Sunny Liquid Dreams

Story time!

Last night, at about 1:00 AM in the morning, our house was broken into and some valuable items were stolen in the span of about five minutes.

As soon as one of the girls realized what happened, every contact we have in Ireland was called within the span of about ten minutes. The police, our programme directors, our landlord, etc. were called and informed of the situation.

While some money and an iPhone was stolen, we were mainly worried that this person had stolen a key to our house. Naturally, we were scared that this person would come back - perhaps when we were asleep or out of the house.

So we refused to remain in the apartment as long as the locks remained the same. After the police came by, we were move to a temporary place for the night. None of us got much sleep last night and we were slightly grumpy in the morning.

However, our landlord met with us in the morning and set about to assure that we would be safe. A new lock and key were put in place and the windows were screwed shut (this is technically illegal to do because it poses a fire hazard).

Perhaps the one upside to the entire situation was that none of us were required to go to work that day. We got no sleep, had no access to any of our clothes, and still had to sort out the situation in the morning. So we had to call our supervisors to let them know that we could take the day off.

Everything was taken care of by 11 in the morning, so I decided to get in some sightseeing. There was nothing else to do and none of us were particularly eager to stay in the house. I headed out to St. Patrick's Cathedral while hoping that it would not be closed for a special event.

Luckily, it was open and I ended up staying for almost 3 hours. St. Patrick's Cathedral is the national church of Ireland and it is fittingly grand and ornate. It is much bigger, but younger than Christ Church Cathedral.

Perhaps in line with my bad luck that day, my camera's batteries ran out 20 minutes after arriving. I didn't manage to take many pictures, and the ones I took came out awful. The cathedral is dimly lit and as a result, my pictures come out all blurry. I don't know how to shoot pictures in low light and I don't know which settings to change. So I have to learn to take better pictures before I go back.

However, I did manage to take some pictures of the exterior, so I will post those instead.

I would post more pictures, but they would only consume space. There is a small park outside of the cathedral where families and pedestrians can sit or stroll around. These shots were taken from the park. When I get better pictures of the park, I'll post those as well.

The cathedral is also well known for its most famous Dean, Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels. He was Dean from 1713 to 1745 and was buried there. His grave can be seen on the floor of the cathedral alongside the grave of "Stella" (or Esther Johnson, a very close friend of Swift). The church contained many more graves and memorials. Some of the larger memorials were those remembering the soldiers who fought in various wars.

The organ was not directly visible like the one in Christ Church. The quire was also not accessible to the public, so pictures of the high altar had to be taken at a distance. As I said earlier, the entire cathedral is very grand, ornate, and beautifully decorated. Since I don't have any decent pictures to post, I can't show what "grand and ornate" looks like.

As any other cathedral, St. Patrick's had stained glass windows, some of them much larger than the ones at Christ Church. I went in the late afternoon and the sun was shining through the windows, leaving colorful patterns of light on the floor and walls. It illuminated objects in the cathedral in interesting colors and I was very frustrated that I could not take pictures of it.

The cathedral performs daily services and at 5:45 pm, they perform evensong. I wanted to say and watch, so I asked when I paid my entrance fee if non-believers could sit in. They do allow it, so I wandered around the cathedral until then. Only a dozen or so people were there (which a rather small number to be sitting in such a large cathedral), but the choir and clergy proceeded with the service.

Since there were so few worshippers in the cathedral, those that were present were beckoned forward and were allowed to sit in the special pews that were close to the quire. Some of these pews were labeled with names and could only be accessed by opening a small door on the side close the aisle.

Evensong began with the choir and clergy walking up the aisle to their seats in the quire. The worshippers can pick up pamphlets which describe the service and the rituals that place. For example, it would tell them when to sit and stand, and when and what to speak during prayers. 

The choir sang parts of the service, and in the middle, one priest stood up to read a verse from the Book of Joshua and another stood up to read a verse from the Book of Luke. The choir and the organ sounded beautiful and the music resounded within the high walls of the cathedral.

As an interesting side note, the choir was composed of all males, two rows of small boys (perhaps from elementary and middle school) and two rows of gentlemen (perhaps from their twenties to one man that was at least 60). It is distinctly different from the choir in Christ Cathedral, which is composed of only adult males and females. The services are also performed with a mixture of both Anglican and Catholic traditions.

Once the evensong was complete, the organist played as the choir and clergy exited to the robing rooms and it continued for a few minutes. After he finished the song, I left, promising to return with a fully charged camera. It was a real shame and I felt that I missed out on a lot of good pictures. I want to go at a different time of day, perhaps in the morning, when there is more light inside.