Monday, November 14, 2011

Castles and Capitals 2: Dublin and County Clare

The next few posts concern my mid-semester break during the week of October 22nd through the 30th, during which we took a grand tour of the British Isles via capitals Dublin, Cardiff, and London!

Our first day was Saturday the 22nd, when we hopped on a plane out of the country to Dublin. After a little hour long jaunt over the ocean we finally saw our first glimpse of the brilliantly green Irish countryside as we landed, and in the airport we exchanged our pounds for colorful Irish euro notes and bought expensive airport bagels to break them into change (the Irish euro coins have a very graceful little harp on the back). There was our first taste of rain while we waited for the bus (little did we know what was to come) and after a trip into town we somehow managed to get off at the correct stop and found ourselves right outside the hostel. That night was mercifully dry and so we explored the Temple Bar area just near our place, a popular and fun night atmosphere where I enjoyed a dinner of Irish stew in an upstairs pub with friends and later got gelato down the street. We stopped in for some good live music before continuing our exploration along the River Liffey, taking pictures of gorgeous, columned buildings lit up from the ground, and the harp-like Beckett Bridge. When I think of Dublin now I remember how lively, urban, and relaxed the city seemed that first night. 
Temple Bar at night

Bank of Ireland

Samuel Beckett Bridge

The River Liffey

The next day, Sunday, we enjoyed a nice hostel breakfast and took a walk out of the main city centre towards what my Dublin map dictates as the “cathedral district.” I walked in the shadow of the impressive St. Patrick’s cathedral and saw the exterior of Christ Church before a few of us moved on to Dublin Castle. After picking up some souvenirs we took the tour of the beautiful state rooms and the impressive hall where Ireland’s presidential inaugurations take place! 
The bells of St. Patrick's were ringing when we arrived! Interestingly, it is an Anglican church now.

Me in the area outside Dublin Castle

A room inside the castle

Irish license plates are very long! See the Gaelic above the numbers?
Above the door to the chapel area

After lunch at an American 50’s themed cafĂ©, we took a guided walk through Trinity College, an old and beautiful campus right in the middle of the capital. The system of governance (formed in some part in the 1600s) and some of the college traditions (see my extra note on Commons* at the end of this post) struck me as something I would read about in a piece of 19th century literature about boy’s boarding schools (the official name of the school alone is very telling: The Provost, Fellows and Scholars of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin would not fit tidily on a hoodie). Nevertheless, I enjoyed seeing another UK university campus, and especially enjoyed the old library, which contained an exhibit about the Book of Kells and the beautiful book itself! The old library also housed the “Long Room,” a gorgeous and staggeringly tall collection of old books under a dark, rounded ceiling. 
A view of the city

The bell tower on the campus at Trinity College Dublin is supposed to be bad luck for students to walk under; our student guide certainly believed it and walked around to meet us on the other side!

Lovely buildings in the city
It is important to note that we were absolutely soaked through the entire day, and that strong winds rendered our umbrellas useless for the most part, but the worst was yet to come…

The next day, a few of us in the group decided to take a day-long trip with a tour company across the country to see the Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland’s most popular attractions and an amazingly beautiful landscape. Our day began with a nice view of the Irish countryside (traveling from coast to coast took about 2 and a half hours) and eventually we made our way through The Burren, a rocky landscape in County Clare. From a distance I thought the hills all around were covered with a sort of bluish heather or other flora, but it turned out to be a mosaic of stone! Our bus driver explained the impossibility of growing crops on the land and the efforts farmers took to remove the rock, which ended up being reused for the stone walls snaking up and down the hills around us. We had our own experience on an Irish farm, as the tour included a nice walk through the speckly Burren Mountains behind the Connolly family home, where we ended up at the end for some pie and tea. From the higher parts of the walk I could see the coast past a wide, misty plain, complete with an old church ruin and wintry little trees. 
Panorama of the view from the walk

The family that owned the farm had a cute dog!


This hill is not covered in some kind of tree or grass- look close and you can see all the small rocks!

Our tour continued on from the farm past a captivating countryside and coastline, with mist, castle towers, abandoned stone barns overrun with rich greenery, and strange rock formations protruding through the grass. We stopped at an ancient structure called a “portal tomb” dating from around 4200 BC (older than Stonehenge!) that stood in solitude amongst a whole field of jigsaw-like rocks underfoot. 


A cute donkey in Doolin
We stopped to eat in a small town called Doolin before arriving at the much anticipated Cliffs of Moher! I could instantly see why they cause such a fuss, and we explored the trail as far along the cliff as we could in the time allowed to see as much as possible of the towering, emerald green layers of cliffs and the pretty blue ocean. The little O’Brien’s Tower added a castle-like flair to the view.

O'Brien's Tower is the small dot on the left-hand side of the cliff. We walked over there as well

Friends!



Our bus driver serenaded us with traditional Irish songs to and from an unscheduled stop that I lamentably cannot find a name for, but what I believe I overheard referred to as “mini cliffs” still part of the larger Cliffs of Moher. The rock formations near the coast were flat as pavement, but with massive cracks, and I felt like I was hopping around on the top of a flaky brownie. It was a lot of fun and we explored the coast gleefully until we were called to leave.




We stopped for a quick bite in Galway before catching a transfer bus home as the sun set. For a while all was peaceful until our driver informed us that due to severe rain, we might not be able to drive back into the city! Courtesy of free wi-fi provided on board the bus, I was able to look up the situation in Dublin: the capital had received a month’s worth of rain in 24 hours! Streets, houses, even buses were flooding, and I overheard locals on board calling friends for information about the state of their lodgings (one gentleman’s flat was flooded, and he decided with a laugh just to ride the bus back to Galway- the Irish were very easygoing). On our way to a stop at the airport I caught a glimpse of cars abandoned in the water-logged streets, and the River Liffey looked decidedly swollen when we were walking back to our hostel, but luckily there was no trouble making it back for the night before an early start in the morning to Cardiff, Wales.

A very nice little castle on the drive home
My time in Ireland was very brief, but I really enjoyed both the vibe of Dublin and the calm of the countryside and hope sometime to make it to other parts of the country as well! Perhaps next time the rain will lay low – I don’t think my shoes will ever be the same again.

The next part of my trip began on October the 25th, a bright and sunny day in Wales!







*From the Trinity College Dublin website for “Scholars,” or university students who have passed a series of examinations that entitle them to free room and board: “Commons is a three-course meal served each weekday in the Dining Hall on campus. It has been around for centuries, and was originally attended by almost all of the College population where they might meet and discuss ideas. Before and after Commons, one of the Scholars gets up and recites a traditional Grace, in Latin, from memory.” We definitely don’t have anything like this at Washington State, let alone Stirling!

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