When the Washington Women's Chorus stops in Killarney, the travelers will be staying at the International Hotel. Recently refurbished, the Killarney accommodation boasts 90 bedrooms, furnished to a high standard. All rooms come with ensuite facilities including hairdryer, heated towel rail, Satellite TV and radio, ironing stations and alarm clocks. When you are hungry, check out the restaurant or the bar/lounge. This property also offers wireless internet access.
The Imperial Hotel is the WWC home in Cork. It is a 4 star hotel, right in the heart of Cork city center. The Imperial hotel boasts luxury accommodation in Cork City, offering 130 hotel rooms. The Imperial Hotel Cork has been serving Cork city center since 1813, when the Cork Committee of Merchants commissioned architect Sir Thomas Deane to design and build The Commercial Rooms. In 1816 the merchants requested Deane to extend the original building along Pembroke Street to serve as a hotel and coach-yard. The Imperial Hotel, originally the place where merchants met to discuss business, remains the most popular business and social center in the city today. This hotel has played host to a number of renowned figures including Fr Mathew, the Temperance Priest, writers such as Sir Walter Scott, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens and the composer Liszt. Michael Collins, who negotiated the Free State Treaty in 1921 and is an important figure in Irish history, spent his last night in room 115 at the Imperial Hotel in Cork City Center.
The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was transcribed by Celtic monks ca. 800. The text of the Gospels is largely drawn from the Vulgate, although it also includes several passages drawn from the earlier versions of the Bible known as the Vetus Latina. It is a masterwork of Western calligraphy and represents the pinnacle of Insular illumination. It is also widely regarded as Ireland's finest national treasure. The illustrations and ornamentation of the Book of Kells surpass that of other Insular Gospels in extravagance and complexity. The decoration combines traditional Christian iconography with the ornate swirling motifs typical of Insular art. Figures of humans, animals and mythical beasts, together with Celtic knots and interlacing patterns in vibrant colour
s, enliven the manuscript's pages. Many of these minor decorative elements are imbued with Christian symbolism and so further emphasise the themes of the major illustrations. The manuscript today comprises 340 folios and, since 1953, has been bound in four volumes. The leaves are on high-quality calf vellum, and the unprecedentedly elaborate ornamentation that covers them includes ten full-page illustrations and text pages that are vibrant with historiated initials and interlinear miniatures and mark the furthest extension of the anti-classical and energetic qualities of Insular art. The Insular majuscule script of the text itself appears to be the work of at least three different scribes. The lettering is in iron-gall ink, and the colours used were derived from a wide range of substances, many of which were imports from distant lands. The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells that was its home for centuries. Today, it is on permanent display at the Trinity College Library, Dublin. The library usually displays two of the current four volumes at a time, one showing a major illustration and the other showing typical text pages.
Trinity College Dublin, formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", and is the only constituent college of the University of Dublin. It is Ireland's oldest university. Originally established outside the city walls of Dublin in the buildings of the dissolved Augustinian monastery of All Hallows, Trinity was set up partly to consolidate the rule of the Tudor monarchy in Ireland, and it was seen as the university of the Protestant Ascendancy for much of its history; although Roman Catholics had been permitted to enter as early as 1753, certain restrictions on their membership of the college remained until 1873, and the Catholic Church in Ireland forbade its adherents from attending until the late 20th century. Women were first admitted to the college as full members in 1904. Trinity is now surrounded by Dublin and is located on College Green, opposite the former Irish Houses of Parliament. The college proper occupies 190,000 square meter (47 acres), with many of its buildings ranged around large quadrangles and two playing fields. Academically, Trinity is divided into three faculties comprising 24 schools, offering degree and diploma courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It is consistently ranked as the best university in Ireland, and as the 43rd best worldwide in the 2009 THES - QS World University Rankings of universities. The Library of Trinity College is a legal deposit library for Ireland and the United Kingdom, containing over 4.5 million printed volumes and significant quantities of manuscripts including the Book of Kells, maps and music.
