We started today with a trip to the National Museum (of Archeology), with vague plans of things to do afterwards. It turns out we didn’t really need other plans, as we spent almost all day in the museum. It was awesome. They had extensive exhibits on Irish and Viking history (including the progress of Irish civilization through the paleolithic, mesolithic, and neolithic ages up through the Bronze, Iron and modern ages. It was really cool to see how the tools and metalworks improved as time went on and to see how burial practices changed. What really was the coolest part of the museum was the bog bodies. These are BCE era bodies that were preserved due to being disposed of in bogs. They reveal a wealth of information about ancient Celtic cultures. We saw Old Croghan man, Clonycavan man, and Galagh Man. Along with the bodies, there were large chunks of bog butter. Apparently people would bury large amounts of butter in the bogs where it would keep fresh for later use. Sometimes they forgot or lost it…
We had dinner at an awesome Japanese restaurant we had discovered our first night in Dublin (with a great vegetarian bento box) and then went back to the Temple Bar district for some more live music.