoon with faces. The carvings of Europe are so fabulous and especially in the churches. I found these fun faces on churches throughout.
