2014.02.20 Ireland-Dublin-area--Bog Bodies and Howth

Day 4 (20 Feb): Archaeological Museum & Howth

We had a rainy morning, good day to check out a museum.  I was most interested in bog bodies and vikings, so we went with the Archaeological museum, near-ish to Trinity college and Temple Bar.

Note: there's a lot of stuff to do in Dublin. E.g. see the Book of Kells, which is on Trinity College campus. I was much more into beautiful-Irish-scenery than museums this trip, so, lots of scenery pictures.

It was a good size. Maybe a bit small, but perfect for a half-day visit (which is really all I can normally stand with a museum, anyway. 

There were 3 or so bog bodies.  What are bog bodies, you say? 

To the internet! (aka Wikipedia): 

``A bog body (Moorleiche in German) is a human cadaver that has been naturally mummified within a peat bog. [They] are both geographically and chronologically widespread, having been dated to between 9000 BCE and the Second World War. The unifying factor of the bog bodies is that they have been found in peat and are partially preserved...
Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies have retained their skin and internal organs due to the unusual conditions of the surrounding area. These conditions include highly acidic water, low temperature, and a lack of oxygen, and combine to preserve but severely tan their skin. While the skin is well-preserved, the bones are generally not, due to the acid in the peat having dissolved the calcium phosphate of bone."

One body had been decapitated and cut in half and also had his nipples cut off -- apparently one thing defeated people did was suck the king's nipples as a sign of acquiescence, so this kept him from being in line to be a king. His hands were soft, so no manual labor. 

I assume that the oral histories, which'd been transcribed sometime between 800 and 1600 by some monks, were  how they know some things like why the nipples would be cut off. Also, thanks to old maps, they know territorial boundaries (which hadn't changed much for a while before the maps were made), and offerings (including people thrown in the bog) occurred often on those boundaries. They figure it had something to do with inauguration rites of a new tribal/area leader. It was also assumed that if you were a "bad" leader, that you'd then cause the area to have terrible crops and weather. 

The bodies, sadly,  are drying out (post removal from bog) and degrading.   

Here's someone else's picture of one of the bodies. It wasn't super clear to me if I could take pictures, so I didn't. 

They also found a Psalter from the 8th century in the bog, which is pretty neat. 

There was a fair bit of history of Viking settlements of the area, and the transition to Norman raids and Anglo-Norman rule.  Vikings founded Dublin (Dubh = black/dark, Lin = pool, in Irish-Gaelic). It sounds like they were a bit thin on the ground and didn't mix much with the people they ruled (sounds a bit like post-Norman conquest of England). 

It's not clear to me (from poking the internet and reading a bit) why the Vikings stopped raiding.  What did become clear is that the Normans (who I learned descend from Vikings) replaced them effectively, being Vikings-with-eloquence: 

``Anna Komnene, the daughter of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, described the Norman prince Bohemond I of Antioch:`[H]e was so tall in stature that he overtopped the tallest by nearly one cubit, narrow in the waist and loins, with broad shoulders and a deep chest and powerful arms...His skin all over his body was very white...His hair was yellowish... His blue eyes indicated both a high spirit and dignity...A certain charm hung about this man but was partly marred by a general air of the horrible... He was so made in mind and body that both courage and passion reared their crests within him and both inclined to war...In conversation he was well informed, and the answers he gave were quite irrefutable...' '' (from wikipedia)

Sounds like a Viking to me.  

After the museum, we had lunch at Thai Orchid, corner of Fleet st. Opted for one of the ``hous Specials", which was a fusion dish -- Thai style spare ribs. Delicious. 

Dublin is clearly an "international" city, as they have proper Thai/Japanese/etc restaurants, none of this silly pan-asian business you see in Hamburg.

It had been raining that morning and cleared up. As we'd resolved to be outside whenever it was sunny, we hopped on the DART to Howth.  But first...

[My one "run-in" in Ireland:]

Walking to the station, one guy tried to step in my way, saying he was 1 euro short of a fiver for something. I brushed him off. Immediately after, another guy stepped in my way to try to stop me and said "give me all your money!", while holding a lollipop stick as if he were pretending to were a knife concealed in his fist. I stepped to the side and kept walking. It was odd.

 Context -- sunny afternoon, around 14:30, lots of people around, short distance to the commuter rail. 

I was glad to be heading out of the city. 

Howth (here is a totally ridiculous and unhelpful map):
This is the map one can get from the tourist office

Tip: there are a *lot* more roads on that peninsula that what are shown here

The Dublin Tourism site made much to-do about their free walking tours one can access on MP3-player or phone.

I'd loaded the one for Howth (link to the PDF that accompanies it), which suggested starting at the Suffolk DART station (upper lefthand corner of the picture), which is what we did…but we didn't realize the walk was supposed to take 3-4 hours until we were already out and walking for a half hour by a very loud and busy road. Also, the directions between each "sight"/stop weren't great, and we gave up not long in, deciding to walk along the sea in the direction of Martello Tower and re-evaluate from there.

Start of the walk: beautiful, sunny day.

Howth, by Strand Road

Walking along the shore, there were lots and lots of crows, snatching mussels (& cockels? A-live, a-live ho....), opening their wings to rise up into the air --- the wind was super duper strong that day --- and dropping them over and over again, to crack them open.  Possibly also a bit for fun.  They didn't seem to keen on us, so I didn't end up with any pictures of them (they flew off pretty fast as we approached, or went down behind a dune).

Of the 3 hills on the silly map, I think this is the northernmost.

After some time, it became clear that a storm was coming (that direction is Dublin) :

I took a picture of the following house due mainly to the door. I don't know why, but apparently this whole very-loudly-colored doors is a Dublin thing. 

a Dublin (yellow) door

We'd made it to the Dingy club mentioned in the guide, and were debating whether to weather out the weather there or go further.

the storm, looking even more ominous

The rain sprinkled a bit and stopped, and we decided to go to Martello tower and re-evaluate then. 

I like this next picture in part because the righthand side of the picture shows the storm and the left is all sunshine and blue skies:

When we made it to the Martello tower, there was a rather damp and partially blocked-off seaside path, and then what looked simply like car-tracks heading up towards this mountain. Theoretically, a path. I didn't feel like testing it out: The next picture really shows how everything looked peaceful and sunny and nice, when you weren't actually looking at the storm:

Martello Tower

Impending cloud-of-doom coming from the direction of Dublin:  We opted to head towards Howth proper (the west pier), using a version of Google maps downloaded onto the phone. Of course, the rain hit mid-walk, the one time I'm out on a long walk without my rain pants. I couldn't do much against the semi-horizontal rain and brief hail spell (hail being preferable because it bounces off and melts later). There are seals at the West Pier of Howth. We saw a few, playing around a boat that was unloading, but they were too fast and far for me to get a picture in. You used to be allowed to feed them, but that led to them becoming really picky eaters and leaving a lot of un-eaten fish around, which then caused a rat problem...and now you're not allowed to feed the seals. Very sad.  Here's someone else's video of feeding seals in Howth.  Here's the island off of Howth, at dusk, from the edge of the West Pier:  After the sun was fully down, we looked around the West Pier for dinner. 

We ate at Deep -- 26 euros for a 2 person fish plate, full of smoked salmon, lightly-fried shrimp, calamari, mussels (in white wine sauce).  Yum.

Next: Galway!