Feb 272014
Tá lá breá ann (It’s a Beautiful Day)
Okay that truly is the only thing I can attempt to write in Gaelic, and I would have loved to say it WAS a beautiful day, but that just won’t come up in google.
I have heard a lot of languages in my life, and while I may not be able to speak them fluently, I can usually learn a few words in most every language. NOT Gaelic. Seriously the pronunciation of Gaelic when looked at, even phonetically has me in awe of native speakers.
Gaelic is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family. It originated in Ireland and has always been historically spoken by the Irish, although English has overtaken the country. I have asked many people if they speak Gaelic, and have found, at least outside of Northern Ireland it is most everyone’s second language. Only about 75,000 people in Ireland speak Gaelic as their first language.
This brings up a second fascinating tidbit. Ireland has moved over to the Euro, with the exception of northern Ireland that uses the Pound Sterling.
So while northern Ireland is still part of the United Kingdom we are traveling through the Republic of Ireland.
The flag you see above is the flag of the Irish Republic. The green represents the the Gaelic tradition of Ireland, the orange represents the followers of William of Orange, who were Protestants in a dominantly Catholic country, and the white represents the aspirations of peace between the two.
As David Beresford said in Ten Men Dead “There is no neutrality in Northern Ireland, at least in the terminological sense: the use of the term “Northern Ireland” places a writer on one side of the conflict, because to an Irish Nationalist there is no such entity.”…”Northern Ireland, or Ulster, is referred to as “northern” Ireland “the north,” or the “six counties”…the Republic of Ireland is “the south” the Government of the Republic is, however, the “Irish Government”…We have met many people, and they would all like to see a united Ireland, but that is a political discussion that would take books and books, and for another time.
We started our morning at Trinity College, home of the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is the most richly decorated of Ireland’s medieval illuminated manuscripts. In Latin, it contains the four Gospels of the New Testament. It is believed to have been created in 800 AD by monks from Iona. The book was a gift to Trinity college in the 17th century. There is no photography allowed in the room with the book, but upstairs is this jaw dropping incredible library. Known as the Long Room it houses over 200,000 antiquarian texts. The room is lined with busts of scholars, and houses the oldest harp in Ireland.
I just sat with jealousy oozing out of every pour. The beauty of the room coupled with the collection of books, architecture and fabulous library ladders, I really, really wanted to find a way to figure out how to spend the next several years being required to do research in this breathtaking room.
In fact, I think the opportunity to spend time at a campus that can boast of some of the most amazing alumni would be just a wonderful way to spend a few years. If you are not familiar with the incredible list of graduates check out this list.
The campus is just gorgeous, and great out door art is everywhere. Yes that is a Henry Moore, just idling sitting on the quad.
We moved onto the Kilmainham Gaol. Kilmainham served as a jail for 130 years. It is most famous for housing many of those involved in the fight for Irish Independence, including Robert Emmet. A statue of Emmet stands in Golden Gate Park which you can read about here.
We had some time to kill before our appointment at the Gaol so we wondered over to the Modern Art Museum across the street. In the middle of a classic victorian garden was this fountain that just grabbed me.
It is by Lisa Benglis, an American sculptor.
After quite a very long day it was fitting that our day ended at the Jameson Distillery salesroom. The distillery itself has moved to Middleton in Cork, Ireland. The tour is campy but interesting, and the tasting at the end, very informative.
They choose 5 people that get to do a further tasting above and beyond just the sample of Jameson, and I was one of the lucky ones. We compared Jack Daniels, Jamesons and Johnny Walker Black. I had never done a tasting of whiskeys and it was really, so very, very informative to me.
I even got a diploma!
Tomorrow Guinness!!
