Travels with Marti--Ireland,Italy,Cuba,..across the country: Dublin- day 2

Marsh's Library. It houses important collections of European books and manuscripts from 1500-1800. It has the distinction of being the first public library in Ireland. It has been untouched for 300 years- a step back in time. You could try making a book mark with an old quil pen. Not as easy as you would think.

In these two pictures they are showing the process of refurbishing an old book. The top picture is the book completed back to its original state. I should have shown you the deterioration first. It took aproximately 3 months to finish this book. Above is the process. The very fine gold sheet is placed on top of the book and the press is heated. It can't be too hot or it burns the book and it can't be too cold or it won't stick. There are hundreds of presses for each design and as you can see this book has several. The book is a bright red and the gold is brilliant.

Here we are at Guinness. Arthur Guinness started brewing in 1759 and had a 9,000 year lease for 45 stering a year. By 1868 it was the biggest brewery in the world. employing about 5,000 people. Today it fills several blocks but only employs about 800 people. Around the world Guinness brews 10 million pints a day.

We chose not to visit this because Gwen preferred to go to Jameson and I had already done this tour two years ago and the tour doesn't show the actual workig brewery. .

Another view of the warehouses.

The horse is rushing to the brewery! He must be thirsty.

A beautiful old building that was used as a hospital.

The tour Gwen chose.
Jameson was founded in 1780 by John Jameson. His family motto apears on each bottle "Sine Metu" (without fear) It was produced here on site till 1971. The difference of this whiskey is that it is has three separate distillation whilst in America, bourbon is normally distilled only once and most Scotch whishy is distilled twice. Each stage results in a smoother superior quaility.

THe entry outside with a big distillation tank Above is the inside of the building. Notice the chandalier of bottles. It was very impressive.

A quick tour..Carrying sacks of grain as heavy as 100kg or 224 lbs. The grain was dried in closed kilns to ensure an unsmoked smooth taste. The peat is used for burning and they didn't want that taste.

The malted and unmalted barley was then milled into coarse flour called grist.

Here to the left is the mashing. See below for the story.

The washback stage. Here the liquid yeast is added and fermentation begins. After 80 hours the sugar has been converted into alcohol- called wash which is 8% alcohol.

Here to the right is the Still house where the wash is heated. The distilling is the art of separating alcohol from water. Jameson does this 3 times to get the smooth taste. It went from here to oak casks. I am not sure if they still use the oak casks. Before bottling the cask strength was reduced to 40% or 80 proof.

I look forward to trying a glass.

Here is Gwen doing the taste test. They asked for volunteers! You can tell she really was having a terrible time :-) They placed 3 glasses of whiskeys in front of you to smell and taste. You could smell the smoke/peat one.. and the other didn't have a real distinctive taste but I have to say, the Jameson was very smooth and you could definitely tell the difference. As you can tell I had a sip too!

Enjoying a well deserved Guinness after walking 15 or so blocks. We got a little off the trail. This bar is near where we stayed in Temple Bar area. I have gone here before and enjoyed the music.

Christ Church Cathedral
I find it mind boggling to hear and see how old things are here in Ireland or anywhere in the world for that matter. This church was founded in 1030 on the edge of the Viking settlement. In 1172 the wooden structure was rebuilt of the stone you see.by the Normans.