Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cost and Hours:
€10,includes €9feetoseeBookofKells (wherethetourleaves you),
May-Sept daily 10:15-15:40, Feb-April and Oct-Nov Sat-Sun only, no tours Dec-Jan, de-
parts roughly every 30 minutes, weather permitting.
TheBookofKells—a1,200-year-oldversionofthegospelsoftheBible—was elaborately
inked and meticulously illustrated by faithful monks. Combining Christian symbols and
pagan styles, it's a snapshot of medieval Ireland in transition. Arguably the finest piece of
art from what is generally called the Dark Ages, the Book of Kells shows that monastic
life in this far fringe of Europe was far from dark.
Cost and Hours:
€9 (included in Trinity College tour admission—see earlier),
audioguide-€5, Mon-Sat 9:30-17:00, Sun 9:30-16:30 (Oct-April Sun 12:00-16:30), tel. 01/
896-2320,
www.tcd.ie/library/bookofkells
.
Crowd-Beating Tips:
Lines are longest at midday (roughly 11:00-14:30). Ideally,
queue up before the library opens to have the Book of Kells to yourself.
Visiting the Library:
Your visit has three stages: 1) an exhibit on the making of the
Book of Kells, including videos, old manuscripts, and poster-sized reproductions of its
pages (your best look at the topics detail); 2) the Treasury, the darkened room containing
the Book of Kells itself and other, less-ornate contemporaneous volumes; and 3) the main
chamber of the Old Library (called the Long Room), containing historical objects.
Background:
The Book of Kells was a project by Irish monks cloistered on the remote
Scottish island of Iona. They slaughtered 185 calves, soaked the skins in lime, scraped off
the hair, and dried the skins into a cream-colored writing surface called vellum. Only then
could the tonsured monks pick up their swan-quill pens and get to work.
The project may have been underway in 806 when Vikings savagely pillaged and
burned Iona, killing 68 monks. The survivors fled to the Abbey of Kells (near Dublin).
Scholars are still debating exactly where the topic was produced: It could have been made
entirely at Iona or at Kells, or started in Iona and finished at Kells.
