The Butler Did It

 Had these gardens planted, that is.  I am reading my paper, and would like you poors to get off my land.  GO AWAY.  Also, find the fried egg plant in these pictures. 

Sights from the Nore River Walk, Part II

 Awww!  How cute!  Wait--is that an--alien space ship?

Sights from the Nore River Walk, Part I

 Like a Bob Ross painting.

Kilkenny Castle

 So Lizzie and I both have deep roots in Ireland, and the ancestors I can trace back the furthest come from Kilkenny (mid 18th century), and happen to share a surname with Lizzie's family, so I assume we are related someways back (though her branch of this family was in Waterford.)

Kilkenny has a lot of well-preserved landmarks from their medieval history, including the castle here. It was built in 1195 by William Marshal (and therefore would have been seen as a marker of the Norman conquest) to make use of the river Nore.  It was eventually seized by Edward I, and sold to the Butler family.  The Butler family originally went by the surname FitzWalter, but after the Norman invasion, they were like "Ssssh no we're the Butlers it's cool," and they got a bunch of money, allowing James Butler, 3rd Duke of Ormonde to purchase the castle.  The Butler family eventually lost their money, and had to resort to marriage to get it back, via Anne Wandesford Castlecomer (I KNOW RIGHT?) who was able to find the funds to restore the castle, which had become run down--this was around 1854.  The family chilled in the castle until about 1935, when they peaced out, sold the contents, and let it go to ruin.  In 1967, Arthur Butler (the 24th Earl of Ormonde) sold the castle to the castle restoration committee for 50 pounds, not wanting it to go completely to ruin, but not wanting to take care of it himself.  It has since been restored, and is a fabulous museum which we walked through, but were unfortunately not allowed to photograph.

Instead we have these statue imitation photos for you.  Dang--Lizzie is way better at this game than I am. 

The Road to Kilkenny

 This morning, after another free breakfast (at which I absconded with 4 bottles of water--booyeah) we picked up our rental car, and Lizzie bravely drove us on the wrong (oh, did you expect me to say left?  NO, WRONG) side of the road to Kilkenny, which is an hour and a half south of Dublin.  The Irish roads are treacherous, and when Lizzie asked the cabbie taking us to the rental place if he had some driving advice for her, he said "yeah, don't do it."

Driving on the left in a car with the steering on the right is challenging, but Lizzie is up to it, and we have so far only banged into the curb twice, but we've got rental insurance, so, as Lizzie said to the rental clerk when he was showing us previous damage "anything we add is covered, right?" I had to add "she's not going to [intentionally] wreck the car." 

We made it to Kilkenny, parked Potato McMaude, and made our way to the parade.  As we were strolling, a little old lady behind us said "excuse me," and when we turned around she said "get out," as in "get the fuck out out of my way," which was entertaining, so we did.

So why do the Irish drive on the left side of the road?  It began in medieval England, where you'd want people passing on the right, so you could STAB THEM WITH YOUR FREE SWORD HAND if they proved less than friendly. (Note--this only works for right handed people.  Sorry, Danielle.)  The Pope was also down with this, and passed a bull that said all pilgrims needed to keep left.  However, in the late 18th century, in the US (and also France) we decided bigger was better, and had huge teams of horses pulling stuff.  These wagons didn't have a drivers seat, so the driver would sit on the left-most horse so he could lash the horses, and you wanted other wagons to pass you on the left so you could make sure their wheels didn't clash with yours Ben Hur style meaning you kept to the right. (Our first keep right law was put on the books in 1792 in Pennsylvania).  Since England is not as awesome and gigantic as we are, they had wagons with seats on the right, so the driver could lash the horses without the flogger getting caught on the payload.  The drive-on-the-right style won out in most countries, except for places like Ireland, England, and some of their former colonies (excluding us and Canada.  Canada, you rebel.).  Anyway, now you know, and USA USA USA.

Death Trees and the Book of Kells

 This gorgeous tree is an Oregon Maple, and two of them flank the square by the old library.  They helped to soak up the water which runs under the college and used to threaten the structural integrity, and because of that, and because they're planted over an old cemetery, they've gotten far bigger than Oregon Maples do in North America.  Mmm, delicious dead monks. 

Dave brought us around the corner, away from the beautiful old buildings and to the hideous 1960s buildings. There was no cohesion between the architectural styles, and they reminded me of a certain other campus some of us may be familiar with.  The new library looks like city hall plaza in Boston. They have another building that houses the social sciences, which was supposed to be modeled on the hanging gardens of Babylon, but the concrete mix was so abrasive and toxic that all the plants they tried to grow on it died.  :( 

We had to queue up for about 30 minutes in the chilly air to enter the old library to see the Book of Kells.  It's an illuminated manuscript covering the gospels, created on calf vellum circa 800 AD, probably on the Scottish island of Iona, and moved to Ireland during viking raids.  During the medieval period, it was housed in Abbey Kells in, well, Kells, from which it gets its name.  Fearing further viking raids, it was eventually moved to Dublin and Trinity College for safekeeping.  It's been divided into parts, two of which are on display, and two of which are locked away for safe keeping.  Don't ask Dave the tour guide where.  He doesn't know. 

The page we saw was St. John, on the left here.  The ornate detail is mind boggling, and these monks must've had hands a neurosurgeon would envy. 

The library also houses other illuminated manuscripts, as well as oodles and oodles of old books, which Trinity college students have access to.  I imagine them to be full of silverfish, so this is probably not as appealing as it could be. 

After our trip to Trinity college, we meandered around aimlessly for a while longer, unable to make any sense of our map, crabbiness setting in at a dangerous level.  Lizzie genius-ly hailed us a cab, and we made it back to the hotel for a nap and then dinner.  I had some weird vegetable matter which I did not understand, but was delicious nonetheless.  Now we are watching the Irish version of Cops (they say fuck a lot) in preparation for further adventures tomorrow, once we catch up on some sleep.  Hooray!

Trinity College

 So this here is Provost Salmon and Dave.  Provost Salmon is the stone guy who looks like he didn't eat enough of the complimentary granola and yogurt, and Dave was our adorable tour guide, who had a delivery akin to that of Jacob the Bar Mitzvah boy.  Dave was wearing academic robes, which looked like cheap samurai cosplay, and informed us that he had just finished his third year as an English and Film major, a fact which caused Lizzie and I to exchange meaningful glances.

Trinity College was established by Queen Elizabeth to fortify Tudor rule in Ireland, meaning it had Protestant leanings in a very Catholic country.  The Catholic church actively discouraged it's members from attending the college until 1970.  Provost Salmon up there allowed women in as of 1904, but he had to be forced into it, and died soon after this decision.  Any time a woman gets educated, a stodgy sexist has a heart attack.  It's like the angel/bell connection on It's a Wonderful Life.

So Trinity college is broken into various squares, with the oldest buildings still standing being from the 18th century.  Dave told us about a famous Dean (Edward Ford) who shot at some students who were tossing rocks at his window, so the students went to their dorms, got their own guns (did we get back to America?) shot at the dean (as a PRANK! HA HA HA) and killed him.  Oops.  It was 1740, and while the students were expelled, they were not convicted of the crime, since the Dean shot first, and it couldn't be determined from which gun the killing shot came, as three students were involved in the shooting. (Plus the judge was pals with the students' dads.)

Other (less murdery) folks who went to Trinity include Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, and Jonathan Swift.  Maybe Dave will join these ranks someday, except probably not, because he was baffled by Waiting for Godot. To quote the author,  "Why people have to complicate a thing so simple I can't make out."