8 March 2007
I finally saw a squirrel today! A frisky little grey squirrel was scampering about the headstones at a cemetery that we saw today. After class today, we had a free afternoon and so Meaghan, Ann and I went exploring in a direction we’d never gone before, out south and west to the “suburbs”. The suburbs look nothing like our suburbs here, it’s just more houses and less traffic. Our wanderings took us to a beautiful (but big) cemetery, complete with old, old gravestones from the 1800’s, a couple old chapels, and some really cool vaults/mausoleums. On one of the doors, I saw a placard from the 1870’s that said “The Family Vault of Samuel Ewing Hamilton”. It was so odd to see my name there. Then, there was one of the vaults that was missing the covering of the window cut-out and I looked into it. It contained a wooden stand to hold a coffin and then there were shelves with coffins lining the wall. It was so surreal… I love walking through cemetaries. I don’t think it’s a morbid fascination, well, it is an interest in death, but you can learn a lot about a culture from how they care for their dead and you also learn a lot about life through looking at death. On their tombstomes, they write not only the name of the deceased, but often where they lived and occasionally how they died, who they were related to, and who erected the monument in their honor. The graves are often crowded together, and the bigger the monument, the more likely the name was British or decorated with a British crest. Many of the more maintained graves had little gardens in front of them. Some were decorated with flowers, figures of saints, and rosaries. It made me think about my mortality. If I could have it any way, I’d like to be tossed into a great big compost heap and turned into fertilizer and have a tree planted in my honor.
Yesterday, we went to the National Museum of Archeology and saw tons of amazing artifacts. Though the Stone Age artifacts were great, my favorite exhibits were of the medieval artifacts, especially the Irish reliquaries and the crucifixes. Medieval Irish art is sometimes very different from continental art. The interlace patterns and swirly patterns are distinctive, but the thing I appreciate most about the medieval art is the way it reflects the uniquely Irish version of Christianity. Because Ireland was (and largely still is outside the Dublin area) mostly rural, the power structure of the early church was spread out and centered in monastic life, rather than concentrated in the Cathedrals in the cities as it was on the continent and even England. It also has some more of the pagan influences because the church adopted a more synchretic (assimiliation) approach to conversion here than elsewhere. That’s probably the coolest part of the medieval church art, to see the intersection of continental and traditional Irish patterns.
That’s about all for this afternoon. Dinner is served in about half and hour, and then it’s some more bridge playing since class tomorrow is going to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (hooray!). I’ve got some more reading and journaling to do for class, but my brain needed a break. Bridge is pretty intense, but I like it, so the diversion will be quite welcome.
I finally saw a squirrel today! A frisky little grey squirrel was scampering about the headstones at a cemetery that we saw today. After class today, we had a free afternoon and so Meaghan, Ann and I went exploring in a direction we’d never gone before, out south and west to the “suburbs”. The suburbs look nothing like our suburbs here, it’s just more houses and less traffic. Our wanderings took us to a beautiful (but big) cemetery, complete with old, old gravestones from the 1800’s, a couple old chapels, and some really cool vaults/mausoleums. On one of the doors, I saw a placard from the 1870’s that said “The Family Vault of Samuel Ewing Hamilton”. It was so odd to see my name there. Then, there was one of the vaults that was missing the covering of the window cut-out and I looked into it. It contained a wooden stand to hold a coffin and then there were shelves with coffins lining the wall. It was so surreal… I love walking through cemetaries. I don’t think it’s a morbid fascination, well, it is an interest in death, but you can learn a lot about a culture from how they care for their dead and you also learn a lot about life through looking at death. On their tombstomes, they write not only the name of the deceased, but often where they lived and occasionally how they died, who they were related to, and who erected the monument in their honor. The graves are often crowded together, and the bigger the monument, the more likely the name was British or decorated with a British crest. Many of the more maintained graves had little gardens in front of them. Some were decorated with flowers, figures of saints, and rosaries. It made me think about my mortality. If I could have it any way, I’d like to be tossed into a great big compost heap and turned into fertilizer and have a tree planted in my honor.
Yesterday, we went to the National Museum of Archeology and saw tons of amazing artifacts. Though the Stone Age artifacts were great, my favorite exhibits were of the medieval artifacts, especially the Irish reliquaries and the crucifixes. Medieval Irish art is sometimes very different from continental art. The interlace patterns and swirly patterns are distinctive, but the thing I appreciate most about the medieval art is the way it reflects the uniquely Irish version of Christianity. Because Ireland was (and largely still is outside the Dublin area) mostly rural, the power structure of the early church was spread out and centered in monastic life, rather than concentrated in the Cathedrals in the cities as it was on the continent and even England. It also has some more of the pagan influences because the church adopted a more synchretic (assimiliation) approach to conversion here than elsewhere. That’s probably the coolest part of the medieval church art, to see the intersection of continental and traditional Irish patterns.
That’s about all for this afternoon. Dinner is served in about half and hour, and then it’s some more bridge playing since class tomorrow is going to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (hooray!). I’ve got some more reading and journaling to do for class, but my brain needed a break. Bridge is pretty intense, but I like it, so the diversion will be quite welcome.
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