Sorry folks, this is a painfully awkward internet set-up. I'll get the text up now and go back for more picture posts when I can (That's the Hill of Tara in the picture).
6 June 2007 10:50 am
This morning we're on a train from Dublin to Cork. It's supposed to take just under three hours so I should be able to package up all the postings I've written over the last three days and get them on the blog.
We booked a rental car in Cork to pick up today before we left. We are now back on schedule. The two or three days we lost due to the airline screw-up turned Dublin into a bit of a mad scramble. As I mentioned previuosly, we had a few hours Sunday night to explore the city and then spent the bank holiday Monday on a tour of Tara Hill and Newgrange. That made sense as a lot of the museums were closed. That left one day, Tuesday as our chance to see all the sights.
One good piece of advice we got from our tour book was to use the hop-on hop-off double decker bus to get around. They came by every ten minutes so it was very handy and Dublin's sights are clustered in a pretty small area.
(Side note: they've just advised that a cart will be along to serve snacks, beverages and minerals. Can't wait to see what the minerals are)
We saw the book of Kells which came with a tour of the college by a Phd student of Medeival History. The exhibit that they built around it though was facinating and covered all the history, art and technology that went into making the book. It made looking at the 2 small pages open that day seem anti-climactic).
We then went to see Christ Church Cathedral and an adjoining exhibit caled Dublinia. Dublinia was a good multimedia presentation on Viking and Medieval Dublin. Vikings founded Dublin as a trading port in 879 AD and were in charge until the Anglo-Normans under Strongbow defeated them about a century later. I learned that Irish slaves were sold by Vikings around the known world and
that as a result, they have a lot of genetic similarities to the people of Iceland, Russia and other places today.
From there we went to Kilmainham Gaol. As prisons go, it was a model of penal reform for the year it was built (in the 1790's). A large piece was also added about 50 years later which looks exactly like the old Don Jail with it's huge central rotunda of cells. It was all about the ability to see every cell from any one vantage point.
For the Irish though, this prison was the centre of British oppression. Three uprisings in 120 years were crushed and the leaders brought here for imprisonment, transportation to Australia or execution. It was the heavyhanded response to the 1916 rebellion (10 executions by firing squad on the prison grounds) that provoked revulsion throughout Ireland and created the right political environment to successfully push for independance. Once free of the British, the Irish then went into a violent civil war and the prison saw more executions before being closed for good in 1924. Names of the leaders of the uprisings were posted above their cells and the Gaol is the place the Irish go to see where their country was born. I could see school groups going around being taught about the founders of a free Ireland.
At that point we'd had our fill of walking and learning and were too bushed to even hit the pubs. It's too bad we did't get the five day's we'd planned to stay here. On the other hand, I'm really looking forward to getting out of the cities for a while and slowing down in the countryside.
(A long write-up on Irish politics follows, skip it if you want to move on to more travel stuff)
We have come to Ireland at a historic juncture. With Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley in the same government, there is a belief that peace is now a likely in the long term. While we were on our tour bus to Newgrange, our tour guide, Mary Gibbon, kept us entertained with the history of Ireland from the stone age to present. It was excellent and in depth so I'm sure she had given this presesntation hundreds of times. She also talked about how, when the Republic of Ireland was desparately poor, there was never was never really any desire by the North (even among the catholics there) for uniting with an economic basket case. Now that the "Celtic tiger" economy is booming, the people of Northern Ireland are warming to a political alignment with the South as a way to be integrated into the EU more fully. Paving the way to the current peace was a declaration by UK saying that they had no long term interests in Ireland. Similarly the epublic of Ireland held a national plebiscite where they agreed to amend their constitution to remove their claim to the whole of Ireland. Whichever way it goes now, it will be a product of discussion rather than combat.
Then Mary read us an article from a local paper. It was an editorial which was encouraging the Irish people to look to the Scots-Irish protestants of the North not as enemies, but as a people with a heritage and character that were a valuable contribution to Ireland as a whole. It spoke approvingly of the fierce independance of the Scots Irish that had transformed America (Many of the founders, 17 US presidents and the bulk of the pioneers who pushed into the west were Scots Irish). These were people who needed to be recognized not as foriegners planted here by the English, but part of the fabric of Ireland in their own right. It seems as though she, and others are adjusting themselves to the idea that an Ireland of the future was going to include everyone.
This morning we're on a train from Dublin to Cork. It's supposed to take just under three hours so I should be able to package up all the postings I've written over the last three days and get them on the blog.
We booked a rental car in Cork to pick up today before we left. We are now back on schedule. The two or three days we lost due to the airline screw-up turned Dublin into a bit of a mad scramble. As I mentioned previuosly, we had a few hours Sunday night to explore the city and then spent the bank holiday Monday on a tour of Tara Hill and Newgrange. That made sense as a lot of the museums were closed. That left one day, Tuesday as our chance to see all the sights.
One good piece of advice we got from our tour book was to use the hop-on hop-off double decker bus to get around. They came by every ten minutes so it was very handy and Dublin's sights are clustered in a pretty small area.
(Side note: they've just advised that a cart will be along to serve snacks, beverages and minerals. Can't wait to see what the minerals are)
We saw the book of Kells which came with a tour of the college by a Phd student of Medeival History. The exhibit that they built around it though was facinating and covered all the history, art and technology that went into making the book. It made looking at the 2 small pages open that day seem anti-climactic).
We then went to see Christ Church Cathedral and an adjoining exhibit caled Dublinia. Dublinia was a good multimedia presentation on Viking and Medieval Dublin. Vikings founded Dublin as a trading port in 879 AD and were in charge until the Anglo-Normans under Strongbow defeated them about a century later. I learned that Irish slaves were sold by Vikings around the known world and
that as a result, they have a lot of genetic similarities to the people of Iceland, Russia and other places today.
From there we went to Kilmainham Gaol. As prisons go, it was a model of penal reform for the year it was built (in the 1790's). A large piece was also added about 50 years later which looks exactly like the old Don Jail with it's huge central rotunda of cells. It was all about the ability to see every cell from any one vantage point.
For the Irish though, this prison was the centre of British oppression. Three uprisings in 120 years were crushed and the leaders brought here for imprisonment, transportation to Australia or execution. It was the heavyhanded response to the 1916 rebellion (10 executions by firing squad on the prison grounds) that provoked revulsion throughout Ireland and created the right political environment to successfully push for independance. Once free of the British, the Irish then went into a violent civil war and the prison saw more executions before being closed for good in 1924. Names of the leaders of the uprisings were posted above their cells and the Gaol is the place the Irish go to see where their country was born. I could see school groups going around being taught about the founders of a free Ireland.
At that point we'd had our fill of walking and learning and were too bushed to even hit the pubs. It's too bad we did't get the five day's we'd planned to stay here. On the other hand, I'm really looking forward to getting out of the cities for a while and slowing down in the countryside.
(A long write-up on Irish politics follows, skip it if you want to move on to more travel stuff)
We have come to Ireland at a historic juncture. With Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley in the same government, there is a belief that peace is now a likely in the long term. While we were on our tour bus to Newgrange, our tour guide, Mary Gibbon, kept us entertained with the history of Ireland from the stone age to present. It was excellent and in depth so I'm sure she had given this presesntation hundreds of times. She also talked about how, when the Republic of Ireland was desparately poor, there was never was never really any desire by the North (even among the catholics there) for uniting with an economic basket case. Now that the "Celtic tiger" economy is booming, the people of Northern Ireland are warming to a political alignment with the South as a way to be integrated into the EU more fully. Paving the way to the current peace was a declaration by UK saying that they had no long term interests in Ireland. Similarly the epublic of Ireland held a national plebiscite where they agreed to amend their constitution to remove their claim to the whole of Ireland. Whichever way it goes now, it will be a product of discussion rather than combat.
Then Mary read us an article from a local paper. It was an editorial which was encouraging the Irish people to look to the Scots-Irish protestants of the North not as enemies, but as a people with a heritage and character that were a valuable contribution to Ireland as a whole. It spoke approvingly of the fierce independance of the Scots Irish that had transformed America (Many of the founders, 17 US presidents and the bulk of the pioneers who pushed into the west were Scots Irish). These were people who needed to be recognized not as foriegners planted here by the English, but part of the fabric of Ireland in their own right. It seems as though she, and others are adjusting themselves to the idea that an Ireland of the future was going to include everyone.
2 comments:
Love the writing!. Which I were there. BTW, my niece, Amber, who has been living in Ireland, will be at Jeri's going away party. You'll be able to swap stories! Some of my sisters, have been there, too and they will also be at the party.
Hey barb it's Chris!
I just cannot get enough of pic's from Ireland. Do you have any one in black and white?
When I went there to see our relatives in Waterford with my father and brother, I took tons of black and white shots of the old burned out castles and churches. The look was just what I wanted!
Good to hear that the hammers in the engines were found and you guys made it safe and sound.
Cheers Chris
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