St. Patrick's Cathedral, The Book of Kells & The Traditional Irish Evening

Thursday morning was our city bus tour.  Good thing as occasionally an Irish mist pasted over us.  We had a very good guide, Theres, who pointed out many interesting sites along the way.  We made a stop at St. Patrick's Cathdral, the largest church in Ireland.  This church acts as a memorial to Irish war dead.  St. Patrick's is closely associated with the writer Jonathan Swift, who was a dean in the church and was also buried here alongside his longtime partner, Stella.  St. Patrick's is the national cathedral of the church of Ireland.

Another stop was at Phoenix Park, which is a huge green park, 704 hectares.  It's a great place to spend some time walking, sitting, looking out to the mountains, playing a sport and watching the wildlife (deer) grazing or the horses on the polo fields.  This is where Bon Jovi played for 16,000 people and where the pope delivered mass.  This would have been something to see.

Our last stop on the tour was at Trinity College Library.  This library is one of the world's great research libraries, holding the largest collections of manuscripts and printed books in Ireland.  We then saw the Book of Kells which is a handwritten manuscript of the four gospels, dating from the year 800.  The Book of Kells is one of Ireland's jewels, with elaborate scripting and colourful illumination.  A very magnificent book.

Once our tour was over we had free time to wonder and do as we pleased.  We spent the afternoon in Temple Bar Square, shopping and enjoying an afternoon Guinness.

Marj and Margaret skipped the bus tour and adventured almost into Northern Iteland on the trail of Marj's father's father who immigrated to Canada in 1878.  A lot of Irish records were destroyed in the 1020's so this search was more challenging.  They quickly found out almost no matter how often you asked, Irish time means, the taxis or bus will be along in 10 min.  Tydavnet, the tiny beautiful hamlet,  2 blocks long, kinda like Silverton, had 1 closed store, 1 huge Cathic Church and 1 definitely open Irish Pub where they shared a half pint with the locals.  Marj put the rest of her Guinness in her water bottle to enjoy on the long bus trip back to Dublin.  They had a long but very self-rewarding day.  They will have to return and stay a few days inorder to get to the homestead and visit with the locals. They returned just in time to hop on the bus for the Irish evening.

We were entertained in the evening at the Traditional Irish Evening.  The meal was delicious, the music, dancing and singing was exceptional and much