Tag Archives: The Book of Kells

I is for…

For April I’m challenging myself to an A-Z photo a day excluding Sundays and in addition to any regular posts that come to be.

Today is Thursday April 10th and besides my Truth for Today post I’m publishing my I post.

I is for…

The Isle of Iona

This little Isle is rich in history and beauty.

The Isle of Iona is in the Hebrides. We traveled from the city of Oban on a ferry to the Isle of Mull then took a bus through the Isle of Mull to get to a small ferry crossing to the Isle of Iona. This was in May of 2006.

History of Iona

St. Columba, an Irish scholar, soldier, priest, and founder of monasteries, got into a small war over the possession of an illegally copied Psalm book. Victorious but sickened by the bloodshed, Columba left Ireland, vowing never to return. According to legend, the first bit of land out of sight of his homeland was Iona. He stopped here in 563 and established the abbey.

Columba’s monastic community flourished, and Iona became the center of Celtic Christianity. Iona missionaries spread the gospel through Scotland and North England, while scholarly monks established Iona as a center of art and learning. The Book of Kells – perhaps the finest piece of art from “Dark Ages” Europe – was probably made on Iona in the eighth century. The island was so important that it was the legendary burial place for ancient Scottish and even Scandinavian kings (including Shakespeare’s Macbeth).

Slowly the importance of Iona ebbed. Vikings massacred 68 monks in 806. Fearing more raids, the monks evacuated most of Iona’s treasures (including the Book of Kells, which is now in Dublin) to Ireland. Much later, with the Reformation, the abbey was abandoned, and most of its finely carved crosses were destroyed. In the 17th century, locals used the abbey only as a handy quarry for other building projects.

Iona’s population peaked at about 500 in the 1830’s. In the 1840’s a potato famine hit. In the 1850’s a third of the islanders emigrated to Canada and Australia. By 1900 the population was down to 210, and today it’s only around 100.

But in our generation a new religious community has given the abbey new life. The Iona community is an ecumenical gathering of men and women who seek new ways of living the Gospel in today’s world, with focus on worship, peace, and justice issues, and reconciliation.

The island is car free. While the present  abbey, nunnery, and graveyard go back to the 13th century, much of what you see today was rebuilt in the 19th century.

ht: history and other information taken from Rick Steves’ Great Britain

Back to Dublin ~Day 11

Day eleven of our trip to Ireland and England was Monday September 25th. We walked across the road to the John Lennon Airport from our hotel early for our 9:20 AM flight back to Dublin. We didn’t realize how important adding the extras on our reservation were for this flight. We purchased priority boarding and it was money well spent as they divided everyone up into the ‘goats’ and ‘sheep’ at the gate. Our seats were guaranteed while others had to wait and see if there would be room for them. YIKES. Thankful again for the providence of the Lord we encountered all through our trip.

Another taxi ride from the Dublin airport to our last hotel on this trip, The Ashling. Andrew and Katie were already at this hotel and we were excited to meet up with them for our last day in Dublin. True to form the day was packed full with adventures.

After checking into the hotel and dropping our bags Josh ordered another Uber to take us across the river to our lunch destination, The Stag’s Head.

Our hunger satisfied we checked our GPS and walked to Trinity College.

No tours were available for us so we booked entry into the Book of Kells and strolled around the campus waiting for our entry time. The campus was packed solid with students and parents.

It was finally time for our tour and we lined up in the queue.

Welcome to the Old Library and the Book of Kells – a “must see” on the itinerary of all visitors to Dublin. Located in the heart of Dublin City, a walk through the cobbled stones of Trinity College Dublin will bring visitors back to the 18th century, when the magnificent Old Library building was constructed. Inside is housed the Book of Kells – a 9th-century gospel manuscript famous throughout the world.

The Book of Kells “Turning Darkness into Light” exhibition has displays of large screens showing copies of the pages from the Book of Kells. The actual volume of the Book of Kells is housed in the Treasury inside a glass case opened to a page that is turned every so often. No photographs permitted.

When we were on the Isle of Iona back in 2006 we were able to read about and see a copy of a page of the book of Kells which is most likely the location where the Book of Kells was created. Here’s a link with some good information.

These next four photos are needlepoint kneelers from St. Mary Magdalene church in Woodstock that we visited in 2022.

From the Book of Kells exhibit you proceed upstairs to the magnificent Long Room which usually houses 200,000 of the Library’s oldest books in its oak bookcases.

We were disappointed that all but 10% of the books were removed for cleaning and restoration from this magnificent library during our time in Dublin.

The Trinity College Harp (also known as ‘The Brian Boru Harp‘), dating from around 1400 AD, is an extraordinary instrument. Anywhere you look in Ireland, you cannot avoid the Trinity College Harp. It is used as the official emblem of Ireland.

 

From our time here we did some walking and shopping before we ordered another Uber to take us to Jameson Distillery where we had reserved a tour. The rest of day eleven will have to wait for another day.

Back to the Present: Our company over the last several days left on Monday morning. These last few days of November and into the beginning of December are very busy days for us. We have several events this week that require planning and thinking and organizing.  We are starting our Christmas decorating slowly. I’ll have to wait for the majority of that decorating until next week. Choosing joy in the midst of busy! Hope all is well in your corner.

The Kneelers ~ Woodstock

One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to walk through the older churches and cathedrals. This is the easiest when traveling in England because there are so many and they seem to be more readily open to visitors. One of the things that has stood out when walking through are beautifully stitched kneelers. At St Mary Magdalene in Woodstock there are over 200 kneelers! That is the most I’ve seen anywhere in my travels and visits to churches.

The brochure I picked up in the church about the kneelers was photographed so I could share the information easier for my record here. I was going to make collages of the kneelers that caught my eye but after reading about all the work involved in creating one of them it seemed to me they were worthy of being presented singly.

Here is the church tower kneeler, the Winston Churchill and one I think might be part of the Blenheim Connection

The following give honor to the Lord, the Bible and Prayer.

Then we move on to more community minded themes…

 

And from the state where Dear and I were born and raised. We were surprised when we spotted the California Kneeler.

 

That’s just a small sampling of the kneelers during our visit on Wednesday September 21st, 2022.

Do you enjoy needlework?

Back to the Present: On Sunday we enjoyed our Sunday services and made a stop on the way home to buy some Deli Salads to go with the 2 racks of ribs we put in the oven. The ribs were pre-seasoned from Costco and turned out fall off the bone delicious. We watched the first half of the Super Bowl game and then hit the record button. Since 2 racks of ribs are more than we could eat, we dropped a rack off at our Colville kids for their dinner before we headed to our Evening service at church. Back at home after church we watched the last 10 seconds of the game and saw that the Kansas Chiefs won. Congratulations to them. I’ve got to say that I really didn’t understand half of the commercials and we didn’t watch the half time show. We got a text with photos of our Grands enjoyed the ribs!

Ribs enjoyed in two households for the win!