The Chester Beatty Library

Chester Beatty was a self made millionaire and philanthropist who regularly gave up his personal home in London for use as a military hospital during the war after which he moved to Dublin. Widely travelled he gathered a large collection of oriental art and rare religious manuscripts not unlike the Book of Kells, kindly donating them to the state for which he was awarded the first ever honorary Irish citizenship in 1957.

This splendid collection, incidentally I would recommend visiting this exhibition rather then the Book of Kells, firstly because it is free and secondly there is so much more to see if medieval manuscripts are your thing. Trinity College itself is and you can walk around for free, but personally I wouldn’t pay €9 to see one page in a book, even if it is the Book of Kells. You can see an exact replica for free and without any of the crowds in the Museum of Country Life in Roscommon if you are up that way. Anyway getting back to the Chester Beatty Library there is a short audio visual on the ground floor, with two viewing galleries upstairs.

There is a museum shop in the lovely airy galleried lobby space and the famous Silk Road Cafe run by Arabian chefs with fantastic reasonably priced food including delicious spicy tagines, pickled lemon chicken, award winning coffee, real mint tea & homemade turkish delight....

10 Other things to do and see in the area are...

1 Visit Dublin Castle

2 Check out the medieval knot garden

3 Where you will find the castle cat if you are lucky?

4 Visit the tiny Inland Revenue Museum

5 See the recently reopened Chapel Royal

6 Enjoy a glass of wine or french pastry Chez Max

7 Learn about the history of the city at City Hall

8 See something if you can in the Olympia Theatre

9 Have a pint in the Stags Head

10 Wander around Temple Bar

more information on the Chester Beatty Library click here

For more information on the Silk Road Cafe click here

For more things to do and see in Dublin click here