St. Patrick's Day Treasure Hunt 2015

Even though we'll be ducking out of town for the melee that is Paddy's Day in downtown Dublin this year, we couldn't miss out on what was our favorite St. Patrick's Festival activity last year: the annual treasure hunt.

Festival Treasure Hunt 2014

With free admission to several normally pricey Dublin attractions and a free goodie bag, who could say no? On Saturday morning, we were primed and ready.

I'm wearing my tackiest green shirt and my running shoes. Bring it on, #StPatricksDay Scavenger Hunt! @stpatricksfest w/@HansonCory1

— Sara Hanson (@HansonSaraJ) March 14, 2015

We didn't know the route for this year's hunt until we showed up at Trinity to register. Much to our surprise (and delight!) there were several stops that we had yet to visit for one reason or another. Ok, let's be frank, the reason was money.

We made a point to don our cheap headgear for a photo stop at each checkpoint on the hunt. First up, the Lurgan Longboat at the National Museum: Archaeology. We knew exactly where this hard-to-miss exhibit was on display. It spans the whole width of the ground floor gallery, after all.

Lurgan Longboat—National Museum: Archaeology

Just around the corner, we had to check out a huge tapestry in the main atrium of the National Gallery, Ireland's fine (and free to visit!) collection of art by Irish and European masters.

Atrium Mural—National Gallery

Fighting through the crowds of hungover partiers out for some hair of the dog, we took a lesser-known route to the northside to count the number of antique wooden post boxes at Ireland's General Post Office, where the Irish Proclamation (their Declaration of Independence) was first shouted by Patrick Pearse back in 1916.

Wooden Post Box—General Post Office

Then it was on to D8, Dublin's Viking Quarter and Liberties. We had to stop at Christ Church Cathedral, and here we slowed down our pace. Christ Church charges admission—a strongly-encouraged donation, technically—to its sanctuary. Therefore, neither Sara nor I had ever actually set foot inside the main church. We flashed our treasure hunt sheet at the ticket-takers and strolled right on in. After finding our target (the tomb of Norman leader Strongbow, now the namesake of a popular brand of hard apple cider), we took our time exploring the rest of the sanctuary and the museum in the underground crypt. I simply couldn't miss a chance to see the church's most famous post-life residents (maybe even more famous than Strongbow), the mummified cat and rat discovered in an old organ pipe.

Strongbow's Tomb—Christ Church Cathedral

Mummified Cat and Rat—Christ Church Cathedral

Down the hill from Christ Church, we also had to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral, also a former Catholic church seized (and never returned) by the Church of England during the Reformation. It is also another church that, ahem, asks for a financial consideration for entry. Again, we bypassed the long ticket line and strolled right in.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Around the corner from St. Patrick's is Marsh's Library. I'd seen it on maps, but knew very little about it, except that it normally charges admission for entry. Not so today! Inside, it's a bit like a Trinity-Long-Room-Lite. Shelves of important-looking leatherbound books stretch from floor to ceiling. Yer Man himself, James Joyce, used to read and study among the books and busts of this small library. No photos allowed inside, so we posed at the door.

Marsh's Library

Our last stop was at the National Archives. We were a bit tired, so we didn't hang around to look at the rest of the documents on display.

National Archives

Our sheet stamped and our stomachs ready for lunch, we returned our completed treasure hunt sheet, got our timestamp (probably not breaking any records), and enjoyed some of the finest tourist watching in Europe while we ate our picnic lunch and admired the goodies in our gift bag.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Wherever you are, celebrate safely.

Chester Beatty Diwali Concert

This previous Wednesday (Oct. 22, 2014) was the Indian holiday Diwali. To celebrate, the outstanding Chester Beatty Library presented a performance of Indian Classical music of sitar, tabla (hand drum) and voice.

Great crowd @CBL_Dublin for the free Indian Classical music recital today. Happy Diwali! Thanks for a great show! pic.twitter.com/pGaWbQ4zhr
— Cory Hanson (@HansonCory1) October 22, 2014

 I had never attended a live performance of Indian music, so I was excited. There was a nice crowd queuing up outside library's lecture room- as would be expected for such a fine (and free!) opportunity.

The performers began with a raga, a traditional musical form in which the sitar player and tabla drummer improvise based upon a pre-determined structure- much like jazz players riffing with each other. The raga is a contemplative form, and very long by modern standards. It begins slowly and gains momentum as is continues. The live experience is fantastic- it doesn't really hold up when recorded.

The performance concluded with a vocal piece accompanied by sitar and tabla. This work was also improvised over a structure- the musicians communicated with each other while trading solos.

I walked away more informed and more aware of non-Western music, which I presume is exactly what the good folks over at the CBL wanted. Thanks for a great performance and Happy Diwali!

...And for the curious, here's an example of a sitar/tabla raga. Don't let the lame video title turn you off.

Glasnevin Cemetery

Our secret mission at the Botanic Gardens was actually to scout out a (not so) secret back entrance to Glasnevin Cemetery, Ireland's most well-known boneyard. The Botanic Gardens and the cemetery share a boundary, and recently a long-locked gate between the two was opened to the public.

I wanted to confirm the location (and existence) of this secret gate before including it in my eBook, and I was glad to find it open and operational. Without this gate, it would be about a mile walk around the southern end of these two properties to get to the main gate of the cemetery.

Just inside the cemetery gate- on the wall to the left of the main Botanic Gardens entrance- we could see the famous and imposing Celtic round tower of the Daniel O'Connell monument. More on him later.

Glasnevin Cemetery and O'Connell Monument

A number of Irish celebrities and heroes are buried here. The 1916 execution victims seem to be the only revolutionaries not to be buried here. I saw name after name on gravestones that I see on streets and bridges around town: O'Donovan Rossa, Markievicz, Griffith, Casement, and the list goes on.

The grave count here is reportedly over a million... and growing. The cemetery is still open for new arrivals. This would be a great place for more dark humor, but we (and dozens of other tourists) walked by a funeral with our cameras and guidebooks, so I'll leave it alone.

It is a marvel that they have buried so many here, but the grave markers are pretty densely-packed so...

Densely... Populated? 

The story of the cemetery is quite interesting. In the nineteenth century, the English (them again!) did not allow Catholics to be buried with Catholic rites in their own churchyards. The recently-deceased Catholics had to be buried with Protestant rites (GASP!) or unceremoniously buried with no clergy present (DOUBLE GASP!) I guess the English Protestants wanted to keep the Irish Catholics down even in the afterlife.

Until The Great Liberator Daniel O'Connell started his equal rights for Catholics campaign in the British Parliament. He argued that allowing the Irish certain civil freedoms would be beneficial to both sides and would encourage peace. The Brits agreed and, with O'Connell's help, put into law a number of civil rights for Catholics- among them burial rites. He achieved his goals politically- not violently- and his anti-violence platform inspired all future Irish Republicans and British Unionists to pursue their goals peacefully forever... wait, that's not right...

When the cemetery was first founded, it was a cemetery for all- Catholics, Protestants, and those of any other or no religious affiliation. Truly a big step for equality in the 1800s.

O'Connell Monument

For the book, I was only researching the free part of the cemetery, that's just the outdoor cemetery. There is a museum on the property with some interpretive cemetery materials, information about O'Connell and the founding of the cemetery, and some genealogy research materials. We also skipped the guided tour, but enjoyed a pleasant and reflective stroll nonetheless. 

Coincidentally, there is a documentary coming out at the end of October 2014 about the cemetery and its... inhabitants. 

Military History and Decorative Arts- Together at Last (?)

Yup, we're back to Collins Barracks- this time we're going inside to see the two most easily-compatible museum subjects: violent military history and interior home decorations... wait, what?

Collins Barracks Drilling Yard

Ok, this place is huge, really quite spacious, so my guess is that the National Museum folks put these together because they had neither enough military history nor interior design pieces to fill this huge complex.

In any case, the interior drilling yard is quite impressive. This facility was used first by British then by Irish soldiers as a training facility. Today, one can almost hear the sound of marching boots in the yard among the imposing stone square of buildings.

The Irish relationship with their military is much different than the American admiration and near-worship of men and women in uniform. The USA has been involved in so many conflicts in its short history, and it looks like that will be the case for a long time to come... but most of Ireland's organized fighting was done against the British (and the Irish) in their own towns and cities. Ireland did lose tens of thousands in World War I, but they were technically British soldiers fighting for the King. Since independence, Ireland has only had a small role in some UN peacekeeping operations.

Ireland was (somewhat controversially) neutral in World War II, and have never really stopped fighting the British in Northern Ireland, so it's easy to just say that Ireland's military history is... complicated.

The military branch of Collins Barracks displays uniforms, personal effects, and weapons from the various conflicts faced by the Irish from ancient Celtic warriors to eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth-century rebels to the guerilla fighting IRA during The Troubles.

I Use a Razor Just like That!

See?

Irish Volunteers Recruiting Poster 

You Call that a Gun? This is a Gun!

Now... let's put down the guns and pick up... our best China for guests? It's on to the Decorative Arts wing of the museum. I have a feeling that "Decorative Arts" is the catch-all museum category- and I don't mean that in a bad way. This wing had displays not only of domestic decorations, but of many niche categories like coins, medals, and timepieces.

My Favorite: The 1950s Room

Victorian Music Room

It was almost too much to see the museum in one day. I made a point to go through as much as I could, but I was feeling museum fatigue by the end of my visit. I slogged through the last few exhibits, but didn't pay them much mind. It was certainly no fault of the museum, but this complex might very well be a multiple-day museum.

For short-term visitors (as I recommend in my eBook project), I would suggest seeing the military museum on the ground floor and only the fully-decorated rooms of the Decorative Arts museum. For residents, get out there once in a while. If you haven't been there for a while, get back there- maybe for one of their many scheduled talks or tours.

New eBook Chapter: Viking-Age Dublin

I know, I know. It's been a while since the last chapter of guide was published. Believe it or not, things have been quite busy around here at Narc Ex HQ. This one has been quite a long time in the making, and I had to do a little extra visiting and note taking to give my most accurate advice and recommendations.

In this chapter, we cover the oldest part of town: Viking-Age Dublin. The Viking invaders first chose the spot where a smaller river met the Liffey as their strategic docking station, and from there they built their city. When the Vikings were booted (or assimilated into the local Gaelic and Norman population), other invaders set up camp here.

Today, the Irish have full control over this center of power from which they were ruled for all those centuries, and we lucky tourists can pay the area a (mostly free) visit. The guide includes tips for visiting Dublin City Hall, Dublin Castle, Chester Beatty Library, and the churches and cathedrals just to the west.

As usual, check out the pdf download over at my Free Dublin eBook page on the blog for the latest version of the Viking-Age Dublin chapter. I plan to eventually include a map and maybe some photos, but that will have to wait until I have the text and content of the book finished, which shouldn't be too much longer!

Dublin Castle Norman Tower and Chapel Royal

Collins Barracks Part 1: The Asgard

Just east of Phoenix Park is the largest National Museum in Dublin. It is also the most confusingly-named museum in Dublin. From what I gather, the museum is called the National Museum of Ireland: Decorative Arts and History. The location of said museum is a place called Collins Barracks. Some people just call the place Collins Barracks (as the military use of the compound greatly predates the modern museum), and sometimes the Collins Barracks is added to the end of the name as in, National Museum of Ireland: Decorative Arts and History (Collins Barracks) or National Museum of Ireland: Decorative Arts and History at Collins Barracks. Many other variations will also be used in different publications.

To further complicate the naming conventions, much of the history part of the museum is really military history. Ireland's anthropological, archaeological, and cultural history is largely held over at the fantastic National Museum: Archaeology. The decorative arts wing surely speaks for itself, but I'm not sure why they didn't call it the military history museum.

I was pulling my hair out when writing that chapter of my Dublin eBook. What should I call this thing? I finally settled on a name and took an exploratory trip out there. Because the museum is so large, I will be breaking the coverage up into three posts. Let's go!

First up, the newest permanent exhibit at the museum, the Asgard. Located in an old gymnasium just outside the square barracks themselves, this indoor luxury yacht display seems confusing at first.

...Until you read the provided background materials. This luxury yacht and several others were used to run guns from Germany to Ireland in 1914. 

Bow of the Asgard 

This yacht belonged to Irish Volunteers supporter Erskine Childers, and he offered up the boat for the gun-running operation to Howth, just north of Dublin City. The guns? 900 40-year-old German Mausers left over from the previous Franco-Prussian war. The Germans were happy to sell off their old inventory to help fund their own new war effort, and Ireland couldn't be choosy about their guns while planning the 1916 Easter Rising. These old rifles were woefully outdated compared to the British arms, but the plucky fighters were able to take advantage of the longer range of these slow rifles in urban and guerilla conflict.

The Howth gun-running adventure on the Asgard produced one of my favorite Irish photographs. Below, Molly Childers and Mary Spring Rice enjoy the sun on the deck of the Asgard while casually holding these old German rifles.

http://www.easter1916.ie/index.php/gallery/

Today, the Asgard is at rest in a very well-presented exhibit at the museum. The boat itself, according to the interpretive materials, was almost completely disassembled and restored before being rebuilt inside this old gymnasium. Like building a full-sized ship in a building-sized bottle.

Stern of the Asgard

Around the boat, a series of ancillary exhibits give more context to how important this mission was to the early stages of the Rising in 1916. A few displays of the actual Mausers, ammunition, and uniforms worn by the Volunteers help tell the story. Most interesting among them may be the wood Mauser replicas used by the Volunteers for training while they waited for the guns to come in. These rebels were so poorly equipped that they had no choice but to use these phony guns for drilling. 

...And they were still planning to take on the mighty British military? Madness!

Raised Walkway for Easy Viewing

Port Side of the Asgard

The yacht can be seen on all sides from ground level and from a convenient raised platform built at ship's-deck-level. Visitors can see the rigging, the wheel, and just a little bit of the rooms belowdecks.

The Wheel and Belowdecks Entrance

Now that we've seen the Asgard, let's take a look into the main Collins Barracks complex...

Collins Barracks Inner Courtyard

...Next time!