3 July: Last day in Dublin
After spending the morning on the essentials like the Friday hairdo, replacing Peter's collapsed suitcase and retail therapy in Marks & Spencer's, I chose to participate in a free literary heritage walk leaving Peter to a cup of tea and a lie in the sun. Perhaps the Irish Vitamin D would be more effective than his antibiotics.
The tour was advertised as 1 hour long and began, of course,  in the grounds of Trinity College which used to be open only to Protestant men. Women were not admitted as they would prove a distraction to the study of these men.
1924 was the date of Irish Independence and soon after, it was deemed necessary to establish a Committee of Evil Literature. This committee censored all publications and if any was considered politically provocative then it was banned. This resulted in Irish writers having to flee their homeland and live in countries where their work could be published.
James Joyce was the first writer of the tour with the publication of 'Ulysses' in 1922. You may know the character Leopold Bloome who used to visit the chemist shop Sweny's to buy his wife lemon soap. Well,  our very first stop was at the very same chemist shop Sweny's, built in 1847. The FB photos show that this shop has been preserved in its original format with the chemist looking for all the world like the original chemist. And of course I purchased a bar of lemon soap. We stayed in the shop for some time listening to the chemist who was a fascinating authority on James Joyce.
Jonathon Swift's writing was analysed but he lived beyond the scope of our walking tour so we did not get to the Deanery where he served  his term of office (although I had seen it from our tour coach windows). All of these writers were deeply satyrical of course in order to have their work published and live to continue writing.
Just around the corner was Oscar Wilde's home and opposite it the only coloured  statue in Dublin. The sculpture is recent and only yesterday was it ready for viewing with the completion of the fencing, accompanying plinths of his most pithy quotations and landscaping of the area. Today it is truly an impressive tribute to the writer who was so condemned by his society. Stepping beyond this wonderful display you come into the garden of 'The Selfish Giant' where adults are forbidden unless accompanied by children. The huge creative play area was opened last year.
The next Irish writer was Bram Stoker, the creator of Dracula which is second only to the Bible in its scope of publication. Fascinating hearing of Stoker's sickly childhood and his grandmother's ghoulish stories which resulted in Stoker's unique saga.
By this stage we had been walking 2 1/2 hours in what was for me, Dublin's hottest day. I was forced to take my cardigan off. So we finished the tour by the pubs patronized by Brendon Behan (a drinker with a writing problem) and Roddy Doyle, author of 'The Commitments' and 'The Barry town Trilogy' which best captures Ireland today.
Our magical fount of all literary knowledge concluded the 1 hour tour after nearly 3 hours but needed to return me to Trinity College. As it happened we weren't many pubs away from it, but I had lost my bearings. Suddenly we came across an amazing sculpture of 7 quaint men that I hadn't seen before. Curious! This was an area I knew well. The bronze statue was a magnificent work of art which I needed to photograph. Suddenly one of the characters winked at me and beckoned me closer!!!! My goodness, no wonder the sculpture was so realistic. Each character was in fact,  alive. What a memorable conclusion for what has been my favourite Irish experience.
In the evening we took ourselves to 'The Merry Ploughboy Pub Irish Dinner & Show". This has been awarded Ireland's best dinner/dance event for the last 4 years. It was Peter's first, but I wouldn't rank it any higher than the 2 I had experienced on our Insight coach tour. A wonderful evening nonetheless.