Novel Explorations: Ireland Diary 2004

Our Travelers' Diaries
Writers, Myths, and Legends - A Journey to Ireland
Submitted by Lois

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On Friday night, the group went to visit the Bram Stoker Heritage Centre. I stayed back to nurse my cold. Bill went, and was impressed with the director, Tim McIntyre, who was so knowledgeable about Stoker and his life and development of the vampire, Dracula. There is a wall of the history of Stoker's life and writing, and a Haunted House experience just for fun. Unfortunately, I have no pictures to share. Bram Stoker was born in 1847 (during the famine) and attended Trinity College. One strength of this tour: all the speakers were curators, directors, presidents of their societies, etc. They are knowledgeable and passionate about their work, and shared that with us. Another strength was that we were often the only people there, since it was past the regular season for tourists: no difficulty hearing or trying to see over tall people in front of you, etc. etc.
http://www.bramstokercentre.org/heritage_centre.html

Bill and I also visited the National Library of Ireland in Dublin before the tour started. They have a special Ulysses exhibit this year, since 2004 is the 100th anniversary of the publishing of Joyce's book.
http://www.nli.ie/

One more place we visited was the National Museum of Ireland, Archaeology and History, which displayes Prehistoric Ireland and Viking Age Ireland artifacts. The Vikings came to Ireland about 795.
http://www.museum.ie/archaeology/

All of these sites, including Trinity College, were within walking distance of our hotel.

We also visited the little town of Avoca, where the BBC series Ballykissangel was filmed. It is a little street, with a church, and shops, and the Avoca Hand Weavers mill, est. 1723, and store. (great shopping!)
http://www.avoca.ie/map.shtml?id=1
http://www.avoca.com/
http://www.world-productions.com/wp/content/shows/ballyk/ballyk.htm

Now, we bid good-bye to Wicklow and Dublin.

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