This week My Daytalks to Richie Murphy, Dublinia Guide
I left school last June and started here in February. We start at 10am. First up I might be on admissions, which means giving out tickets and information sheets in different languages.
We get people from everywhere here. We try to learn the basics in as many languages as we can to greet them. One guy here has phrases in about 15 languages. He puts the rest of us to shame. I only know a couple.
After a while I might be put on tours, which is my favourite part. Groups are normally between 10 and 20 people in size. We dress up as various characters to guide them.
You have to get in early for the good costumes, as there's a bit of a scramble for the best ones. My favourite is a monk's, as it's easy to get on. There's a medieval jester's costume, which is good, too, but it has an awful lot of bits and bobs.
I call myself Br Richie and go out and bless my group before we start. You have to let yourself go a little. When I started I was very nervous, but you get more confident.
People can opt for just a tour of Dublinia or what we call the full monty: a tour of Christ Church as well. The Dublinia exhibition takes about an hour and runs over three levels, from a self-guided medieval fair to a scale model of medieval Dublin and, on the third level, a Viking world complete with ship.
We are given tour scripts to learn, but we also do our own research. We have a library of reference books here, and there's lots of information on the internet, too, so I add my own bits where I can.
People are surprised to learn that Vikings didn't actually wear horned helmets in battle. They would have been a liability; they'd have been pulled down and used against them. It was only for ceremonial dress.
Also, people love to hear about medieval shoes. The wealthier you were, the longer the toe of your shoe. It got to the point where people had to tie strings from their shoes up around their knees to keep from tripping over the toe, just to show how rich they were.
Probably the biggest wow factor of the tour is the scale model of Dublin 500 years ago. The kids always want to find their suburb, but there were no suburbs then, just the city centre.
We have a little staffroom across the courtyard, and I go there for lunch or just nip out for a sandwich.
In the afternoon I might have classes. I'm studying heritage tourism, so it'll be history, archaeology or the cultural life of Dublin. You're expanding your knowledge all the time.
I'd hope to stay working in the sector when my Fás course finishes. I really enjoy it here. You're not slogging in an office somewhere but out meeting people. And when a tour goes well you'd be buzzing all day afterwards.