Yesterday we went on another excursion! This was a sort of discouraging day for most of us, as weather.com told us it would be 55 and sunny all day, but in reality it was quite cold and one of the foggier days so far. Luckily there was no rain! After getting off the bus, we wandered the downtown area, and determined it was much like Cork with all the same stores. One of the department stores was having a promotion and were giving out little hand warmers on the street. Those were quite helpful, but got cold again after a while, so we decided to find somewhere warm, like a museum.

I do not have any pictures of the exhibits because I hate people who take pictures in museums, and they never really come out anyway. The Hunt Museum is housed in the old Custom House, and they have kept the Captains Room as it was. I really like old buildings especially when the furniture is still set up the way it was. I feel like I’m stepping into history.  Buildings here all start on the ground floor, and then what we would call the second floor is the called the first floor here. The first floor had art from the Medieval Period through the Renaissance, to the Age of Enlightenment. There were lots of statues which were pretty cool. The second floor had an entire room dedicated to jewlery. One of the prominent pieces was The Mary Queen of Scots Cross. There were lots of iron tiaras and necklaces from Germany. During the war (I’m terrible with dates so I cannot remember the dates, or which war this was) German royalty donated all of their jewels to the government to help fund the war and made replacements out of iron. Then we went back down to the ground floor, which had all the Religious art. There was a Crucifixion room, which sorta freaked me out. There was one box which just had rows and rows of Jesus being crucified, but very few of them still had crosses attached. One really cool thing was the Galway Chalice, which unscrewed to two parts, making it easier for traveling priests. There was also this really cool iron ball that came apart, and had a little compartment where the priest could light a fire. During mass, the ball could roll around and the mechanism inside the ball would keep the fire staying upright. Before the priest had to give out the crackers and wine, he would warm his hands so that he wouldn’t drop anything. That would have incurred a penalty of 3 fewer beers. There was also a special exhibit in the basement by Samuel Walsh, one of Irelands most important artists of today). It was modern/abstractness. Most were slightly Jackson Pollack like, but with these thick black lines all over them that didn’t really make sense to me. Then there were a couple in the corner that I really liked. They  generally started as one color and then faded into another, and had a black silhouette of castles and towers and churches.

After the museum, we went for lunch, and most of our group decided to go back home, because it was so cold and we couldn’t really see that much. But four of us decided to stay and make a real day of it. After lunch we went to John’s castle. I was really excited when I realized that it was the same John as in Robin Hood.

The picture of the actual castle wouldn’t upload, so you’ll all have to see that when I get back. But it was really cool because the city was built around the castle, so there is a major street right outside. The picture of the cars was taken from one of the windows of the castle. The other side of the castle faces the river Shannon. I hear it is really pretty, but I couldn’t see much of it because of the fog. There were a couple of exhibit rooms where maniquins had been placed going about the daily routines of people of the court. This was weird because they looked so unreal. The castle is also on an archeological dig, and there was an underground museum type thing that explained what had already been dug up, and what those buildings probably looked like.

After the castle, we visited St. Mary’s cathedral. We couldn’t find a way in, and by this time it was getting a little dark, which combined with the fog made it difficult to take pictures and hard to be outside. Across the street we saw a sign for a museum with free admission, so we went in there. It turned out to be a pretty complete history of Limerick. I would really like to learn some more Irish history and go back when I know more about the documents and the important people who wrote them.