Monday, November 5, 2007

Guest Blogger: Charles Lamb

Today, we took the train into Dublin Centre to visit Trinity College and see this really old book. The Book of Kells is an ornately illustrated manuscript, produced by Celtic monks around AD 800 in the style known as Insular art, in ink on cowhide (vellum), and contains the four gospels of the Bible in Latin. Today it is on permanent display at the Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland. It is amazing to me that this ink/cowhide has survived so well for 1200 years, much of which was even without air conditioning! My saddle is only 60 years old and its leather is pretty dry. I was gratified that it was done in large print for seniors. A couple of pages are illustrated here. BTW, all these can be enlarged by clicking on the images.

Trinity College, “College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin,“ was founded in 1592 (44 years before Harvard U.) by Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", and is the only constituent college of the University of Dublin. Trinity and the University of Dublin comprise Ireland's oldest university. Trinity is one of the seven ancient universities in the English speaking world and the only one outside the present United Kingdom. However, I felt smug knowing Darren McFadden (U. of Arkansas founded in 1871) had just tied an SEC record by rushing for 321 yards last Saturday, and nobody at Trinity could touch that performance!

These pictures show Sharon and Celia at the gate and inside Trinity College.





























At the end of the day my trusty pedometer indicated we had walked 6.4 miles! No way would I walk that far in Arkansas unless I had car trouble!

3 comments:

mom Gunter said...

This is great Charles!!!!!! I really enjoyed the history lesson. I loved the pictures too!

KevinB said...

Maybe Charles should go from "Guest Blogger" to "Professional Blogger". I was so inspired by his writing. Especially the part where he alerts us readers to the fact that we can click on the picture and see a larger version of it. Very insightful and user friendly.
I am glad that Charles has recovered from the long plane ride and is up and moving. And Sharon, you look great. I couldn't even tell that you guys were Americans in the photos.
It snowed today here in Indiana. I haven't talked to Tob to find out what she thought. :)

mcquest yb | ybrao a donkey said...

Good enough.