CalRobert
12 hours ago
The book of Kells is gorgeous and well worth a visit.
If you are in Dublin and enjoy this sort of thing, _please_ also take the very short walk over to the Chester Beatty Library (https://chesterbeatty.ie/) as well. It's free and has an absolutely fantastic collection of ancient and sacred manuscripts. I was lucky enough to live across the street from it for several years and it remains one of my favourite museums in the world.
grujicd
11 hours ago
Chester Beatty is a gem. I went into it not expecting much from "museum of books". But it's also in a way a museum of world's religions, which are tightly connected to writing and books. As an atheist who has low opinion on value of religion because of all the deaths they were and still are responsible for, it reminded me of their positive role in history. When you see all those ancient religious books you begin to question whether we would have writing at all without them? Who would go through a painstaking process of duplicating books before Gutenberg if not men devoting their lives to God? Thus carrying light of civilization and creating basis and tools for science to progress later. I know this is not some great revelation, but I felt enlightened a bit after leaving Chester Beatty.
noufalibrahim
7 hours ago
Your post reminded me of the story "A canticle for leibowitz".
It explores many of the ideas you've mentioned. I recommend reading it if you haven't already. I think you'd enjoy it.
grujicd
7 hours ago
Thanks for the recommendation, looks like the kind of book I'd enjoy.
stogot
3 hours ago
The idea that religion causes more deaths than non-religion is absurd in the 21st history (hitler, Stalin, mao) and is a myth when you take in full world history.
An index of all known wars in history indicated 93% of wars were not religious.
https://apholt.com/2023/01/03/the-myth-of-religion-as-the-ca...
gambiting
5 hours ago
I saw it in person few months ago, and well......it's weird. The quality of the caligraphy and drawings is such that when you see it in person...it's completely underwhelming. It just looks like a very high quality print - which obviously speaks volumes about the quality of penmanship of something that is so crazy old. But the presentation room where the pages were shown magnified and the library afterwards were(to me) 100x more interesting than the "main event". I just saw it, went "huh" and that was about it. I guess seeing Mona Lisa in person must be similar - hundreds of people trying to take a peek, and it's far away from you behind glass so you can't really appreciate the details.
Isamu
3 hours ago
Opposite reaction from me. Every print seemed lackluster when I finally saw the original. Which is surprisingly smaller than expected. And the intricacies are incredibly tiny.
Something about the work is more vibrant in person. I found the same to be true about Da Vinci. In particular his silverpoint drawings can’t be reproduced well.
TRiG_Ireland
9 hours ago
The Chester Beatty Library has a much larger collection than is shown at any one time. Many sacred texts, but also much else, including some printed news-sheets from the French Revolution. And a lot of Chinese and Japanese stuff, including some gorgeous jade snuffboxes.
raffraffraff
6 hours ago
There's also a pretty decent eatery!
Another amazing library, though one that you can't really access, is the Edward Worth library at Dr Steevens’ Hospital, beside Heuston train station.
https://edwardworthlibrary.ie/
He had collected the books over his lifetime and bequeathed the collection to the hospital, under conditions that were to result in the absolute protection of the books. The story of the collection's history is itself worth the visit, and the current librarians are always welcoming if you call in advance. I was at a lecture there last week, and they took great pains to tell everybody to come back.
UniverseHacker
3 hours ago
I stayed at a dorm on campus for a week at Trinity, but the book was so popular I couldn’t bring myself to wait in the long line to see it… but wish I had.
VagabundoP
10 hours ago
They have some gorgeous Asian exhibits as well from what I remember.
brendoelfrendo
10 hours ago
Agreed! We went last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. I understand that the Long Room in the Old Library is mostly empty for renovations, but the Book has been moved to a dedicated building during this time.
Pro-tip to any potential visitors: they turn the pages every so often, and I have heard some travel bloggers complain that the pages on display when they went weren't very interesting, but the university will show you what pages of the book of Kells are currently on display: https://www.visittrinity.ie/book-of-kells-pages-on-display/
At the moment, it appears that they have it open to a pair of canon tables which have some really lovely illuminations.