I decided to take advantage of an opportunity to travel to Ireland with other spiritual directors on a literary and spiritual tour. It was an exciting idea and I do have to admit I was nervous. Having food allergies always present a problem traveling, but my trip to Europe last year convinced me the food in Europe is different from the United States.
I arrived in Dublin on Sunday and met up with my group. Our first stop is Trinity College and the Book of Kells. Written around the year 800 AD, the Book of Kells contains a richly decorated copy of the four gospels in a Latin text. Originally a single volume, it was rebound in four volumes in 1953 for conservation reasons. It's amazing to look at something so old. They say the book was produced more to be stunningly beautiful than to be actually useful.
The Book of Kells is in the Old Library at Trinity College which was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I. This picture is of the Long Room of the library, which holds 5 million volumes including every book published in Great Britain. Along the sides are busts of famous men including Socrates and Plato.
We then move on to The National Museum of Ireland - Archaeology. There are early work in gold, church treasures and objects from the Viking and medieval periods. The Kingship and Sacrifice exhibition includes well preserved bog bodies and Ralaghan Man. There are special displays of items from Egypt, Cyprus and the Roman world, and special exhibitions are regularly mounted. We also saw more modern displays, including letters smuggled out of prison by Bobby Sands, a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who died in prison from a hunger strike. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Sands
