"Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it."-Eudora Welty
I spent the last few days on a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula, both pristine pieces of western Ireland. The best part: the weather here has been unusually beautiful! The past two days have been 65 and sunny! For Ireland in March this is really (really really really) unusual. Needless to say the country is going wild! I've never seen so many pairs of shorts for 65 degrees. There is this kind of neat/sort of odd celebration in "bad weather" countries when they get a piece of nice sunshine. The whole country joins in this awesome mood and celebrates together for a few days. Basically one big outdoor party!
I went on the trip with the International Society at NUIM. The International Society puts together trips, almost every other week, for any student interested at Maynooth. But because most of the trips are around Ireland and it is called the International Society, the trips are usually filled with students studying abroad. So at any time on the bus you could walk down the aisle to hear French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, English, and I'm sure a few others thrown in.
This week is packed. I got back from Killarney late last night and am turning around on Wednesday to head to Brussels, Belgium for a few days with the Mitchell Scholars. So I'm going to leave this post mainly to pictures. Brief run down-left on Thursday around noon for the five and a half hour drive. Made it to Killarney, the place we used as home base for the three days. Spent Friday on a day trip of the Ring of Kerry. Then Saturday on a day trip of the Dingle Peninsula. Sunday we had a free day in Killarney where I got to take in mass at St. Mary's Cathedral and spend some time soaking up the wonderful sunshine while reading outside.
Last bit before the pictures, Irish landscape is starting to all look the same to me. This shouldn't come as a major surprise, it is a small island so it makes sense there aren't major difference in landscape. But I'm also becoming immune to the beauty of it all which is the downside to being in anyone place for very long. So I fell victim to thinking that the Ring of Kerry sort of looked like everything else I have seen (especially the landscape around the Cliffs of Moher). However, the Dingle Peninsula switched it up a bit with more fishing villages and a greener hillside. This switch up made me partial and Dingle was my favorite stop of the trip.
The Ring of Kerry-hard to explain, but it refers to an area in southwestern Ireland. One of the favorite spots for tourists in Ireland who have rented a car because it can get pretty remote
Killarney National Park-Ring of Kerry. I take these solo shots everywhere I go. Cheesy yes, but my Mom likes them.
No Moroccan waves but nice for Ireland
(a few of my friends from the Morocco Surf Trip were on this trip as well so we impressed everyone by talking about the waves like we had a clue, I personally had no clue but just learned to use words like swell and sets from Blue Crush).
Homemade in Dingle, Ireland. With flavors like honeycomb and sea salt how could you not love Dingle, Ireland?
Dingle Harbor
I'll be back sometime next week with updates from Brussels! Enjoy your week!
Before I get to St. Patrick's Day, I've got to fill you in on something else first. I saw The Civil Wars on a few days ago in Dublin and I am still in a state of ecstatic giddiness from the concert. Hands down, one of the best live shows I've seen in a long time. It was intimate and had that sort of electric feel to it you only catch occasionally at shows. I used to get that feeling when I watched Dave Matthews Band live (shout out to Oak Grove High School, when Dave brought Warren Haynes on stage in Antioch...yall know what I'm talking about) but oh how times change. Thanks goodness. Back to the Civil Wars, they were so good live I can't listen to the album now. And their album is incredible!
Have a listen for yourself but GO see them if you get the chance!
The stuff they write is just as incredible, but I can't get enough of this cover
Then onto this weekend. There was this small celebration here in Ireland, you might have heard of it? St.Patrick's Day?
The celebration of St. Patrick's day across the US has left this as one of the biggest questions I get asked about when I tell Americans that I'm living in Ireland. Sorry to disappoint, but the Irish take on St. Patrick's is a little different than just the big drunken fest we expect at home. I would be doing you all an injustice if I didn't tell you this history (and this is where everyone stops reading) but I promise it won't be too long!
Well to begin with the day is a celebration of a patron saint. This might seem obvious by the name but I think its really easy to not think about when the green beer is flowing. Saint Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and is credited with bringing Christianity to the Emerald Isle. The story goes that Patrick was kidnapped from Wales by Irish slave dealers and kept in Ireland as a slave for several years. Upon his escape he returned to his family, joined the Catholic Church and then moved back to Ireland to spread the message of the Catholic Church throughout the island. There is some historical dispute, but he died in the middle of the 400s on what some have agreed to be March 17th.
*Just a quick side note, Patrick is probably the most popular of all Irish names. Every good Irish Catholic family has at least one Patrick and one Brid. Brigid of Kildare is another of Ireland's patron saints and Brid is the Irish version of Brigit or Brigid.
Back to March 17th...with the history as a saint's holiday the country often referred to as "the Pope's children"(much more historically than present) celebrates the day accordingly. St.Patrick's day for many Irish growing up and for a lot of families still today centers around mass attendance.
After mass many celebrate sort of like we would on July 4th, they spend the day with family and friends in homes or in small towns at the pub. The big celebration that happens in Dublin is used to promote Ireland and Irish culture. What that turns out to be is a lot of tourists and foreigners (think Mardi Gras, you can't keep a big party quiet for very long). There is a huge parade in the morning and then the see of green, orange, and white (the Irish tricolor) fill up all the local pubs in Dublin city center and spend the rest of the day drinking like the Irish. And this is largely why the actual Irish don't go to Dublin City Center on St.Patrick's Day.
Front of the USA Today-Dublin
The disappointing part of the parade: No Sweet Potato Queens....
I personally did a little bit of both. So I went into the city and watched some of the parade. Then a group of us rode out to Howth for a pub lunch and nice scenic walk. So a nice mix of tourist and local. Howth is a really cute, quaint fishing village just a 20 minute train ride North of Dublin.
Sorry to disappoint that I didn't have the wildest beer filled St. Patrick's day ever. I think my partying ways got left behind at Ole Miss. But I did have a really nice fun filled day! I hope all of yall had fun celebrating St.Patrick's wherever you were! Up next, I'm spending the end of this week traveling the Ring of Kerry in southwestern Ireland! Updates soon!
Cheers Yall!
chelsea
(please forgive the google images, I was hoping my camera would be in by St.Pattys and well it didn't quite make it. Good news-it is here now! So I won't bore you with anymore google images and I won't have to keep pestering my friends to be my photographer)
Fair warning, this post has nothing to do with Ireland…
While in Berlin, my friend Jess made the comment that all of her "cool" friends from Yale had moved South (some through TFA, some just because). We had a little bit of a chat about the evolution of southern culture: something that was once insular and shunned by the rest of the nation, into something now with a hip almost cult like status.
In the last post I spent a good bit of
a ramble talking about my connection to place, my sense of place and my
definition of a sense of place. All really vague ways of saying that I like a
certain type of culture. No surprise that how I define my sense of place fits pretty perfectly into a southern Americana context (surprisingly an Irish one in
a lot of ways as well, oh should I change the first line?). Anyway, these next few
random bits are in this similar thread of place. It probably seems like after two posts about my sense of place that I'm feeling homesick or that I am just spending all my time in my room thinking about MS and not experiencing Ireland. Trust me on this one, I'm doing alright. I’m actually feeling really good this semester. I’m just
having to create my own space to talk about these things since I no longer live in a place where these discussions happen just about everywhere (Barnard classrooms, Square Books porch, or Larry's patio with a beer in hand).
To create my own form of southern hipster, here are a few things that I've been lovin' on lately and thought you might enjoy them too!
For the ears…
Ryan Adams with Emmylou Harris-Oh My Sweet Carolina
I like to think of this as the musical version of Willie Morris' North Towards Home
The editor of OA gives some critique to the competition, Garden&Gun, but in the critique you hear the real conflict about modern southern culture. Great stuff!
From and for my soul (but I will share)…
missing my camera these days. it should be back in my hands very soon!
Caveny Barn, Kings Mountain, NC
missing summertime these days too! Luckily the weather is showing signs of promise here. It is staying lighter longer and we are seeing sunshine!
Last bit, Charter Schools in MS made the Huffington Post, the
state is close to raising our HOPS and Water Valley gets a big shout out in the New York Times! All this positive press adds to my theory about recent southern "coolness."
Don’t let the title fool you, I have mixed feelings about
Berlin. Since last summer, I’veheard over and over that Berlin is loved by all my friends who have ramblin’
ways. This praise comes from a wide range of friends with an even wider range of
tastes. I thought, “wow if all of these people love Berlin, how could I
not love Berlin?”
Sorry to disappoint, but the love wasn’t there. Maybe I set
my expectations too high and there is no city in the world that could compete
with what I was expecting? This could be a
possibility but I think more likely it was that my expectations were misplaced.
So with the little bit of traveling that I’ve been doing,
along with an awesome class that I am taking about how we define communities, I’ve
been doing some thinking about what I value in place.Because as most of you know, and you might be able to tell from
that blog post about how I vacation in the MS Delta, I am a person of place.
Sense of place is important to me.
It is easy to confuse my constant talk of MS with just an
abnormal amount of state pride. But I’ve come to realize more recently my attachment to place, and place based culture and history are things
that I like find myself attracted to, even when dropped around the World, say in a place like Ireland.You can never really answer questions like this, but I think my natural inclination to place isn't as much Mississippi as I once thought. Say if I had
grown up in West Virginia instead of Mississippi, I like to think I would still have an abnormal
amount of pride in my Appalatchian roots. Mississippi just happened to be a place that fostered and brought out this connection to place within me (honestly, West Virginia probably wasn't the best example because I think in this respect it is really similar to MS).
My reference to this idea of "sense of place" can often seem really vague. Here are some of the particulars that I keep returning to:
-more rural than
urban
-a distinct foodways, music scene or accent
- resident’s close connection to
the land
-the local history is acknowledged/promoted/taught
So the argument could be made that all cities, no matter the
size, have their own food, accent, music and history. Or the opposite that no
place really has these features anymore because of globalization. Both have a
bit of truth. But the last bit to my thoughts on place, is harder to quantify but can't be ignored. There is a sometimes
indescrible spirit to a place. Tough stuff to put into words, but I don’t want
to discount it. (These last few paragraphs are filled with problems, wholes and generalities when ti comes to this debate on place. I'm just going to leave all that to be fleshed out in the halls of Barnard Observatory).
That turned into a bit of a ramble but I think it helps
explain why Berlin wasn’t my city. Berlin has some really cool things going for
it. Incredible museums being the top of the list! It is clean and has great
public transit. And from what I can tell, loved by most people.
For me, the buildings just felt too big.It all just felt big. And while there
is this acknowledgement of the dramatic history of the city, mainly through the
wide range of museums, that history felt really removed from the actual people
of Berlin. The museums are for tourists and they are curated by people from around
the World.
To be fair, I didn’t spend time with local residents. I
didn’t eat at their favorite restaurant, or hear about a community oral history
project or even see the up and coming band of Berlin. I’m sure all of these
things exist. I'm sure if a Berlin resident read this post and my made-up list of place definition they would have a serious bone to pick with me.
Last point so I don't seem so harsh, this is the first point where
I have really critiqued a city. My other travel posts usually just include a
run through of the events (which is soon to come) but I think my thinking about
place means that I should be more honest about what I like and don’t like while traveling. (I almost feel bad critiquing things in a city, like the city itself has feelings and I'm going to hurt them. Maybe this idea of place has gone too far....)
Despite what above sounds like me being a Debbie Downer, the
weekend was fun. Jess and I (the photog that you hear so much about)
successfully navigated our way through a weekend filled public transit
riding and days spent with heads cocked to the side looking at museum exhibits.
"Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall!" at the Brandenburg Gate
And no, I do not know the guy posing at the bottom of the picture
Checkpoint Charlie
One of the highlights was getting to visit the Berlin Jewish Museum on a private tour with the lead curator. This is one of those times when
having cool friends really pays off (despite the fact that everyday you get to
have a cool friend). Really random part about our tour. Our tour guide’s father
was born in Berlin, immigrated to Cuba and then somehow ended up in Vicksburg,
MS. Small World. (if I can get in a bit about MS everywhere I go this semester
I think I might have a new skill to add to my resume. Chelsea Caveny: Spotter
of All Things MS Around the World)
The Pergamon Museum. The most visited museum in Berlin and one of the cooler things I've seen within a museum. They have huge rooms that house antiquities. This is part of a gate of Babylon pieced back together. My snap and shoot camera doesn't really do justice to the size and detail of the gate...
Reichstag: home of the German parliament. HUGE! Just plain ol BIG
pieces from the Berlin wall that have been moved to the site of the Berlin Wall Memorial
For all the Berlin lovers, sorry to disappoint. I learned a
lot and had a good weekend! But I’m not giving it high marks as my favorite
city.
Next up, a week without travel to work on class assignments
and reading. Really living on the edge.
I’m listening to this while writing this post. Maybe this
explains my need to get very southern studies and explain my feelings on place?
So you got the background, here goes a run through of a really busy weekend!
I headed up to Belfast on Wednesday afternoon from Dublin with three other Mitchells. We caught a bus and in just two and a half hours we were in a new country! While there are no passport checks at a border (the ease of violence in the north has helped this happen), you do have to use Northern Irish pounds instead of the Irish Euro. So that can be a pain.
We started off the weekend with dinner at Made in Belfast on
Wednesday night. Basically we ate in an Anthropologie store, which is just
cool. With an early morning we started out Thursday with breakfast in our hotel
(swanky and cool, the Fitzwilliam) with Eammon Mallie and Martina Purdy, both local journalists. They gave us some good background and general insight into the conflict and how it is being handled in 2012. At breakfast we heard a tone and themes that we would continue to return to throughout the
weekend, truth and reconciliation and complexity.
Then we moved on to tour Stormont. The piece of property
where the Northern Irish Assembly meet as well as where the executive is
housed. After a brief tour of the
parliament buildings we made our way to Stormont Castle to meet the First
Minister of Northern Ireland Peter Robinson leader of the DUP party and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness leader of Sinn Fein (both of these links give some insight into the critiques of both politicians). After brief introductions our group got to ask a few questions. In true power sharing style, each question got a response of some sort from both men. One of the interesting pieces brought up was support by both men to turn the former Maze prison (where most paramilitary served their time) into a reconciliation center. And just out today, a little more on that.
We ended by stepping outside for a quick photo (which I will eventually find somewhere and post).
Northern Irish Assembly
Stormont Castle-Home to the NI Executive
After our time at Stormont we headed to the famous Crown Pub for lunch where we met with two scholars from Queens University who both work with former paramilitary members. After lunch we headed to the Prostestant neighborhood of Sandy Row to talk with former members of the UDA. This was the most moving part of the day. While we all sat listening, the weight of the past weighed heavy on the men as they told us their stories. It was an important reminder how time and place define us all.
Unfortunately our chat with the former paramilitary members was one sided. While the men we talked to were very fair and talked openly about how both sides were at fault, it would have been neat to hear from former IRA members. Talking with former IRA paramilitary is currently a tricky situation. There is a major issue of trust at the moment due to a case with Boston College.
We ended our jam packed day with a reception at the home of the US Consul in Northern Ireland. The reception was great and not like what would be expected from a state department reception. It was laid back and casual and almost felt like a night in college at a professor's home.
Friday was filled with more history as we took a tour of the murals of Belfast and listened to a lecture from Pete Shirlow on post-Troubles Belfast. Two interesting things happened in relation to Mississippi. First, we met Catherine Clinton at lunch. She is a historian who focuses on the American South and I read a few of her books in undergrad. With her focus on the American South it is a natural fit that she has friends at Ole Miss. Then we spent the night at a literature reading hosted by Queen's University. We heard from three different poets and Stuart Neville, a crime writer. After the readings our group posed the question about places of conflict and their role in defining identity. In the course of that conversation Stuart Neville mentioned Tom Franklin and Crooked Letter Crooked Letter. (they share the same agent) I also owe Neville a thanks, because his novel is where I stole the title for these blog posts. The Ghosts of Belfast is an easy read that combines suspense along with some historical fiction. If you don't mind some violence, I recommend picking it up.
These Mississippi connections were surprising but there were some deeper similarities with Mississippi and Belfast that I suspected I might find when I visited. Belfast is a city where place means a lot. It can determine your safety, but on a larger scale every piece of your identity. I often feel a similar way about Mississippi. It can be all encompassing over personal identity. They are also both places where the past is in a delicate balance. Both places have made lots of progress from their past, but at times it seems to be in question (just out today on this issue in Belfast). I'm still fleshing out all my ideas on how they are related, so I'll get back to you on this more eloquently at some point (also when I don't have lots of reading for class).
To finish off the weekend we spent Saturday driving to Giant's Causeway on the coast and finally over to Derry for a Saturday night showing of Carthaginians. Carthaginians follows a group that live in a graveyard awaiting the rising of the dead and all haunted by personal tragedies along with the tragedy surrounding Bloody Sunday. Sunday was spent in Derry with a quick tour then back to all of our respective homes across the island.
Giant's Causeway
It was a busy busy weekend but I learned so much interesting stuff! Next up, I'm off to Berlin! More updates to come soon!
This weekend I got to head up to the north of Ireland for
the third installment of “official” Mitchell bonding. Our long weekend focused
on teaching us about a more modern history of Ireland, one that defines
Northern Irish politics and culture…"The Troubles." I think "The Troubles" is the perfect name for what happened in Northern Ireland. It denotes that something bad went down but it has an air of mystery to it and as you will see and as I'm learning the complexity of the violence does leave you with the question sometimes that is at the core of most murder-mysteries, "who done it?" I’m going to break this post up into two parts because I learned a lot but mainly because I've taken the liberty of turning this blog into my own personal classroom (and now the drop in site hits makes so much sense...). This first one will be more context and history and
the next one will be a run through of the weekend. In general, thanks for
reading!
Here is the history of Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland means the 6 counties in the north part of the island, which have been one of the four countries of the UK since 1921) in the past 50 years condensed into a few paragraphs. I can only imagine the horror if some of the scholars I met this weekend happened to read this. Luckily, I think my three fans are in Mississippi.
Here is a breakdown of terms. You should be scared, there will be a quiz later.
Catholic, Nationalists, Republicans: want to see a united Ireland where they feel that the Roman Catholic Irish identity will be respected
Paramilitaries: IRA (Irish Republican Army: The Official and Provisional, by the mid-70s the provos as they are often known is the group we are most likely talking about)
Political Parties: Sinn Fein (political wing of IRA), SDLP (Social Democratic and Labor Party)
Sinn Fein's current office in West Belfast on Falls Road with the mural of Bobby Sands on the side of the building. Sands was a member of the IRA and died in jail while on Hunger Strike. In 1981 IRA members in prison took on a hunger strike campaign to demand rights as a political prisoner instead of classification as a regular prisoner. Political prisoner status leaves certain freedoms like being able to wear your own clothes, but the strikes stood for much more than just getting to wear a jumper (what we would call a sweatshirt or hoodie).
Protestant, Unionists, Loyalists: want to stay a part of the union of the UK, feel that identity as an Ulster Scot Protestant is central to this part of the island, and in later times that the UK is a better home than Ireland
Paramilitaries: UDA (Ulster Defense Association) and UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters were the name used by UDA under violent attacks) and UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force)
Political Parties: DUP (Democratic Unionist Party), Ulster Unionist Party, and smaller Progressive Unionist Party (linked to UVF) and Ulster Political Research Group (linked to UDA)
Belfast is a city geographically divided by religion and allegiance. All of the neighborhoods take up markings to denote what sort of area you are entering and often to promote community pride. While many of the murals have changed drastically over the years and there is a push to have them all promote peace, some still remain. Like this one on Sandy Row, a well known Loyalist area.
The third party of conlfict in this is the state itself. The British Troops and police (RUC-Royal Ulster Constabularty) are often cited as instigators of violence or perpertrators themselves. They also get equal criticism from both sides. Just because one group is classified as loyalists and unionists does not mean they are uniformally pro-British.
I'll say this once, but I feel like I should be saying it after I write any line for this post. Every bit of this conflict is complicated. Within the Catholic v. Protestant conflict there are really high levels of in-fighting and feuds kill just as many as actual fighting between paramilitaries. There is also a class element present. Most of the actual violence and deaths take place in very working class neighborhoods. Then probably the most complicated part to put into words, identity. From the outside you wonder, why are neighbors killing neighbors? But I think at the core of this conflict and most others, there is a sense of deep rooted identity with certain sides. People define themselves based around the conflict and that sort of identification can often be the biggest barrier to peace. Last bit on this line of complexity, language is really important and tricky when talking about Northern Ireland. For decades people were causious of how they choose words because it could get them killed. And now in talking about the conflict, it also can show your side of bias. A great example, some might call the men of the IRA freedom fighters while calling the men of the UFF terrorists. And vice versa.
So here goes a paragraph to explain a complicated history...
The Civil Rights Movement led by Catholics (former post on Derry helps to explain this some) began to
demand civil rights for full and equal citizenship within
Northern Irish society. This is highly debateable, but many would agree that
when they didn’t get those basic rights from the government, they were pushed
into the hands of more radical and violent forces. The IRA emerge (not for the first time, but that’s another piece of Irish
history) to bring what they see as an end to an unjust occupying government (the British) and to use,
sometimes violent and deadly means to bring about a united island of Ireland. The
response to this was that the UVF (also not a new organization) along with the
UDA originate to protect mainly Protestant neighborhoods and then form more
militant paramilitary wings. The
bottom line is that through the 1970s, 80s and 90s Northern Ireland is a
violent place with what I would call an incredibly complicated civil war taking
place in working class neighborhoods. This time of violence is referred to as "The Troubles." And while the count varies, at the end of the violence over 3,000 people were dead. An incredibly important piece of this period of history is that the self-government of Northern Ireland is abolished in 1973 by the British Government (their reasoning being the excessive violence) and Northern Ireland becomes a place of direct rule (this also helps reason why the British troops had such a part in the conflict).
Flash forward 20 years and the tides slowly begin to change. In 1994 Sinn Fein calls a ceasefire and for the first time talks begin to move towards a peace agreement. The US seriously invested in the idea of Northern Irish peace and Senator George Mitchell (cough, cough) becomes part of the negotiating team.
By 1998 the peace agreement is signed. The agreement signed on Good Friday and officially titled the Belfast Agreement is more often known by the day it was signed. The agreement includes a lot of pieces, so I'm going to do the easy route and direct you to wikipedia. The important part to note is that a power sharing government was established and Sinn Fein officially entered into the Northern Irish Assembly.
So there you go. Conflict in Northern Ireland in a blog post. For the few of your that made it through all of that and are actually reading this last line, I commend you! And remember this is all "according to Chelsea" so if you are really interested this stuff check out some other sources. Here are a few to get general ideas... BBC CAIN Northern Ireland After the Troubles-(which one of my professors edited)
I spent my weekend on the west coast of Ireland in the great city of Galway!
When telling people I was moving to Ireland (especially my gaggle of girlfriends), there was one comment/question that emerged above all the others. Everyone always made reference to the movie PS I Love You. I had never seen the movie, so on a lonely night in the fall (I guess I hadn't made friends yet) I watched it. Umm, it's alright? I wasn't really enamored with it.
The one part of the movie I like...the use of Steve Earle and Sharon Shannon's song, Galway Girl.
Since the movie, every American girl coming to study for a semester blares Galway Girl on her ipod the entire way over dreaming about the cute Irish boy she is going to meet. This doesn't give the song the best reputation with the Irish. Let's just say it's not a song I would request down at Brady's Pub on a Saturday night. However, I am still sort of a tourist and sometimes, just sometimes, my sorority girl ways get the best of me. So I love it! Cheesiness aside, Steve Earle is a great American songwriter and I support most things where his name is attached.
I say all that about this song and movie because it can set the mood for you of my weekend.
Galway is a hip city. Dublin sits on the east of Ireland with its couple million people and its never ending expanse of suburbs. Galway is the antithesis. A college town of about 75,000, Galway is the only major city on the very rural west coast. It has a really lively art and music scene (all helped by the fact it is a college town) and in a way, Galway still knows itself.
The critique many have of Dublin is that it is any city. The stereotypical expectations of Ireland aren't within Dublin. Sure there are pubs and the Guinness Storehouse but for the most part it is a big city (and has all the problems that come with that). Galway has retained some of those easily definable traits of Ireland (most things are locally owned, colorful pubs, outside of town is an expanse of rolling green).
We were lucky enough to get to stay with a fellow Mitchell scholar who was nice enough to let us take over her perfectly located apartment for the weekend (she shares the apartment with another Mitchell scholar but he happened to be away at a wedding). On Friday night my traveling buddies and myself wandered around downtown Galway and enjoyed a few pints. Then we headed off to see our hostess with the most-ess in a play (which was great!). We finished off the night with a really late delicious dinner at a french restaurant.
On Saturday we woke up for a day trip out to the Cliffs of Moher. You might remember if you read the blog carefully that I went to the Cliffs already with my mom and aunt. But we had absolutely terrible weather on our first trip. I guess my luck turned around this time because we had the best weather that western Ireland has seen all year!
(good news: my camera will be back in my hands in Ireland very soon. Bad news: it might mean less of these incredible pictures from my stand-in photog Jess Moldovan)
(Galway Travelers: Dave and Jess
lil side tid bit, you can just step over a small wall and walk right up to the edge of the cliffs. And they wonder how a dozen or so people die there a year?)
We also took a different tour than the one we took back in November. This tour was nice because we got the chance to stop off at a local farm and have a brief hike up a mountain in their backyard. For not being very high up, it had some incredible views.
(coolest part, I got to carry a hiking stick)
After our long day of exploring, we headed back to Galway for a yummy tapas dinner and a few pints. I've long had a complaint about Irish drinking culture that it is dangerous (well in a couple different ways) because of the dependence on glass. I will often wake up in the morning to walk to class and the walk ways between the dorms is littered with broken glass. Pints and bottles are the norm here. Long story short, it just makes for a big ol' nasty mess. One of the many things I loved about Galway is they addressed this problem by putting plastic cups at every bar exit. You can bring your drink outside (this isn't MS, drinks outside are pretty normal everywhere) but you have to put it in a plastic cup first. Simple stuff, but makes for a world of difference. Made it feel a little bit like New Orleans...
And in the spirit of New Orleans, I woke up Sunday morning to catch Mass at the Galway Cathedral. One of my goals for this semester is to get to mass more often. The Galway Cathedral is beautiful and one of the biggest, so I thought it was a good start. Ireland is no longer the monolithic catholic country that is once was, but surprisingly on Sunday there was not a seat open in the Cathedral (and there were several masses throughout the day). However, upon closer look it made a little more sense. I was one of the few people in the entire place not over 55 or under 5. The loosening of Catholic Ireland is easiest to witness generationally. All that being said, I really glad I went. There is something really comforting about walking into a church around the world and it all feeling familiar. Feels a little bit like home...
(I stole this picture of the inside of Galway Cathedral off of google, but I promise it is real and really this beautiful)
Up this week I'm meeting with an Irish senator, traveling to rural county Mayo for a protest, and reading a great fictional book (that I might get to meet the author of) about the conflict in northern Ireland. Updates will soon follow!
