Kalie Elise's Blog: Last Field Trip :(

It's so sad that this trip to Dublin was our last!.... Very Bitter Sweet.....

But anyway, this field trip was based on my Gothic Lit class was of course we go through 900 year old crypts to see coffins and mummified people. This has to be the most unusual attraction I’ve been to yet. St. Michan's Church was named after a Danish Bishop; it was for five hundred years the only parish church in Dublin north of the River Liffey. Founded around 1095 by the Danish colony in Oxmanstown. The main attraction lies in the vaults underneath the church proper, its access reached by a narrow stone stairway. On either side of a tunnel lined with limestone and mortar extend long narrow galleries for the placing of coffins. Some are private and fastened with wooden or iron doors, while others are open. Through the iron bars in some, the coffins can be seen lying in a helter skelter fashion, some apparently bursting at the seams with an arm or leg sticking up. In one of these open chambers lie the grisly contents sought by numerous visitors: the Big Four. Here the casket lids are off, exposing bodies partly covered with taut, leathery skin, covered in a thick layer of dust. Three of the coffins lie in a row across the front, a woman on the right, a man with a hand and both feet cut off in the center--some say because he was a thief, others say so the body could fit into the coffin. On the left is a nun. The coffin along the rear wall is that of the Crusader, the mummy believed to have been a soldier returned from the Crusades. His body has been cut in half, in order for it to fit the coffin. One of his hands is lifted slightly in the air. The last room holds the coffins of the Sheare brothers who were executed by the British following the Rising of 1798. When their old coffins were replaced with new ones at the bicentennial commemoration in 1998, it was discovered that the standard British punishment for traitors had been enacted: the bodies had been hanged, drawn and quartered.

The first crypt.... Mummies.....

The mummy crypt

The second crypt

The second part of the trip was Christ Church Cathedral and to see it's crypt......

This medieval, 12th Century Crypt is the largest in Britain and Ireland (63.4M long). Constructed in 1172 it is the earliest surviving structure in Dublin city and uniquely extends under the entire Cathedral. Renovated in the early 2000s and added a gift shop and a café…. called The Crypt… creepy! A cool and fun fact is that they have the wardrobes of the cast from the Tudors on display! Most of the show was filmed here in Ireland and the majority of the church scenes were done at Christ Church Cathedral. SO COOL… I totally had a geek moment. Oh and the church it’s self is said to be where Bram Stoker got his idea for Dracula’s Castle…. Any Stoker fans out there will enjoy that, we had to read Dracula for Gothic Lit so that was the connection we made to the course.

Ahhhhhh....soooo cool!!

The last part of the field trip was a Haunted History Ghost Tour..... Most of Dublin’s grisly past has been left behind to history, but not every character has decided to pass over into the next world. The Emerald Isle is known as being one of the most haunted countries on the planet with many of the world's most famous supernatural characters and stories finding their roots in the tales told across the centuries by our ancestors around Irish peat fires on dark, dank nights. Each wave of human culture from the Celts to the Protestant ascendancy has left a mark when it comes to the haunted history of this city. It is this diversity that makes Dublin’s otherworldly folklore so fascinating.  They lead the group through the eerie, cobblestoned streets, hearing tales from the underbelly of this city, such as the burning of 18th century madam Darkey "The Witch" Kelly, and the tragic tale of The Green Lady of St. Audoen’s and how Dublin's "Hell" got its name.. We also herd about the period where The Dolocher stalked our streets, and of the mysterious 18th century Hellfire Club and its dark origins, then we reached the “Gates of Hell”... and of course they had a key! The tour covered the more macabre and gruesome aspects of Dublin’s history as well as tales of the supernatural that have frightened Dubliners for centuries. It wasn’t as frightening as I thought it would be…. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was still light out outside.