September 20th - another busy day. Maybe not quite the frantic pace of New York, but we were on the go all day!

In to Dublin with Andrew. Our first stop was the National Museum of Ireland, which has 4 branches – we were going to the Museum of Archaeology. This is a magnificent 19^th-century building which would be worth a look even without the exhibitions.

What a fantastic place. We saw prehistoric artefacts including a stone-age long boat.

Ireland has large areas of bog, where under very specific conditions, things can be preserved for an astounding length of time. Several human bodies have been found in recent centuries, and modern testing shows them to be  over2000 years old. The museum has these on display which is fascinating if a little grotesque. You can’t help wondering how those people would feel if they knew this is where they would end up.

There are many beautiful pieces of Celtic art.

Some Viking artefacts.

Mediaeval Irish Christian art.

For some reason, a splendid ancient Egyptian section.

Some of the most highly valued Irish treasures including the Tara brooch and the Ardagh chalice.

And an astonishing amount of gold jewellery.

This is an amazing museum, and it’s free to visit. Of course, they gratefully accept donations.

We had a picnic lunch in Merion Square (still no need for those rain coats!) and headed back to Trinity College where we saw the Book of Kells 2 days ago, this time to visit the Science Gallery – a small but fascinating place where the current exhibition is about light and illusions.

Nearby, we popped into this small shop, Sweny's Pharmacy. It is mentioned in Ulysses, by James Joyce, and part of it has been kept as it appeared at that time.

We walked along the Liffey River, which flows through the middle of the city. People seem to identify very strongly as “North-Siders” or “South-Siders” – Malahide is North of the city but too far away to fit the label!

This tower, near the river, is tapered so when you stand near it looking up, it seems to be infinitely tall!

It was getting towards evening so we wandered along to Georges Dock where they are celebrating Oktoberfest. Sitting in the evening sun with our German food and drinks was a very pleasant way to take a break.

Tonight in Dublin is very special – it is Culture Night, an annual event where all sorts of museums, galleries, historic buildings and other culturally significant places stay open late. Most have special events and the places that normally charge an admission are free for the evening. We planned to go to Dublinia, a museum of Viking and Mediaeval history, but when we got there we found that about half of Dublin seemed to have had the same idea! The queue was down the street and around the corner. This museum is built on a street which has existed since Viking times, and on the footpath outside they have marked the outlines of where a Viking house once stood.

We didn’t want to spend Culture Night in a queue - instead, we went across the road to Christ Church Cathedral. This one of the of the oldest buildings in Dublin, with some parts built in the 11th and 12th centuries.  It was quite busy, with musicians performing outside and guided tours inside. We went downstairs to the crypt...

This was a fairly dark space, a bit hard to find your way around. Just what you want in a crypt, really.

They have quite a lot to see in the crypt – some early Christian  treasures –

Some costumes from a show called The Tudors which is/was filmed in the area –

Some silly photo opportunities –

But their most famous (and peculiar) item is a case containing a mummified cat and rat, which were found inside the organ!

When we left the cathedral, we strolled through the Temple Bar area (along with the other half of Dubliners who weren’t queuing up for Dublinia), past old pubs, lots of buskers, craft markets and a whole heap of people.

Our final event for the day was a Culture Night must-see: the Dead Zoo. This is the local nickname for another branch of the National Museum, the Museum of Natural History. It is open for free every day, but seeing it at night is definitely the way to go, because this is one creepy museum! Like the Museum of Archaeology, it dates from the 19^th century, but unlike it, the Dead Zoo has not been updated since. As well as a museum of natural history, it is a museum of museums, where you can see what these places were like in Victorian times!

This museum is almost nothing but dead, stuffed animals in glass cases. And it is huge!

It even has an Australian section, which includes a thylacine! Oddly labelled as a “Tasmanian Wolf”. And the koalas are labelled as “koala bears”.

We left when they started to close up (you definitely don’t want to be in there when the lights are out!) and by the time we got back to Malahide, we were just about asleep on our feet.