If you like libraries like this, and you&#x27;re ever in the area, I can highly recommend the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany.Crazy amount of incredibly rare books and manuscripts that you can actually look at. For many you will need to wear gloves and may have someone hovering over you, but it&#x27;s worth it. Some absolutely mind blowing material in that library!

Your post reminded me of the story &quot;A canticle for leibowitz&quot;.It explores many of the ideas you&#x27;ve mentioned. I recommend reading it if you haven&#x27;t already. I think you&#x27;d enjoy it.

The idea that religion causes more deaths than non-religion is absurd in the 21st history (hitler, Stalin, mao) and is a myth when you take in full world history.An index of all known wars in history indicated 93% of wars were not religious.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apholt.com&#x2F;2023&#x2F;01&#x2F;03&#x2F;the-myth-of-religion-as-the-cause-of-most-wars&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apholt.com&#x2F;2023&#x2F;01&#x2F;03&#x2F;the-myth-of-religion-as-the-ca...</a>

Chester Beatty is a gem. I went into it not expecting much from &quot;museum of books&quot;. But it&#x27;s also in a way a museum of world&#x27;s religions, which are tightly connected to writing and books. As an atheist who has low opinion on value of religion because of all the deaths they were and still are responsible for, it reminded me of their positive role in history. When you see all those ancient religious books you begin to question whether we would have writing at all without them? Who would go through a painstaking process of duplicating books before Gutenberg if not men devoting their lives to God? Thus carrying light of civilization and creating basis and tools for science to progress later. I know this is not some great revelation, but I felt enlightened a bit after leaving Chester Beatty.

Speaking of things that are gorgeous and well worth a visit I can also strongly recommend Iona - one of the places where the Book of Kells may have been produced.A bit out of the way and the weather isn&#x27;t always perfect but on a nice day I think Iona is one of the most beautiful places in the world - and that&#x27;s before considering it&#x27;s remarkable history and religious significance.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Iona" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Iona</a>

The archeology museum in the same block is also a must-see

Strongly agreed. This is likely more obvious, but I think it&#x27;s worth saying: the &quot;Treasury&quot; in the Kildare Street building of the National Museum of Ireland should also be at the top of any visitor&#x27;s list. The Ardagh Chalice and friends are more or less the equal and equivalent of the Book of Kells in metalwork. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.museum.ie&#x2F;en-ie&#x2F;collections-research&#x2F;collection&#x2F;the-treasury" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.museum.ie&#x2F;en-ie&#x2F;collections-research&#x2F;collection&#x2F;...</a> .

I did have pretty much exactly that reaction to the Mona Lisa, yes.

It’s a bit like looking at the sky with your own telescope after seeing the Hubble images. You need superhuman senses - such as the magnified images and the extensive explanations in the museum - to really appreciate some things.The library is iconic. Too bad we can’t borrow the books it has without at least a tenure and a few PhDs in history and literature.

Opposite reaction from me. Every print seemed lackluster when I finally saw the original. Which is surprisingly smaller than expected. And the intricacies are incredibly tiny.Something about the work is more vibrant in person. I found the same to be true about Da Vinci. In particular his silverpoint drawings can’t be reproduced well.

I saw it in person few months ago, and well......it&#x27;s weird. The quality of the caligraphy and drawings is such that when you see it in person...it&#x27;s completely underwhelming. It just looks like a very high quality print - which obviously speaks volumes about the quality of penmanship of something that is so crazy old. But the presentation room where the pages were shown magnified and the library afterwards were(to me) 100x more interesting than the &quot;main event&quot;. I just saw it, went &quot;huh&quot; and that was about it. I guess seeing Mona Lisa in person must be similar - hundreds of people trying to take a peek, and it&#x27;s far away from you behind glass so you can&#x27;t really appreciate the details.

There&#x27;s also a pretty decent eatery!Another amazing library, though one that you can&#x27;t really access, is the Edward Worth library at Dr Steevens’ Hospital, beside Heuston train station.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edwardworthlibrary.ie&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edwardworthlibrary.ie&#x2F;</a>He had collected the books over his lifetime and bequeathed the collection to the hospital, under conditions that were to result in the absolute protection of the books. The story of the collection&#x27;s history is itself worth the visit, and the current librarians are always welcoming if you call in advance. I was at a lecture there last week, and they took great pains to tell everybody to come back.

The Chester Beatty Library has a much larger collection than is shown at any one time. Many sacred texts, but also much else, including some printed news-sheets from the French Revolution. And a lot of Chinese and Japanese stuff, including some gorgeous jade snuffboxes.

I was there for ten years but moved to the Netherlands. You might like the Irish tech community slack, though they’re not fans of this site.

I live in Dublin and never heard of this. Must do it ASAP.Now, how many HN’ers are here in Dublin? We might want to start a group on Meetup.com.

I stayed at a dorm on campus for a week at Trinity, but the book was so popular I couldn’t bring myself to wait in the long line to see it… but wish I had.

They have some gorgeous Asian exhibits as well from what I remember.

Agreed! We went last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. I understand that the Long Room in the Old Library is mostly empty for renovations, but the Book has been moved to a dedicated building during this time.Pro-tip to any potential visitors: they turn the pages every so often, and I have heard some travel bloggers complain that the pages on display when they went weren&#x27;t very interesting, but the university will show you what pages of the book of Kells are currently on display: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.visittrinity.ie&#x2F;book-of-kells-pages-on-display&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.visittrinity.ie&#x2F;book-of-kells-pages-on-display&#x2F;</a>At the moment, it appears that they have it open to a pair of canon tables which have some really lovely illuminations.

The book of Kells is gorgeous and well worth a visit.If you are in Dublin and enjoy this sort of thing, _please_ also take the very short walk over to the Chester Beatty Library (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chesterbeatty.ie&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chesterbeatty.ie&#x2F;</a>) as well. It&#x27;s free and has an absolutely fantastic collection of ancient and sacred manuscripts. I was lucky enough to live across the street from it for several years and it remains one of my favourite museums in the world.

Yes. As someone who practices Western calligraphy, I expected a lot more about the book from the movie. It was mostly style kind of fable with the book as a prop.

I took it to describe a more expansive history of Irish spirituality, how neopaganism is recovering the legends and traditions that Irish diaspora took with them to the rest of the world, or perhaps were forgotten across generations. How Ireland emerges as a post-Christian society, but remains embattled with culture wars and difficult relations with the UK.The Gaeltacht today is not unlike that little monastic fortress at Kells.

Contrary to everyone I think it was pretty mediocre. The significance of the book is barely covered and the contents of it are not mentioned at all. The story itself is dancing around the “message of the book” and how it prevails over everything (see the allegory with the abbey’s wall) but somehow they just never say it’s the four Gospels of the New Testament which are the most important texts of Christianity. If you don’t know what the Book of Kells _really is_ then what’s left from the film itself? Not so much just a generic fantasy story.

One thing I like about The Secret of Kells is some of a meta-joke: since the plot takes place in the Middle Ages, and perspective was not yet in fashion, there&#x27;s no perspective at all in this movie. It&#x27;s very in your face (just like the Wes Anderson&#x27;s lateral tracking shots), but just as charming.

All three movies in the trilogy are absolute masterpieces.Ireland is an interesting land. It’s easy to believe in magic after living here among the fairies and the little people for a couple years. They host the best parties.

Add Wolfwalkers to the list. It probably would have won the academy award for Best Animated Feature if that category wasn&#x27;t a total joke.(It&#x27;s a joke category because all Academy members get to vote. There&#x27;s no requirement that they have seen all the nominees, or that they have seen any of them.A few years ago some animation trade magazine (I don&#x27;t remember which one) surveyed Academy members after a year where a movie that most animation professionals thought would easily win lost to a movie they thought was good but clearly not as good.What they found was that a significant fraction of voters don&#x27;t watch animation, considering it to be just for kids. If they have young kids they vote for whatever movie the kids watched over and over. If they didn&#x27;t have young kids they&#x27;d ask their young nieces or nephews or grandkids what cartoon they liked that year and vote for it. Or they would vote for the one they remembered seeing ads for).

The others in the Irish mythology series are really great too - Song of the Sea is my favourite. Great to watch with kids, but also can be enjoyed with no embarrassment by adults!

That studio is amazingly good. The Breadwinner is harrowing but fantastic.

I watched it for the first time a few hours ago, and did a Wikipedia dive about the Book of Kells. Flip over to HN and see this thread; what a weird convergence.

Agreed. Really unique and beautifully done.

The animated film &#x27;The Secret of Kells&#x27; is great and well worth a watch. Far more accessible&#x2F;relatable to modern audiences than this historical Bible that was dug up in a field in Kells. I&#x27;m glad it got a mention but the other guy is right -- the link should have been to the digitized book.

What do people think about the Copyright notices on the images? Can someone with knowledge of Irish law comment on how something so old can still be considered copyright? Is there separate rules for images of art in galleries?

Lots of old things&#x2F;places in the US too if you don’t disregard native history.

If you are counting stone circles, it seems unfair not to count 5000 year old mounds in the US.

First name checks out :)I promised a coworker up north a bit in Meath that one day I’d come visit him and got that chance about seven years ago. Along the way we did the tourist in Dublin thing and part of it was the trinity long room and book of kells. Amusingly, a cabbie was asking me what I loved about Dublin and I said the history. He asked what in specific and I told him that there is probably chewing gum on the ground older than the founding of the United States. He got super offended and told me they clean the streets in Ireland, but then I mentioned the Aran Islands, Newgrange, and the Drombeg Stone Circle… What is “old” in Ireland is 3000-5000 years old. What is “old” in the USA is a few hundred years old at best.Such a lovely place and people.

I also did the same thing. I probably visited 30 times in the 5 years I was there. The postgraduate study room next door to it (disc shaped building between the old library and the front gate) is probably one of the neatest student spaces in the university, closely followed by the geography building behind it.

Unfortunately, they recently removed most of the books from that hall due to conservation efforts. I didn&#x27;t really give the feel or atmosphere of an old library.

I once had a class in a room just off the old library. I had to go into the Long Room and step over a rope at the end. Very cool.

I went to college in Trinity and the Book of Kells is housed in the old library.Once you&#x27;ve finished seeing the book, you head upstairs through the Long Room, and that place is just special (they used it as the hall of the jedi)As a student there you could visit for free. I used to just go up and hang in the library for 10 mins or so a few times a year. Loved it.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Library_of_Trinity_College_Dublin" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Library_of_Trinity_College_D...</a>Edit: fix link

I think there was a black-and-white photocopy from the early 90s, but the full-color digital one (with an iPad app!) is circa 2013.

Glad you said this as it saved me checking my memory.I first came across the Book of Kells over 20 years ago and I swear photos&#x2F;scans were available online of some pages even back then (one of the &#x27;Xp&#x27; at least). But certainly thought it had already been made available online before (albeit in one of those annoying interfaces where it&#x27;s all tiles to try and stop you downloading any of it).

This is a cool resource, but I&#x27;m side-eyeing them characterizing it as some new thing when this scan was uploaded more than ten years ago (as their own link to the college&#x27;s archived blog post on it shows).

anyone have a link? I couldn&#x27;t find a good quality photo

I saw the real life Book of Kells earlier this year and it was so pristine and high quality it didn&#x27;t look real, like seriously looked like a modern fancy reprint, it was a bit confusing!

Note the PDF file is ~414MB and 682 pages, so you’ll want to just download and then view, rather than try to load it in the browser for a quick look.

I only see one cookie, for the captcha, and removing that just forces me to solve the captcha again.The 503 error itself doesn&#x27;t seem to be cookie related, looks like the site can&#x27;t keep up with the kind of traffic they&#x27;re getting.Also, if clearing cookies prevents errors, it&#x27;s likely related to caching. Depending on the server configuration, things like authentication cookies will cause the session to bypass caches for certain resources.

The error message &quot;The requested URL was rejected. Please consult with your administrator.&quot; is from an F5 Networks Application Security Manager
firewall and can usually be addessed by clearing certain cookies in your browser.I was able to get it to load using Chrome with all cookies cleared, but it does appear to be getting the &quot;hug of death&quot; as well as mywacaday says in another comment.

better yet, direct to the pdf - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;digitalcollections.tcd.ie&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;false&#x2F;eng&#x2F;2&#x2F;url&#x2F;hm50tr726?locale=en" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;digitalcollections.tcd.ie&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;false&#x2F;eng&#x2F;2&#x2F;url&#x2F;hm50tr...</a>

it is a treasure of culture, available to the general public. Support your local library.

the indignity of the entire experience is comedic, and we&#x27;ve come to accept it. the op article is empty aggregation, a little superficial bit of dopamine noise, that&#x27;s exclusively parasitizing on actual content. the direct link is probably better, but it throws a CAPCHA for me, where I need to click on Indian men on motorcycles to teach an AI what a motorcycle is. sister comment is reporting that the underlying site is down anyway, despite the &quot;protection&quot; provided by the internet muscle services.which makes one wonder, why even go looking at the book of kells, like, who among the hackernews readership will sit down with an iPad or other high resolution device to peruse the entirety of the book at leisure, inspecting the subtle details of the illumination, taking notes etc.

... and be forced to complete a captcha before getting 503 service unavailable.

Haven&#x27;t seen a hug of death in a while.

&quot;The requested URL was rejected. Please consult with your administrator. Error 503 - Service Unavailable&quot;

Instead of the popup and affiliate-link-laden article, you could go right to it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;digitalcollections.tcd.ie&#x2F;concern&#x2F;works&#x2F;hm50tr726?locale=en" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;digitalcollections.tcd.ie&#x2F;concern&#x2F;works&#x2F;hm50tr726?lo...</a>

The science behind restoration is pretty intense. It&#x27;s almost certainly had a bunch of work done on it.

How does it still look so modern and pristine then?

I believe the book was stolen at one point and the gold covers were ripped off. It was eventually found buried. Close to being gone for good like so many other remarkable items.

&gt; you can&#x27;t copyright a scanWhy not? It&#x27;s derivative but it&#x27;s still work.

the og scan of book of kells was done by a Swiss publisher in the early 90s. since you can&#x27;t copyright a scan, and the book itself is in public domain, anyone can then take the scans (if they can get hands on the high dpi originals or whatever, or do a high dpi scan of the reproduction) and publish them as whatever they want. &quot;the complete encyclopedia of human knowledge (only $99.99 if you call now)&quot; &quot;the illuminated authoritative book of kells (comes with your own one of a kind handmade Irish cross)&quot; etc. you can get the scans themselves (afaiu its at matching dpi, if not the same format) from a 2006 trinity college dvd of book of kells.the op is an announcement of the completed rescan effort, with modern technologies and modern dpis. with a companion iPad app and a website that have consumer grade renditions of those modern research grade scans.

Is this a different one from the one I found at Global Grey’s Collection <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.globalgreyebooks.com&#x2F;book-of-kells-ebook.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.globalgreyebooks.com&#x2F;book-of-kells-ebook.html</a>Global Grey was popular on HN a few years back, and I bought the whole collection.

Was it not before? I had thought I had seen scanned pages of it online before.

The animated film (same prod crew that made Song of the Sea) is excellent.

If you want more like these drawings , check wikisource<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;commons.m.wikimedia.org&#x2F;w&#x2F;index.php?title=File:Apocalypse_of_Saint_John_WDL368.pdf&amp;page=2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;commons.m.wikimedia.org&#x2F;w&#x2F;index.php?title=File:Apoca...</a>

Why does the book begin with many pages which have long lists of what looks like Roman numbering but in another alphabet? i.e. same word but with more i&#x27;s at the end? It&#x27;s not actually text. Only later does any actual text begin.Is it some form of a table of contents?

The Book of Kells, now digitized and available online