If I didn't need to make a living, I would go back to school in a heartbeat, and if I could, I would go to Trinity College.  The library would be reason enough.  At the Long Library, books are treated with the respect they deserve.  We watched a member of the restoration team painstakingly dust the individual pages of one volume.  They also had a children's exhibit running and I was able to find my favorites.

• We received a tour around Trinity's ground from a Ph.D history student named Caoimhe (pronounced "Queevah").  She did a great job and told us to go look in the geology building as well as seeing the obligatory Book of Kells.  The geology building has stone carvings along the outside depicting native Irish flora and fauna, but as Caoimhe informed us, the sculptors got more creative towards the top and added animals like flamingo, monkey and platypus.  Inside the building were two skeletons of the extinct giant deer that used to live in Ireland.

Caoimhe let us take a picture with her!

The Book of Kells is one of Dublin's most well-known attractions and was well worth the visit.  It's a beautiful illuminated manuscript of the 4 books of the gospel.  One thing that isn't apparent from pictures is the decorated lettering and illustrations are ridiculously intricate but also very tiny.  The most famous page is the Chi Rho, which symbolizes Christ and is full of other icons of faith.  It's beautiful.

Another interesting thing about the book was the monks put their own personal touch on the pages, leaving messages outside the borders of the text.  One such message was about the monk's feelings of solidarity with his white cat, Panger Ban. 

I was so inspired by the Celtic art that I drew my own depiction of Panger Ban, too.