Dublin City Center, June 6

Wednesday, June 6

Jane is back at school today and I’m off to City Center again. I walked over the Ha’penny Bridge (officially the Liffy Bridge), built in 1816 and around Temple Bar. I’m getting pretty good at getting around the city with my map! 

 The Ha'penny bridge is so called because that was the toll amount to cross it at one point in time. The Liffy River divides Dublin between north and south.

Ha'penny Bridge

 Temple Bar is the area south of the Liffy River. Originally this area was outside the walls of the city of Dublin. This is the area for nightlife in Dublin.

 This building houses a store called The Pen Corner. As the name might suggest they sell pens and other writing supplies. I couldn't find out anything about the architecture of the building, which I really like.

The Pen Corner

After a rather circuitous route I found my way to the National Gallery. 

There was an exhibit of Harry Clarke stained glass. I was able to get very close to these windows.

 

His windows have a beautiful, jewel-like quality to them that I don't see in other stained glass. It's almost as if he made them out of jewels, instead of colored glass.I didn't even bump up the saturation on these photos. This is the actual saturation of color in these windows. Just beautiful!

Parquet floors, chandeliers and a massive painting at the end of the room. So impressive! I don't know how they get pictures that size into these rooms. Do they bring in the rolled up canvas and then stretch them on the frames once they're in the room? The painting is called The Marriage of Longbow and represents the Norman conquest of Ireland.

 

 I am always amazed at how sculptors can make marble looks like soft, flowing fabric.

There were some beautiful enameled copper pieces in the museum. The were quite small. Maybe a little larger than a silver dollar. Two of them were portraits of Victoria and Albert. 

Also in the portrait hall is a recent portrait of Graham Norton. A contest was conducted to see who would be chosen to paint it. It was done in 2017 and I think it's a great likeness of him.

All the walking I've been doing for the past week and a half is catching up with me. My feet started hurting so I headed back to Jane's to relax.

Later this evening Jane, Allison, Lucy and I went to see a play at Bewley's Cafe Theatre. The play was called Burdian's Ass by SR Plant. It's a two-man play set in a taxidermy shop that is falling on hard times. It was really well acted and quite absurd. We had a good time.