As a child, when you see chain-mail and shields, you tend to think of the romance of medieval warfare. It takes the Irish mammy to bring pragmatism back into the picture. "You'll have to take your glasses off," one such mammy instructs her little boy, who is reaching for Dublinia's knight's gear of surcoat, shield and close-fitting chain-mail helmet.
Dublinia, the exhibition on St Michael's Hill which focuses on Dublin's medieval history, first opened eight years ago. This summer, the exhibition has been revamped by London-based H&H Design and will be officially relaunched by the Taoiseach in the autumn.
A central attraction of the relaunch is the skeleton of a woman which was found just outside the city wall during the excavations at Wood Quay. It is one of several artefacts on loan from the National Museum. You can look at her carefully arranged bones and then look up and see a reconstruction of her face gazing back at you, as time is peeled back.
"We worked with the Department of Forensic Medicine and Science at the University of Glasgow on this project," says Gary Hall of H&H Design, regarding the skeleton. Pathologist Peter Vanezis used computer technology to build from the shape of the skull an image of muscle and tissue on the face. In the present day, such computer predictions are most often used to give a reasonably good image of a lost face, so that relatives can try to identify the remains of a departed loved one. For example, the university is currently trying to identify some of the victims found in Bosnian mass-graves.
Sometimes an additional aid is needed for relatives to identify remains. Specialist sculptors can be called in to model a three-dimensional image of a face. This is what sculptor Eve Shepherd has done at Dublinia with the medieval woman. With a white scarf around her head, she has the solemn and absorbed expression of a pietα figure.
The new Wood Quay room simulates an archaeological dig, complete with three interactive displays on some of the most commonly asked archaeological questions. There are also displays based on the media coverage given to the Wood Quay excavations.
Dublinia has a prime spot beside Christ Church Cathedral, and visitors can exit via the lovely arched bridge that spans the hill and leads into Christ Church itself.
Vistors now enter the exhibition through a fair/street-market set-up. There are stalls selling swan meat pies, woollen shawls and pardons for indiscretions. You can pretend to entertain the masses with a cut-out dancing bear - while watching out for modern-day animal-rights protesters. You can juggle with hoops, or try on a knight's armour.
You can also, if you have a good aim, discover why a man - or at least the model of one - has his head placed in a set of stocks. He wears a sign that promises an explanation of his bad behaviour if you can hit his nose with a plastic ball. Unfortunately, my aim was so lousy I never found out how he got into that predicament.
There is a medieval laneway of houses you walk through, and a ship you can board and disembark. There's also a Black Death room and a large model of medieval Dublin. Interestingly, the eight people currently staffing the exhibition, with tasks ranging from taking tickets to giving guided tours, are all Canadians. Andrew Rankin, for example, is giving a talk to visitors beside the model of Dublin, explaining Strongbow and medieval warfare in his distinctive Canadian accent. The eight, who are here as part of a heritage project with F┴S, rotate between the different jobs.
A ticket also entitles the visitor to see the fine old Synod Hall and to climb the adjoining tower for a view of Dublin - and that modern-day game of "count the cranes". There are 31 to be spotted at present.
So why relaunch an existing exhibition? "Most exhibitions only have a lifespan of five to eight years, and we had really stretched that lifespan," explains Suzanne Costello, director of the Medieval Trust, the non-profit-making organisation that administers Dublinia.
"The previous exhibition was really about great events and great people, and we wanted to change it to look at the ordinary person and their way of life in the history of that period," says Hall.
The exhibition does not attempt to be historically accurate, however, being more focused on giving a flavour of things past. It's doubtful whether we ever had dancing bears in this country, or swan pies, and the clothes-sellers of medieval Dublin certainly would not have touted for business by calling out "ready-made clothes in the height of fashion", which is what the recording at the stall proclaims.
Still, Dublinia is a bit of fun, and clearly a must on the itinerary of every foreign language student who comes here - judging by the hordes who troop through on the day I visit. On the way out I have another furtive attempt at hitting the man in the stocks with a ball on the nose - only to fail yet again.
Dublinia is on St Michael's Hill, next to Christ Church Cathedral ( 01-6794611)