Last Day in Ireland

It's not leaving Ireland, it's going to Wales, right? Right? What a bittersweet moment this is! We've had a wonderful eight days in the Emerald Isle (and for most of them, the weather was "mighty!" (meaning good) My shoes haven't been soaked through since our first night in Dingle (Day #2) and supposedly that's really unusual. It probably helps that we spent most of those eight days moving around. We chased the sunlight!

We made two historical stops this morning. The first was to Trinity College in Dublin, where we got to see two of the four volumes of the Book of Kells. What's that, I hear you ask? Each book is one of the four Gospels, translated into English. They're ancient, and supposedly significant to the history of the English language, but I don't know all of the specifics. I'll have to do some research!

Along with the Book of Kells, Trinity College has a huge collection of ancient books and manuscripts, and we got to walk through and look at some of them and try to decipher what was being said. Many had beautiful illustrations with gold leaf inlays and calligraphy! 

Our second stop was much less lighthearted than the College: Kilmainham Jail. Ireland has had a long and tragic history, most of it involving fighting for freedom from the English. Kilmainham held and executed many political prisoners who fought for Ireland's freedom. Our tour guide was LDS and asked if she could do our group when she saw we were from BYU! She told us lots of stories, most of them sad, about the people who had been held there. One young woman was engaged to a leader of the rebellion. They were supposed to get married Easter weekend, but they decided to put it off until after the rebellion. The rebels lost and the leaders were all taken to jail and sentenced to death. The woman petitioned for the right to marry her fiance, and it was granted, but they were only allowed to speak their vows. Then they were given ten minutes together right before he was executed, with a guard standing at the door counting down the minutes.

SAD.

The jail was overcrowded and people died from diseases more often than not. This was probably because they threw children in jail for something as small as playing marbles on a train. Lots of sad stuff.

The next stop was downtown Dublin, where we were left to wander around for five hours. I did a little shopping (and will now be set for St. Patricks Day!) and watched some street performers and went to the free museum. The park in the middle of Dublin is the largest public park in all of Europe, and it is beautiful. We spent our last few minutes of free time there. At seven we showed up at Gaiety Theater to collect our tickets for Riverdance, which was, in a word, amazing! Now, on my last night in Dublin, I'm doing laundry for the first time. Hooray... So yeah, a lot of walking, and my feet are killing me, and we have to get up bright and early to be ready to leave by 6:15 tomorrow morning.

One last thing, entitled "Things Heather Would Do If She Ever Went To Dublin Again"
1. spend more time in the park.
2. go to the natural history museum
3. go to St. Patrick's Cathedral (not getting to do this was the biggest disappointment of my time in Dublin, but there will be other cathedrals. Sayonara, everyone!