Dublin’s Chester Beatty Museum

The Chester Beatty Museum was high on my list of things to see in Dublin. We’re on our way there, now. It’s located inside Dublin Castle, so that’s a bonus, eh? OK… We’re almost there…

The Normans built Dublin Castle in the 13th century. Most of it burned to the ground in the 16th century. Today, elegant Georgian buildings line the perimeter of the castle grounds. The one massive tower that remains gives one an idea of how imposing Dublin Castle must have been back in the day.

Today, among other things, Dublin Castle is the home of the Chester Beatty Museum. Who was Chester Beatty? He was a very successful guy who had a passion for collecting really old stuff – especially old documents, prints, books, and things like that.

Who was Chester Beatty?

Chester Beatty started life as a regular kid, growing up in New York in the late 19th century. He studied mining, graduated as a mining engineer, and ultimately became a very rich man, speculating successfully on mine development projects all over the world. He went big into copper mines right about the time the world was starting to become electrified. Helloooooo!

Even as a young lad, Chester Beatty was a collector. He spent the second half of his life traveling the world in search of rare, collectible documents and artifacts. Although knighted in England for his contributions to the war (WWII) effort, he ultimately settled in Ireland. He donated everything he collected to one museum or another, but the best of it is right here in Dublin.

Into the Wayback Machine, Sherman!

Consider the photo at the top of this post. It’s a piece of papyrus on display at the Chester Beatty Museum. A scribe working somewhere in Egypt created it 1,700 years ago. Think about that for a minute. We’re talking 300 AD. The scribe was making a copy of the Gospel of Saint John.

It’s kind of hard to read, unless you know Subachmimic, the Coptic dialect that it’s written in. Coptic was (and is) the largest Christian denomination in North Africa. This piece of papyrus is believed to have come from the library of a Coptic church way, way, way back in the day. And we’re looking at it right here in front of us.

Here’s another piece of papyrus, (shown above), written in Greek by an Egyptian scribe around 250 AD. It’s a portion of the Gospel of Luke from the earliest known example of a codex, (ancient book), containing the Four Gospels and Acts.  When that scribe was putting pen to papyrus, it hadn’t even been 200 years since Saint Luke worked on the original.

Maybe you thought that piece of papyrus was pretty old. But age is relative, eh? There’s a collection of clay tablets here that are almost 4,000 years old. The one shown above is a Babylonian cuneiform tablet dating back to 1800 BC. What does it say? Well, unless the cuneiform translator is messing with us, it’s a recording of wages and beer rations. I know. Beer rations! Cool. This little museum is full of things like this from China, Japan, and the Middle East. Very special.

A Wee Bit More Irish History

Meanwhile, let’s keep the story of Ireland’s history going. In the previous post, we made it through the miserable 17th century. The aftermath was that in the 18th century, an English/Protestant minority ruled over a poor, Irish/Catholic populous. The English-controlled “Irish” government passed laws to keep it that way. Catholics didn’t even have the right to vote. Then something interesting happened – the American Revolutionary War.

Now England had bigger problems than the Irish to worry about. The English government asked for volunteers to form an Irish militia to guard against invasion of Ireland from France. British rule in Ireland started to ease up a bit.

The world was changing. The Americans successfully declared independence from English rule. French citizens revolted and overthrew their government. Revolution was in the air. The Irish saw their opportunity so they went for it, culminating in the Irish Rebellion of 1778.

Fighting ensued all over Ireland. Tens of thousands of Irish lads gave their lives, but the English managed to suppress the rebellion. To punish the survivors, the English committed a wide array of well-documented atrocities.

Even though the rebellion was put down, apparently the English got the message. Two years later, for the first time, England recognized Ireland as a sovereign kingdom in its own right. They passed “The Acts of Union 1800” establishing the “Kingdom of Ireland.”

According to the The Acts of Union 1800, the Kingdom of Ireland would become part of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.” (Great Britain  included England, Scotland, and Wales). We usually just call it the “United Kingdom.” They created a new flag to represent the new entity. It might look familiar.

To be continued…