Muckross House & Irish Hospitality: journal two

I seem to experience things as the relate to whatever we're reading. This weekend we visited Cork, Blarney and Kinsale first and then we moved on to Killarney. Killarney although very touristy, did have some very interesting spots. We visited the national park where this waterfall and the Muckross house is located. It was interesting because it was a look into how the wealthy irish lived in the 19th century. They had interesting specificities like seperate writing desks for men in women-- the women would be seating like ladies of course. They had more than enough rooms, each with a specific purpose and some with rules; like th billiard room where women weren't allowed. There were fold down panels by the fire so that the ladies' wax makeup wouldn't melt off when it became hot. We even took a look into their kitchen and dining habits. The dining room was on the top floor on one side of the house while the kitchen was in the basement on the other side. Because of this long trek, there was a warming room to rewarm the food before serving it. At this point someone asked our guide how many people worked in the house and 30 people were what it took to make the house run. Most of them were women-- and as our guide demonstrated the heaviness of the serving dishes I thought to myself that this was ridiculous grueling work-- and then the guide explained that this house peaked when the famine was going on and that the people felt like it was a luxury to live there. In modern times this kind of work would be close to a punishment, but the empoverished Irish it was a refuge. Looking back to the images in Black Potatoes it's understandable that people would view Muckross house in this way-- especially because they would be avoiding eviction, workhouses and ultimately, starvation.

Vikings, the River Liffy and St Patrick

A day in Belfast: Journal #3

Entering Belfast, I could almost feel the tension. There were remnants of walls with barbed wire and there was graffiti on all of them. No one checked our passports when we got off the train, which I found weird. But two men were at the exit waiting to help people like us. We took the free bus to the city center and within minutes I was in the midst of a vulgar conversation with some teenage girls and two people had yelled to me that Belfast is a "shit hole". The initial vibe I got from the city was that it was dirty, dingy and dangerous. We got on a five pounds bus tour (in the rain) and it took us to the dry dock of the titanic

castle at cashel: Journal entry one

Cashel has probably been my best experience yet. It was nice to just get up and go-- take a bus out of the city. The history was different than Dublin but equally as interesting--if not moreso. I know I've heard the name Carmac Mac Carthaig before, but at Cashel I learned who he was to the Irish. He seemed to be a colorful character that fit into a colorful history. Our tour guide was dramatic in the traditional irish fashion. It became obvious through her explanation that the various owners of Cashel had a love/hate relationship with it. No one REALLY wanted the Castle. It was great protection, but it was dark, dingy, and depressing. According to the text, it was also a battle ground between the north and south dynasties. It explains that it ended "in a great battle at Belach Mughna in Leinster, Flann Sinna, king of Tara, defeated Cormac mac Guilennain, king-bishop of Cashel, in 908" (Moody-Martin, 72). It explains that Cormac was killing and the ancient Cashel dynasty never recovered. Through our guide's explanation it seemed like this was one of the many different shifts in ownership.

The most interesting part of Cashel to me was how it's architecture and history spanned centuries, starting in the 13th and ending with the last building in the 17th. Going onto the rock seemed kind of like a trip back in time--with a few pitstops. The guide really took us back in time, give us a full explanation of the tower. She explained, starting from the bottom that the door was much higher, not only because of ground level shifts but because it was a means of defense. The bishop(?) would climb up on a latter, carry all of the valuables with him and climb to the top away from the vikings. He would have used the steps that went one staircase at a time to a platform and each platform would have another staircase leading up.. some people are led to believe that the staircase is spiralled, but this just isn't true. The problem with this though was that the vikings could easily smoke out or kill the escapee with a turf fire lit at the bottom of the tower.

She also talked about the Stone of St. Partick and about the cross that wasn't actually celtic--no circle. It was interesting because one side was Jesus, while the other side was St. Patrick. Along with that story we learned about the myth about the devil taking a bite out of the adjacent mountain and spit it out-- becoming rock of cashel.

Cashel had so much history that it became a blur, but the architecture was phenomenal and the trip was an experience of a lifetime.

a day in Bray

On the second day we went to Bray near Dublin. It's only a 30 minute train ride but it was a completely different world. So organic and beautiful.











































jill likes riding on the top of the two
story tall bus.. REALLY likes it. :)

Dublin: jetlag 1 meredith 0

This is day one in Dublin



I'm officially in Dublin and officially jet lagged. I pasted in a different post and got an interesting collage of pictures. There's an image of Jill at the airport and then at St. Steven's green.. and in both, she has her jetlag face on. It stayed that way all day. and she wasn't the only one. We all felt it. After on and off sleeping today, we ventured to the city area of dublin. Something I noticed right away was the conglomeration of architecture. The first arch we came to was, Roman or something similar. Classical? And then I saw a church in the distance that's from some completely different time. But there's a main street that seems very vintage European. However, it's like someone kidnapped it and made it contemporary shopping.. which in my eyes, takes away the effect. Still reaaally beautiful though. The buildings seem older, but I can't pinpoint when. And then the tourism office is of a completely different time period. I want to say gothic or something similar. Very interesting.