UCSC Extension Multimedia and Web Design Certificate - Final Project

Project Plan: Erin Dreams

Elsa DieLöwin

Light green background as used throughout site,
dark green map with yellow text

Images:header
map of Dublin area, north to Tara

slideshow button
link to s-Dublin52-11.html
next button - link to map-Avoca.html & j-Avoca.html

Journal text

July 31, 1998

We boarded a tiny commuter plane for a wonderfully uneventful flight from Glasgow to Dublin which lifted off at about 1:15 p.m. We picked up the rental car, a tiny red hatchback, and a map, and drove out of Dublin Airport.

I found my way to the huge car park by the St. Steven's Green shopping center in central Dublin. Johnston Place was not on any of our maps, so I went off walking in the general direction of the TIC to ask for directions to the hotel, but found the hotel a mere block and a half from the parking, much nearer than the TIC I haven't seen yet.

I checked in and then went back for Krys and the bags. The Grafton Plaza Hotel is actually a couple of short blocks from Grafton St. It's a nice place with a comparatively huge room for the same price as we paid last night for an overgrown closet in Glasgow.

The Break for the Border restaurant is just outside the hotel on the left. In front is a large, amazing bronze statue of a Plains Indian on an irritated looking horse. The Border must be the Mexican border.

We walked along South Great George St. to the Shalimar Indian restaurant and had a wonderful dinner.

August 1, 1998

We woke and skipped breakfast, but walked to Trinity College to look again at the Book of Kells, which we had seen in San Francisco in 1978. Trinity's library and the exhibit of many beautiful books and Ogam stones were lovely to behold.

After we left Trinity, we walked up Henry St. and Mary St. looking for dancing ghillies. The shop had moved around the corner, but we tracked it down and bought the shoes.

A picnic lunch was procured from a cafe, and we drove out to Tara for the afternoon. Tara is entered through a small gate in a churchyard, and there is a tiny visitors' centre offering books and gifts at which we stopped as we were leaving.

The site itself is a hill with several grassy mounds. One is an ancient tomb mound and others are raised rings which may have had stockades built over them long ago. On the hill are two large stones. One is the tombstone of a man buried in the 18th century, which seemed completely out of place so I left it out of my pictures. The other, standing about 7 feet tall, is the famous Lia Fail. I touched the Lia Fail, but it didn't cry out, so I'm not destined to be Queen of Ireland. Rats.

We sat in the Rath na Ri to feast upon our picnic lunch, and read aloud an excerpt of Celtic Myth and Legend, Poetry and Romance by Charles Squires concerning the coming of the multi-talented hero Lugh to Tara. August 1 is the traditional ancient holiday honoring Lugh, the name of which, Lunasa, is now the Irish Gaelic word for August.

We left Tara and went well past Newgrange itself to the visitors center and entrance at Brugh na Boine. That was a bit frustrating, but more so was the fact that the tickets even for the last tour at 8 p.m. were already sold out at 3:30. We decided to try again at the other end of our trip, and re-arranged our itinerary to spend the night of the 7th at Slane instead of Kildare.

Disappointed but not defeated, we drove back to Dublin by way of Drogheda. A friend had admonished us not to go to Drogheda, but what the heck. It was a very dreary way through the town, with house fronts tight against the streets so there was no margin for gardens. A few houses made a brave show with a few flower pots, but we didn't stop to look more deeply.

In the evening, Krys had a nasty headache so we had a room service dinner in from Break for the Border. It was indeed Mexican food, though its distance from Mexico was apparent.

Krys went to bed and I went out walking again to take more pictures. I found the statue of Molly Malone, "the tart with the cart" as one guidebook called her, the fountain of Anna Livia the spirit of the Liffey river, and the Greek-revival statuary on the roof of the Bank of Ireland as well as those of the heroes of Irish independence. I took photographs until the light was gone.

Later, walking along Dame St. to Grafton, the streets were alive with people. Loud music and cigarette smoke spilled from the doorways. I had found the Hot Club Scene. Being an ancient fuddy-duddy of almost 40, I went back to the hotel and my husband, and went to bed at about 10:15.

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Dublin's name
from The Story of the Irish Race,
by Seumus MacManus
(written 1921)
The Devin-Adair Co.,
1981, page 269

At the confluence of the Liffey and a small stream called the Poddle, was a village which the Irish had founded at least two centuries earlier and which they called, and still call, Ath Cliath, "the Ford of the Hurdles." It was also named Dubhlinn, "Blackpool," from the dark colour of the water under the bog.

The Norsemen were struck by the excellent location of the village and, consequently, about the year 837, they threw up a strong earthen fort on the hill where now stands the Castle, and for nearly two hundred years Dublin remained an exclusively Norwegian or Danish city and the capital and headquarters of the Vikings in western Europe.

The Coming of Lugh to Tara
from Celtic Myth and Legend, Poetry and Romance
, by Charles Squire (written 1905)
Crown Publishers, Inc. , 1979,
pages 84 to 86

Nuada was celebrating his return to the throne by a feast to his people. While it was at its height, a stranger clothed like a king came to the palace gate. The porter asked him his name and errand.

"I am called Lugh," he said. "I am the grandson of Diancecht by Cian, my father, and the grandson of Balor by Ethniu, my mother."

"But what is your profession?" asked the porter; "for no one is admitted here unless he is a master of some craft."

"I am a carpenter, "said Lugh.

"We have no need of a carpenter. We already have a very good one; his name is Luchtainé."

"I am an excellent smith," said Lugh.

"We do not want a smith. We have a very good one; his name is Goibniu."

"I am a professional warrior," said Lugh.

"We have no need of one. Ogma is our champion."

"I am a harpist, "said Lugh.

"We have an excellent harpist already."

"I am a warrior renowned for skillfulness rather than for mere strength."

"We already have a man like that."

"I am a poet and tale-teller, "said Lugh.

"We have no need of such. We have a most accomplished poet and tale-teller."

"I am a sorcerer," said Lugh.

"We do not want one. We have numberless sorcerers and druids."

"I am a physician," said Lugh.

"Diancecht is our physician."

"I am a cup-bearer," said Lugh.

"We already have nine of them."

"I am a worker in bronze," said Lugh.

"We have no need of you. We already have a worker in bronze. His name is Credné."

"Then ask the King," said Lugh, "if he has with him a man who is master of all these crafts at once, for, if he has, there is no need for me to come to Tara." So the door-keeper went inside, and told the king that a man had come who called himself Lugh the Ioldanach, or "Master of all Arts", and he claimed to know everything.

The king sent out his best chess-player to play against the stranger. Lugh won, inventing a new move called "Lugh's enclosure". Then Nuada invited him in. Lugh entered, and sat down upon the chair called the "sage's seat", kept for the wisest man.

Ogma, the champion, was showing off his strength. Upon the floor was a flagstone so large that four-score yokes of oxen would have been needed to move it. Ogma pushed it before him along the hall, and out at the door.

Then Lugh rose from his chair, and pushed it back again. But this stone, huge as it was, was only a portion broken from a still greater rock outside the palace Lugh picked it up, and put it back in its place.

The Tuatha Dé Danann asked him to play the harp to them. So he played the "sleep-tune", and the king and all his court fell asleep, and did not wake until the same hour the following day. Next, he played a plaintive air, and they all wept. Lastly, he played a measure which sent them into transports of joy.