Out of touch

I'm sorry -- this week has been so busy with midterms. And tomorrow morning, I'm going to Cardiff, Wales for two days, then Oxford, England, then Belfast, Northern Ireland. I will have my cell, but emergencies only, please.

Look forward to a huge update when I get back.

Update

Apologies

I started writing this post on Wednesday, saved it to finish later and forgot I hadn't posted it. Sorry, y'all.

Art History

We took another trip to the Irish National Gallery; this time to look at 19th century painters. We also have to start thinking about our final projects, which can be anything related to art. Anything. I'm thinking of just cleaning up some of the pictures I've taken of various architecture around the city and turning those in, maybe with a little glitter on top.

Introduction to Northern Irish Troubles

Cancelled. So I went and found the National Library instead. It's on Kildare Street, and they don't let you check out books, but they do have a very nice microfilm room.

Reporting Northern Ireland

We watched the first TV interview done with Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, for Irish TV. It was done in 1994. Gerry Adams has one of the most amazing media presences I've ever seen. He doesn't seem to be a very nice person, all things considered, but he does know how to talk to people.

Valentine's Day

Christopher found purple roses to send me. Absolutely amazing.

Creative Writing

A group of us are talking about going up to Drogheda, where the professor lives, and visiting him. He keeps inviting us.

Revolutionary Traditions

We're covering the Great Famine now. It's strange; if you talk to most people about the famine, they'll say things like "The British kept exporting all the food and made the famine worse." But the professor put up the actual import and export figures for Ireland during the famine years: the exports dropped to zero and imports went way up. So, there's a lot of myths about what happened that aren't necessarily true.

Celtic Myth and Legend

The professor for this class brought in two traditional Irish musicians who played us a bunch of jigs, hornpipes and reels. They also sang in Gaelic. Very cool stuff. Planxty and Altan are supposed to be the best modern examples of Irish music. (One of my favorite singers is Christy Moore, who used to be part of Planxty).

Glasnevin Cemetery and Kilmainham Gaol

On Friday, my Revolutionary Traditions class went on a field trip, first to Glasnevin and then to Kilmainham. Glasnevin houses the graves of many Irish nationalists, including Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera, who you may remember from the movie, Michael Collins. De Valera's grave is the most vandalized in the entire 120 acre cemetery, while people still bring flowers to Collins' grave every day.

Kilmainham held political prisoners from every Irish uprising between 1796, when it was built, and 1924, when it was closed. The leaders of the Easter 1916 rising were executed by firing squad in the courtyard. Pictures are here and here.

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival

I spent most of my time Sunday handing out programs for the film festival. It wasn't the most exciting job in the world, but I got a free ticket to any of the other films. I have two more shifts: Monday and Saturday.

Weekend

A Quiet Weekend

This weekend, I stayed in Dublin. I had a bit of a cold, and some things to get done.

Dublin International Film Festival

On Saturday, we had our orientation, for the next week and a half's worth of volunteering. Volunteering, among other things, scores me at least three free movies and a new t-shirt. Pretty good deal, I think, but I have no idea how I'm going to decide on which movies. There's also a couple of free sessions on scriptwriting I'm going to try to sit in on.

Ireland vs. France

Sunday was the big rugby game, so Maggie, Leigh and I went down to O'Brien's (the pub down the street), to watch the game. I'm still not very clear on the rules, but Ireland was winning with about three minutes on the clock, when France managed to score. Very sad. But we made a new Irish friend: Edward. He works at one of the banks here and told us a lot about how American policy is affecting the rest of the world.

Creative Writing

Still a great class, although we're covering some fairly basic material. On the plus side, my professor says amazing things:

Writing passes the time when the pub is closed.

Revolutionary Traditions

In class, we watched The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Definitely not a happy movie, but very informative. It emphasizes the socialists' involvement in the Irish war for independence, perhaps too much. The only actor I recognized was Cillian Murphy, who was one of the bad guys in the latest Batman movie.

Celtic Myths and Legends

Yesterday, we went on a field trip to the Irish National Museum (yes, this is the third time I've been to this museum to look at the bog bodies) and Dublin Castle. The bog bodies have not changed, although it's always fun to hear a new group of people get grossed out by the very preserved dead bodies. I did notice one new thing in the display: bog butter. Basically, for the past several thousand years (and until relatively recently), the local method of preserving butter was to bury it a bog. It seems to have worked relatively well, although the really old bits of butter are basically stone now.

Dublin Castle

The majority of the pictures I took didn't turn out so well. I think it had something to do with the really weird lighting combinations. These two are okay though. The tour was really interesting although short. A couple of highlights:

1. For the third term in a row, the president of Ireland is a woman named Mary. The current one, Mary McAleese, leaves office in 2011. Basically, this means that anyone under 21 assumes that to be president of Ireland, you have to be female.
   
2. The national symbol of Ireland is the left-facing harp. The fact that it faces left is very important; the Guinness harp faces right.
3. About half the castle had to be rebuilt in 1684, after the Lord Lieutenant's son burned it down in the middle of a party while his parents were away.

Just a quick note:
Anyone considering sending me a care package, please include a pair of shoelaces. I can't seem to find a store that sells them, and mine are broken.

Weekend in Cork

Leigh's Birthday

One of my flatmates had her 21st birthday on February (the rest of them are not yet 21). We went out to dinner at Attica Venizia, an Italian restaurant near by. Just a head's up: a nice dinner out in Dublin costs about the same as I spend to eat in for a week. The rest of the group wanted to stay out after that, so I tagged along for a while. Everywhere we went was packed. I wimped out and went home to bed, so that I could be rested for a very busy Friday.

Newgrange

Friday morning, our class trooped on to a bus bound for Newgrange. It's only about an hour out. For a 5,000 year old Neo-lithic burial chamber, it sure is a pile of rocks. But it sits just above the Boyne river and is surrounded by miles of gorgeous farmland. Our tour guide told us that any Irish farmer would give up a limb for just a few acres of land in the Boyne River Valley.

Monsterboise

We stopped off at Monsterboise on the bus ride back to look at some Celtic crosses. The site is still a functioning graveyard; we saw a woman and a little girl bringing flowers to a grave while we were there.

Back in Dublin

The bus got back to Dublin, and I had to run to get all my errands done before leaving for Cork. One was to the IES center, where I managed to check my mail, and found my new glasses! And I managed to catch up with the Cork-bound group and run to the bus station. We made it on to the last bus of the day: the 6 p.m. express. It's a four hour ride from Dublin to Cork.

I slept for part of the ride. I also read the next book required for my creative writing class: The Book of Evidence by John Banville. Like The Butcher Boy, it centers on a murder and is written in stream of consciousness. It's a far more refined book however -- it has complete thoughts and punctuation (two of my best friends). I probably wouldn't suggest it as light reading, but it's readable.

Evening in Cork

We got into Cork at 10 p.m. and checked into our hostel. We then met up with another group at a pub: a couple of other IES people, the brother of one of the IES Dublin guys who happens to be studying in Cork this semester, and an American fiddler who is currently wandering Ireland and met a couple of IES people in the Aran Islands and now seeks us out.

We hung out for a while and then went out in search of food. We found Hillbilly's, a cheap fried chicken joint. They only do takeout, so we obtained our chicken and proceeded to have a picnic on the sidewalk.

Blarney Castle

Saturday morning, we caught the first bus to Blarney. We went up to the castle and did the requisite kissing of the stone, then wandered around the grounds for quite a while. We grabbed lunch at the local pub (Dad, I think we ate there when we visited, but I remembered the fish and chips being a lot better than they were on Saturday). We caught the 12:30 bus back to Cork.

Wandering Around Cork

We made up our own tour of Cork. First stop was St. Finn Barre's Cathedral. It's Church of Ireland, meaning that it is an Anglican cathedral. It's a gorgeous gothic style building. Next up was the Art Museum, featuring works by Harry Clarke, Robert Gibbings and Louis le Brocquy. Somewhere in there we found a used bookstore and I picked up some reading material for the ride back. Unfortunately, the Cork Butter Museum was closed.

Evening in Kinsale

We decided to head to Kinsale a little early so we could get dinner and check into our hostel. It's an amazing little village. We walked around looking for a restaurant and probably walked 90% of the town in under 30 minutes. We found a good Indian restaurant tucked into a small side street, right across from this pub. Renee, it's official -- you'll have to come visit. They have live music so we went there after dinner.

Charles Fort

Sunday morning, we hiked from Kinsale to Charles Fort, passing by some of the most amazing scenery. We took the guided tour, as well as wandering all over the fort on our own (it's huge!).

We heard the story of the White Lady: In the 1700s, the daughter of the fort's governor married one of the officers stationed there. During the festivities, they slipped off to the wall to be alone. She saw some flowers at the bottom of the wall and asked him to get them for her. He took her back to the party, and went back to the wall. The officer ordered the sentry on duty to go fetch the flowers and took the sentry's coat. The officer dressed as the sentry and made himself comfortable in the guard house. In the meanwhile, the governor, a real stickler for duty, went up on the walls to check all the sentries. When he wasn't challenged, the governor looked into the guard house and saw a sleeping sentry, whom the governor immediately shot. The "sentry" was dragged down to the parade ground, next to the governor's house. Everyone attending the wedding party came out to see what was going on and the bride realized her husband was the dead soldier. She ran back to the top of the walls in her wedding dress and jumped, falling 45 feet to the rocks below.

People, mostly men, continue to see her if they're in the fort in the evening, wandering still in her wedding dress.

Back to Kinsale, Cork & Dublin

We walked back to catch our bus back to Cork. Mom, you know your plan to find some house to live in with Aunt Jenny when you two get old? How about here? See the little yellow house on the left? Absolutely ideal. Everything's in walking distance, including lots of pubs and a few tourists. You could even be sure of me coming to visit.

The bus we planned to catch was the last one that would get us to Cork in time for our bus to Dublin. We had a really scary minute when that bus was completely full. Luckily the bus company brought up a second bus, and we made our connection.

So I'm back, all in one piece.

This weekend

Just a head's up -- I'll be without computer access from about Friday morning on. I'll have lots of photos to post when I get back on Monday though.

Friday - Newgrange
Saturday & Sunday - Cork