Green Beer And No Snakes

Wooohoooo, St. Patrick's Day is nearly upon us.  As I have much green beer drinking to do, I shall go ahead and do my holiday posting today.  St Patrick's Day was originally to celebrate when the Saint Patrick first brought Christianity to Ireland, of course now it is more of an excuse to drink and listen to awesome Irish music.  St. Patrick was given the distinction of being the man who drove all the snakes out of Ireland, this is one of the miracles that gave him his sainthood...and made Ireland a wonderful place for people who are afraid of snakes.  Here are some books to get you all ready for your own St. Patrick's Day celebration.

Partying On St. Patrick's Day

Everything you need to know about the day, from the Saint himself, to some great Irish drinking songs

Irish Food

Some authentic reciepies to take your celebration to the next level

St. Patrick's Day Drinks

Just in case you get sick of green beer, you can now make other green drinks!

Irish Language and Culture

Astound everybody with your Irish tounge (wait that sounds dirtier then I intended...oh well)

Irish Drinking Songs

Sing these songs in your local pub, best buddies party, staggering down the street...

Well there you have it, everything you need to have a great St. Patrick's Day.  I am on duty that night so please be safe and have fun! 

The Book of Kells

In honor of St. Patrick's day tommorow I thought we would take a quick look at the Book of Kells.

This beautiful book is also an extremely historical (can something be extremely historical?  Maybe I started the Guinness a little early) account of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)   From what
scholars and the like can tell it was probably created in the early 9th century (holy oldness batman!)

It is very intricatly illustrated and scholars say the monks who wrote/illustrated it were not worried so much about accuracy as they were with the asthtetics of the book.  It is named after the Abby of Kells in which it resided for most of the mediaeval period before it was plundered by Vikings.  No one really knows how the book survived, but it did lose it's bejewled cover somewhere along the way.  The book stayed at the Abby of Kells until 1654 when it was sent to Dublin for safe keeping and then to Trinity College where it is still on display to this day (and on my list of things to go see in the very near future I hope!!!!)

The book has been rebound into four volumes with two being on display at any given time.  One displaying an illustration and one displaying a text page which is also pretty elabrotly illustrated.  I love the how this shows the importance of art, beauty and the written word, even in days where it took years to produce.  I cannot wait to someday see this work of art and literature for myself.

Would you make a trip to Ireland just to see this book?  What other amazing historical documents would you like to see?  How cool is it that there have been super bookworms all throughout history!?!