IRELAND DAY 2

The next day we headed off from Dublin driving about 2 hours south to the city of Waterford...where the famous Waterford Crystal is made.  We enjoyed a tour of the factory to watch the artisans and left with a little something to remember our time there.

We rented a large 9 passenger van that ended up working well for all of us - albeit a bit cozy.   3 up front - 3 in middle - 3 in back!

Waterford

We left Waterford and drove another 2 hours to Cork to visit the famous Blarney Castle.  You climb to the top and kiss the blarney stone to receive the "Gift of Gab".  It seemed to work on the boys as they couldn't stop talking the rest of the trip : )

This was Halloween...so we had HotelWeen.  We had the kids make their own creative costumes out of what they had brought  and they trick or treated from room to room.  It was a lot of fun.

 Dawson was Dave with a suntan

 Kel was doing her best impersonation of DiAnna...

 

IRELAND Day 1

We just returned from our trip to Ireland with my sister, husband and kids.  On our first day, we spent the day in Dublin walking around and seeing many interesting sights.  The weather was better than expected for Ireland this time of year.

 

Our trip plan:

 

We visited Trinity College in Dublin and visited the Book of Kells.  I was thinking we would see a number of Kelly's from Ireland, but was interested to learn it had other meanings.  More info below. 

The Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin MS 58) is celebrated for its lavish decoration. The manuscript contains the four Gospels in Latin based on a Vulgate text, written on vellum (prepared calfskin), in a bold and expert version of the script known as "insular majuscule".  The place of origin of the Book of Kells is generally attributed to the scriptorium of the monastery founded around 561 by St Colum Cille on Iona, an island off the west coast of Scotland. In 806, following a Viking raid on the island which left 68 of the community dead, the Columban monks took refuge in a new monastery at Kells, County Meath. It must have been close to the year 800 that the Book of Kells was written, although there is no way of knowing if the book was produced wholly at Iona or at Kells, or partially at each location.  It has been on display in the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin from the mid 19th century, and attracts over 500,000 visitors a year. Since 1953 it has been bound in four volumes. Two volumes are on public view, one opened to display a major decorated page, and one to show two pages of script. The volumes are changed at regular intervals.

Trinity College Dublin

The library at Trinity College

There was a DAWSON STREET in Dublin that had a number of Dawson Stores. 

There was even a store for our CoCo

Some more pics from around Dublin.

Some sights and sounds of Dublin