Image Source - Tate Gallery© Estate of Jack Butler YeatsEimear wrote a great post about the TY English trip to Dublin to see the Yeats exhibition and the Natural History Museum.
"We headed off to the William Butler Yeats exhibition first. We were greeted by a tour guide who brought us through the colourful displays and cases which make up the exhibition. Everything was colourful and designed beautifully, from the stands themselves to the
contents of the cases, so things were catching my eye every way I turned.
We got an insight into Yeats' life, as we sat in reconstructions of his home and places he visited often, such as the Abbey Theatre. I learned that the "Butler" part of his name is actually not from either of his parents, but a distant wealthy relative after whom Yeats and his siblings were all named, with the hope that some day he would give them the financial support their parents could not offer them if they needed it.
Next, we went to see the bog bodies! Once again we were greeted by a tour guide, who brought us through most of the ground floor of the museum. We saw beautiful jewellery from ancient Ireland, that I recognised from my junior cert history book, but they were so much more intricate to see up close. We also saw a massive boat (everything had been found in various Irish bogs) which was made of an oak tree! I would like to see how they rowed in those! Finally, we went into the room where the actual bodies were. I was excited to see them, as we had heard so much about them! The first one was not exactly as I had expected, it's skin was so worn it could have been part of a leather hand bag! And strangely, it's hair was almost perfect, all of it still on his head. It was the weirdest thing. They were so well preserved that they didn't seem like thousands of years old! Another one had been decapitated, but he had these huge perfect hands. They even looked soft to touch! The guide said they believed he was a king, as although he was in his twenties or thirties when he was killed, he had never done a days work!After an interesting morning, we headed out into the sunshine in search of some lunch. We decided on a picnic in Stephen's Green. It was such a beautiful day, I think it was safe to say it was the first day of summer - it was the first day I fully lay back on the grass this year :) In the afternoon, we went to the Jack Butler Yeats exhibition in the art gallery. I had never even heard of him before the tour, but he is actually a really famous artist! He was a very versatile artist, with a range of styles incorporated into his vast collection of paintings. At first I preferred his realistic paintings, but in hindsight I think that was because they were very lifelike and easy to interpret. However after we saw his more emotional paintings which appeared initially to be a blur of paint and I realised they were so much more than that, I decided I actually prefer those because I could look at them all day!
Overall we had a really interesting day and the sun just made it even better :)"
Read more of Eimears blog here.
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