Ireland
IRELAND
Ireland well let’s see where do I even begin to describe Ireland lets start with when we first landed in this foreign country. My first glimpses of Ireland- and this never changed- was it’s color GREEN. It was really cold outside but always the grass and trees were all a beautiful green. We spent the majority of our 5 days in Ireland jumping around trying to see all the sights and jumping into pubs to keep warm. We walked every day and took in the St. Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin Cathedral, the Dublin castle (I loved it-and our tourguide was a redheaded college guy that had that wonderful Irish accent that is so fun to listen to) Trinity college, field hockey at St. Stephen’s Green, Bank of Ireland (outside of it a civil upheaval too place and you can still see the bullet holes in the stone walls that took so many lives, as well as go inside and see the old parliament chambers that was sold by the British to a company with one rule: it had to eliminate all remnants of the old Irish Parliament, somehow the chambers is still intact because it was use as a conference room and has some great displays), the national museum now in Collin’s Barracks (It was here that I learned I really knew nothing about Ireland and its wars), Chester Beatty library (which had a free tour of the ancient texts they have found of all the major religions in the world- the four apostles’ still in Hebrew well displayed and most were fragmented) Some really neat malls, around Parnell Sq., a pub crawl (that was done by two actors and they took us to pubs that famous Dublin writers sat in while writing their plays and books, and even a few pieces performed at trinity college and a cathedral along with the history behind all the places we were walking to) and of course the tour of the Guiness Brewery and Temple Bar to drink guiness and Bailey’s irish cream, as well as listen to the traditional music- Tard.
Wow there is just so much to talk about I am going to have to only talk about a few. The first is the Guiness Brewery which was actually a blast and I would never have gone if Brian didn’t insist. We had fun walking the floors seeing the huge displays of ingredients with facts like “the word beer is thought to have originated from the Anglo-Saxon word Baere meaning barley”, “At St. James’s Gate brewery guiness use 100,000 tonnes of Irish grown barley per year” and “water, barley, hops, and yeast, 5th ingredient Arthur”. We watched them make a cask by hand called coopering, and don’t use gages or rulers but a compass once for the lid. This certain brewery (St. James’s Gate) makes 200,000 pints every hour every week and I witness a guy push the button for batch number 3889, then sent out a picture of me at the factory to my parents, saw a ton of old guiness ads (did you know that they only used people who love guiness for every one of their ads- yeah so they have a lot of potential actors) my favorite ad was this one from 1970s that was about a race that these two brothers have every year. They are both late 60s and one brother swims the river liffey and the end of his journey when he hits a booey they start the clock and he has to swim to the shore and into this pub and hit the counter before a glass of guiness is poured, settled, and tipped off. A huge crowd is out watching this race and the brother that watches from a spy glass and starts the time clock describes that his brother always worrys he isn’t going to make it in time every year and he always assures him he will, and then you see that when the brother is about 15 meters from the booey he starts the clock always giving him the advantage. I thought I was cute. Then to a floor with computers in tables surrounded by peg stools and with the use of headphones we played trivia games learning more facts about alcohol through trivia games and listening to stories about past alcohol experiences a group of college teens had had. I learned from this that back in the old days ladies in waiting were given 1 gallon of guiness for breakfast every morning as part of their rations. Also the best way to cure a hangover is a boiled egg, and the word honeymoon came from a gift given to a couple of honey alcohol and it lasted a month (for a full moon). Last but not least was going all the way up to the top and being able to see the whole city and drink our free pint of guiness.
The Dublin Castle was really neat and the tour guide (as I already said) just was so entertaining and really Irish to me because he had an accent, redheaded, and was a blast to listen to because of his jokes. We started the tour by walking up some stairs and looking at some tapestries- one had a deliberate mistake with a man’s feet being sewed on the wrong legs, and the crests of all the past Irish Presidents. This was neat to me because for the past 22 years the presidents have been women named Mary or as the tourguide put it “most Irish youth believe the president is always a woman named Mary- and that can’t change”. Then to a side room that had some chairs that had mothergoose rhymes stitched into them, and a beautiful view of the garden behind the palace that had bricks laid in it in a celtic symbol. A drawing room that was used by women during balls to relax, fix make-up, and adjust their petticoats. It was designed with mirrors all over the walls to help add light to the room because of the side of the building it is on and even mirrors close to the floor to help with petticoat readjustment as if your petticoat was loose so were your morals. The throne room and ballroom that had statues and a beautiful chandelier that had a lot of symbols intertwining English, Scottish and Irish rule. The St. Patrick’s ballroom actually had a tapestry in the middle done by an Italian that showed King Henry (some number) sitting on a throne at a battle scene with two women next to him. One represented the English people and the other the Irish people and the Irish one had a breast exposed showing the Irish people as submissive.
The building itself is set up with a huge inner courtyard in the middle and the reason is it was built around the old castle which was later destroyed by a huge fire in 1684. The Vikings lived on this piece of land first because it was defendable because three sides of it were surrounded by water from the River Liffey and another ancient river called the Puddle (it was fun to hear the tour guide say this word) that now has dried up. The Normans conquered the Vikings and built the ancient castle. They also built the walls of the city with the castle as the center and those that were allowed to life within the walls had to pay huge taxes but were secure from the wild bands that raided frequently- within the walls you received trade benefits. We got to go down and see the excavations they have been working on we saw the powder tower from the old castle which was where the armery and gunpowder was stored. They have done a composition analysis and found that the wall was of ox hair, horse blood, and egg shells. This tower was built so that interrupted the flow of the Puddle River and traders had to maneuver their boat through a gate around the tower and pull up alongside a wooden dock that was one of the only entrances to the castle and the gate and guards made it heavily guarded. These walls were over 800 years old and it is a miracle they could find them still after all these years.
The Museum
This was cool to me because it had so much history that I didn’t realize about the Irish I was entranced by the barracks first British and then Irish when they finally gained control of their land again. I learned a whole lot about the Irish and their seek for independence and how amazing it is they were always helping another country fight its battles and when those battles ended they would go back to Ireland just to fight a civil war to gain control of their own country. Some things that interested me (this museum was really interactive with lots of information being portrayed in a variety of ways- kept things interesting). When the barracks were under British control the soldiers were allowed to have spouses and the names for these women varied upon the rank of their husband. Officers had ladies, sargents had wives, soldiers had women. Also the militia solders tended to be catholic and the officers protestant.
Ireland well let’s see where do I even begin to describe Ireland lets start with when we first landed in this foreign country. My first glimpses of Ireland- and this never changed- was it’s color GREEN. It was really cold outside but always the grass and trees were all a beautiful green. We spent the majority of our 5 days in Ireland jumping around trying to see all the sights and jumping into pubs to keep warm. We walked every day and took in the St. Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin Cathedral, the Dublin castle (I loved it-and our tourguide was a redheaded college guy that had that wonderful Irish accent that is so fun to listen to) Trinity college, field hockey at St. Stephen’s Green, Bank of Ireland (outside of it a civil upheaval too place and you can still see the bullet holes in the stone walls that took so many lives, as well as go inside and see the old parliament chambers that was sold by the British to a company with one rule: it had to eliminate all remnants of the old Irish Parliament, somehow the chambers is still intact because it was use as a conference room and has some great displays), the national museum now in Collin’s Barracks (It was here that I learned I really knew nothing about Ireland and its wars), Chester Beatty library (which had a free tour of the ancient texts they have found of all the major religions in the world- the four apostles’ still in Hebrew well displayed and most were fragmented) Some really neat malls, around Parnell Sq., a pub crawl (that was done by two actors and they took us to pubs that famous Dublin writers sat in while writing their plays and books, and even a few pieces performed at trinity college and a cathedral along with the history behind all the places we were walking to) and of course the tour of the Guiness Brewery and Temple Bar to drink guiness and Bailey’s irish cream, as well as listen to the traditional music- Tard.
Wow there is just so much to talk about I am going to have to only talk about a few. The first is the Guiness Brewery which was actually a blast and I would never have gone if Brian didn’t insist. We had fun walking the floors seeing the huge displays of ingredients with facts like “the word beer is thought to have originated from the Anglo-Saxon word Baere meaning barley”, “At St. James’s Gate brewery guiness use 100,000 tonnes of Irish grown barley per year” and “water, barley, hops, and yeast, 5th ingredient Arthur”. We watched them make a cask by hand called coopering, and don’t use gages or rulers but a compass once for the lid. This certain brewery (St. James’s Gate) makes 200,000 pints every hour every week and I witness a guy push the button for batch number 3889, then sent out a picture of me at the factory to my parents, saw a ton of old guiness ads (did you know that they only used people who love guiness for every one of their ads- yeah so they have a lot of potential actors) my favorite ad was this one from 1970s that was about a race that these two brothers have every year. They are both late 60s and one brother swims the river liffey and the end of his journey when he hits a booey they start the clock and he has to swim to the shore and into this pub and hit the counter before a glass of guiness is poured, settled, and tipped off. A huge crowd is out watching this race and the brother that watches from a spy glass and starts the time clock describes that his brother always worrys he isn’t going to make it in time every year and he always assures him he will, and then you see that when the brother is about 15 meters from the booey he starts the clock always giving him the advantage. I thought I was cute. Then to a floor with computers in tables surrounded by peg stools and with the use of headphones we played trivia games learning more facts about alcohol through trivia games and listening to stories about past alcohol experiences a group of college teens had had. I learned from this that back in the old days ladies in waiting were given 1 gallon of guiness for breakfast every morning as part of their rations. Also the best way to cure a hangover is a boiled egg, and the word honeymoon came from a gift given to a couple of honey alcohol and it lasted a month (for a full moon). Last but not least was going all the way up to the top and being able to see the whole city and drink our free pint of guiness.
The Dublin Castle was really neat and the tour guide (as I already said) just was so entertaining and really Irish to me because he had an accent, redheaded, and was a blast to listen to because of his jokes. We started the tour by walking up some stairs and looking at some tapestries- one had a deliberate mistake with a man’s feet being sewed on the wrong legs, and the crests of all the past Irish Presidents. This was neat to me because for the past 22 years the presidents have been women named Mary or as the tourguide put it “most Irish youth believe the president is always a woman named Mary- and that can’t change”. Then to a side room that had some chairs that had mothergoose rhymes stitched into them, and a beautiful view of the garden behind the palace that had bricks laid in it in a celtic symbol. A drawing room that was used by women during balls to relax, fix make-up, and adjust their petticoats. It was designed with mirrors all over the walls to help add light to the room because of the side of the building it is on and even mirrors close to the floor to help with petticoat readjustment as if your petticoat was loose so were your morals. The throne room and ballroom that had statues and a beautiful chandelier that had a lot of symbols intertwining English, Scottish and Irish rule. The St. Patrick’s ballroom actually had a tapestry in the middle done by an Italian that showed King Henry (some number) sitting on a throne at a battle scene with two women next to him. One represented the English people and the other the Irish people and the Irish one had a breast exposed showing the Irish people as submissive.
The building itself is set up with a huge inner courtyard in the middle and the reason is it was built around the old castle which was later destroyed by a huge fire in 1684. The Vikings lived on this piece of land first because it was defendable because three sides of it were surrounded by water from the River Liffey and another ancient river called the Puddle (it was fun to hear the tour guide say this word) that now has dried up. The Normans conquered the Vikings and built the ancient castle. They also built the walls of the city with the castle as the center and those that were allowed to life within the walls had to pay huge taxes but were secure from the wild bands that raided frequently- within the walls you received trade benefits. We got to go down and see the excavations they have been working on we saw the powder tower from the old castle which was where the armery and gunpowder was stored. They have done a composition analysis and found that the wall was of ox hair, horse blood, and egg shells. This tower was built so that interrupted the flow of the Puddle River and traders had to maneuver their boat through a gate around the tower and pull up alongside a wooden dock that was one of the only entrances to the castle and the gate and guards made it heavily guarded. These walls were over 800 years old and it is a miracle they could find them still after all these years.
The Museum
This was cool to me because it had so much history that I didn’t realize about the Irish I was entranced by the barracks first British and then Irish when they finally gained control of their land again. I learned a whole lot about the Irish and their seek for independence and how amazing it is they were always helping another country fight its battles and when those battles ended they would go back to Ireland just to fight a civil war to gain control of their own country. Some things that interested me (this museum was really interactive with lots of information being portrayed in a variety of ways- kept things interesting). When the barracks were under British control the soldiers were allowed to have spouses and the names for these women varied upon the rank of their husband. Officers had ladies, sargents had wives, soldiers had women. Also the militia solders tended to be catholic and the officers protestant.
posted by Lauren Westling @ 4:04 AM
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