Most trips to Ireland start and finish in Dublin. Ireland's capital city offers all of the festiveness that you would come to expect from the island along with the urban vibe. There are plenty of historical sties, activities and wandering that can you easily spend 2-3 days in Dublin before moving along to other destinations around the country that highlight its natural beauty and that help give credence to the term the "Emerald Isle." Plus once you take one of the express shuttles into the city centre it offers many opportunities to get a few steps in to help ward off the jet lag.
One of the most frequently visited sites in Dublin is Trinity College and in particular its Long Room in its library and the Book of Kells.
The 200 foot long room is adorned with 200,000 of the collection's oldest books and aligned with busts of historical figures famous to Ireland and the rest of Europe. The depth of the room with the decorative books makes for an impressive site. When we went in the summer of 2023, they had started the process of removing the books for preservation and a major renovation project to the library and where the Book of Kells is housed. This is expected to take a couple of years to complete and arrangements have been made to still allow the visitors to see the library and the Book of Kells. Check here for the latest: FAQs - Old Library Redevelopment Project - Trinity College Dublin (tcd.ie) Having the books on the shelves brings the room to life but in its place are brief videos showing the various painstaking steps taken to clean these centuries old texts. The room also includes Brian Boru's harp, which modeled the symbol of Ireland, and one of few remaining copies of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
The vibrantly colored Book of Kells, called "Ireland's greatest cultural treasure," is housed in a small dimly lit room before you come to The Long Room. The book is generally opened to one page and that page is turned once every two months. This is all to help with preservation. To learn more about the book, you walk through a small exhibition that highlights the history of the Book of Kells with in depth information on the symbolism and also details on how the manuscript was made.
We also added a student led tour of the Trinity College Dublin campus which we recommend as well. It was informative and fun with great views of the 18th century buildings and their finely tuned architecture, enjoyable facts about student life and notable alumni and the beautiful Museum Building complete with distinctive Irish Connemara marble. While we did not partake in this, rooms at the college are available for stay during the summer.
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