Back to Waterford (11/14)

Well, we are in our final weeks in Ireland, trying to check some things off our list, while trying to squeeze them in between a final research push and end of semester work for the girls. 

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may recall that we went to Waterford last month on Lily's birthday, when we toured part of the city and went on a crystal manufacturing tour.  Well, the city tour pass that we bought had 6 sites on it, and we only had time for 2, so we had planned to come back and finish it, and finally this past week we found time.  Fortunately Waterford is only an hour away and Lily reminded us the freezing rain wouldn't be a problem for indoor exhibits.

Things we saw:

• Medieval Museum - this was okay.  Some general medieval artifacts.  It was a pretty small museum (two floors, about 6 rooms).  There was a French high school field trip present.  No guides.  The basement was off limits as they were decorating for a Santa wonderland.
• Silver Museum - this was okay.  Various utensils and bowls made of silver in a small room.  No guides.  There was a jeweler working on a ring, but it looked like he didn't want to be disturbed.
• Reginald's Tower - this was okay.  It's an impressive tower we had seen from the outside on the previous trip.  This time we climbed the tower.  Not much on the inside.  (this was not part of the city tour pass, but came with our family historical pass).
• Christ Church Cathedral - this was cool.  Very pretty on the inside, and educational (good use of QR codes that pulled up architectural/historical information in many locations - with better photos than I can take).  Fun fact: if you remember the marriage of Strongbow and Aoife that lead to Britain ruling Ireland for 750 years, the wedding was in this church (in its original manifestation two buildings prior)
• Museum of Time -  this was super cool!  Thousands of watches and clocks.  2 amazing docents -- a husband/wife pair -- explaining everything to us.  Clocks are the perfect blend of art and engineering.  The museum had a nice mix of showpieces where the ornate case is the star, and working clocks with their cases removed so the internals could be appreciated.   Lots of time-making history in Ireland, Netherlands, US, and even Gettysburg! One of our favorite stops in Ireland so far, although obviously that is based on our interests.

It was a pretty quick visit, as none of these site were large, and the weather made general city exploration unappealing.  We were glad we explored on our previous sunny visit.  But even though the trip was quick, there were a lot of pictures to be taken, as you see below.

Medieval Museum

They didn't just have a city model, they had about 6 city models through the centuries!  (but not near each other, so not easy to compare)

Sumptuary laws dictated certain materials and colors to each class of society so you could immediately tell one's standing.  You were imprisoned if caught dressing above your class.

There's something classy about a nice crest.

The main exhibit is these gold cloth vestments from Christ Church Cathedral (church visit described below) that were hidden during Cromwell's invasion and then rediscovered 125 years later when the old building was torn down to put up the current building.

Something still satisfying about floors numbered 0 and -1. The building directory on the elevator floor is also brilliant.

Silver Museum

One interesting item was this slave candle holder.  These were melted down when common sense appeared, but this one remains in the museum as a painful reminder.  Historically, shortly after being settled by the Vikings ,Dublin became the slave trading center of Europe.

Reginald's Tower

Reginald/Ragnall was the last Viking ruler of Waterford.

A rare cross-sectional model.  My favorite kind.

Making our way up the narrow staircase.  How short were these guys?

The views were clouded over, so we played some checkers and chess at the top.

Stay tuned for a post that covers Middle Earth

Christ Church Cathedral (Anglican)

Beautiful

More beauty

Imagine how good the Bible sounds being read on this!

A 1930 memorial to a dad by his daughter.  I never thought of stained glass as an option for that.

Ceiling where one of the Waterford crystal chandeliers fell (the remaining two are on either side of the photo, and are visible in a previous photo)

Ornate memorials

Never mind this guy as you walk into Sunday School.  (The 11x mayor chose a decaying corpse being eaten by vermin as his memorial in 1488 to remind us of the brevity of life, money, and power.  Duly noted.)  

Museum of Time

An amazing volunteer docent

Did you notice the bathroom sign in the previous image? Fun fact: horology, the study of time, is explained in Pirates of the Caribbean 5 with an inappropriateness you can probably can imagine.

Lived up to the hype

There must have been 1000+ clocks and watches in this exhibit, and they were all donated by 2 individuals.  Probably 25 grandfather clocks alone.  Their basements must have been even more cluttered than mine!  Fun fact: these clocks were called "long-case clocks" in Europe, and "tall-case clocks" in the US, but that all changed with the release of this song.

A mercury pendulum.  A lot of clock makers died young.  Also the gold leaf on most of these clocks was applied as gold dissolved in mercury, and the mercury was boiled away.  Apparently it was around 1830 that people learned this was unhealthy and the practice was banned.

A large mechanism

This "clock" didn't display time, but would ring a bell for prayers every hour.  I believe this is called an "alarum," related to our word for alarm.

The first clock (Clement, 1663, London) to have an anchor escapement, based on the solution of pendulum motion by Huygens (1656, Dutch - he also figured out light is a wave).  This mechanism gives clocks their traditional tick tock sound and finally made clocks "accurate" (within minutes per week).  It's hard to overstate how important accurate time is to the progress of a society (science, engineering, communication, transportation, ...)

We were fortunate to be in the museum at 1:00 when the clocks all chimed (noon would have been even cooler!)

This clever pocket watch showed the time off-center as a clock tower, and the windmill turned too.

This amazing music box is set up to play five national anthems for tourists.  Two details: behind the barrel you may notice percussion (two drums and six bells) that really adds to the anthem.  Also, there are two spare barrels in the drawer in front, with even more songs.  The barrels were heavy.

 

On a personal note, my parents had a clock just like this while growing up (and still do).  Apparently the "Black Forest clock salesman" was a very common style of clock.  This museum had about 10 variations.

The docent even gave us a sneak peek of a new exhibit being set up for January, with about 500 cuckoo clocks in one room.  It was amazing, but no pictures allowed.  We'll have to c

 

So that was our day in Waterford!

If I told you that the Irish Vikings invented the golf umbrella, that would be believable right?