Sunday, January 26, 2014

Maté a Tim en Dublin

January 3, 2014

The 3rd was the day I had been waiting for for awhile and I was so anxious. I got up early, got ready, ate breakfast, and left for the airport. I got there pretty early and I had to sit there and watch all of these families and friends welcome people coming out from behind the sliding doors. I definitely got tears in my eyes a few times before seeing my boyfriend, Tim. Once I knew that his plane had landed, my anxiety just got worse. However, my anxiety was relieved briefly when I saw a little boy walking through the door with (I'm assuming) his mom pushing his Spiderman wheelchair. The little boy had a huge group of people waiting for him with signs and Spiderman balloons (clearly he liked Spiderman) and it appeared that he was coming back from therapy or surgery or something, but that was a really cool moment to witness. Then, finally it was my turn. Tim came out from behind the doors and I swear he was the last person off of his plane. I couldn't wait to give him a hug and I was so happy to have him there. We said our hellos and then boarded a bus back to the city center. We stopped by at my hostel to pick up my luggage and then checked into the hotel. Then, we ate lunch at a small café and met for a free walking tour at 1 p.m. Thank you, Sandemans for providing awesome free walking tours across Europe (and in New York and Israel? ha).

We had an awesome tour guide named Chris and he took us to the first stop which was the castle (which isn't really a castle). It was however the seat for British rule for many many years and it is now an Irish government building as well as the place where special guests stay when they are in Dublin. For example, Obama and Queen Elizabeth both visited Dublin in May 2011 and apparently had a big impact on Ireland. One, because they got a lot of publicity. And two, Queen Elizabeth was the first person from the Royal family to visit Ireland in 100 years and since it had separated from Great Britain. By the way, I really didn't realize how bad the relation was in between Britain and Ireland, but boy was it bad. I guess I should've known since they had rule over Ireland for many years. Anyway, her visit was very memorable and symbolic for the present day relations between Ireland and Britain. She apparently gave a speech about their relations and she started her speech speaking in Irish, which was amazing to those from Ireland. Also, she visited memorial sites for those who fought and died fighting for their freedom against the British. So, long story short. They were important visits for Ireland. Also, ever since Kennedy, apparently the Irish find U.S. presidents pretty cool and I'm sure they think that even more after Obama's visit because he supposedly got drunk there. I even saw a billboard of him with a Guinness in his hand. Ha. Anyway, he also mentioned the amount of people that claim they are Irish in the U.S. There are more Irish people in New York City than there is in Dublin.
Dublin Castle
Our next stop was a garden that was right behind the castle. Dublin was founded by the Vikings and the name comes from the Irish word Dubhlinn meaning "black pool." Why this castle garden is important to that story is because the garden sits on top of what used to be the Black Pool, which the River Poddle flowed into, which also filled the castle moat and supplied fresh drinking water. Vikings used the pool to harbor their ships and that's how Dublin got it's name. Also, it's an interesting story because the wall that is in the background was built because slums used to lie behind it, so the government built the wall to hide the slums from the guests that stayed at the castle. Then, Chris said how governments, in general, are always trying to hide things. He was a law student, by the way.
Dublin Castle Garden
We then moved onto our next little spot where Chris waved his hand in a general direction to show where Jonathan Swift, an Irish satirical writer, lived for part of his life. One of Swift's works that Chris talked about was A Modest Proposal, or the full name A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick. This essay was a satire that dealt with the issue of attitudes toward the poor in Ireland. His solution to the problem was that poor people should sell their children as food to the rich. Apparently he even included some recipes in the essay...yum... :/ After that fun little discussion, we went on over to one of the two cathedrals in Dublin, Christ Church Cathedral. Before I get into the background of the actual church, I am going to tell you that the majority (73%) of Irish people claim to be Catholic. Why is this interesting? Because Dublin does not have a Roman Catholic cathedral. The two cathedrals that are there belong to the Church of Ireland, which is Protestant. Hmm, interesting. While we are talking about religion, the word Catholic and Protestant don't really always refer to religion in Ireland. There is an Irish joke that I am going to share here:

A journalist, researching for an article on the complex political situation in Northern Ireland, was in a pub in a war-torn area of Belfast. One of his potential informants leaned over his pint of Guinness and suspiciously cross-examined the journalist: "Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?" the Irishman asked.

"Neither," replied the journalist; "I'm an atheist."The Irishman, not content with this answer, put a further question: "Ah, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?"


This is because Catholic refers to Irish people and Protestant refers to the English. So apparently it is possible to be both a Catholic and an atheist. Anyway, onto the actual church (this is coming from our tour guide), the church was in extreme poverty at some point (I don't remember the year) a man proposed to the pastor or owner of the church that he allow him to run a business in the church for some money. Obviously the man in charge had a probably with this, but he had no other choice because he had to save the church. Well, apparently the guy with the business proposal was John Jameson, the founder of Jameson Whiskey Distillery, and he was making whiskey in the basement of the church. The Jameson Distillery also paid for complete restoration of the church in the 1870s probably as a thank you.

*Sidenote: I looked up this information and Wikipedia has a different story than what the guide told us. Wikipedia says that it was Henry Roe, another distiller that paid for the restoration. His company later merged with Jameson, but supposedly it was him. Who knows...

Anyway, onto another fun fact. The Guinness family, specifically Benjamin Guinness helped pay for the total restoration of St. Patrick's Cathedral in the 1860s. So both cathedrals in Dublin were in extreme disrepair and both were helped by the alcohol industry and supposedly the continued maintenance of the churches are in both Jameson's and Guinness' wills. Not a surprising story to hear coming from Ireland, eh?

Christ Church Cathedral
After that, we went and looked at some bricks on the ground that were laid out like the floor plan of an old Viking home. The had uncovered some artifacts and structures of the Vikings and then knocked them down or built on top of them, so now they have a nice little layout on the ground instead of the original structure. I feel like that happens a lot, people just ignoring "ancient" architecture and stuff and building over it/knocking it down. Anyway, we also walked on the oldest street in Ireland and took a short tea break. We also talked about the things that have changed in Ireland over the years. For example, leprechauns were originally brown, not green. And the national color of Ireland in blue, not green. And how it used to be illegal to drink on St. Patrick's Day because it was a religious holiday to celebrate the patron saint of Ireland and the arrival of Christianity into Ireland. And a lot of that has changed now...good job, U.S.

Anyway, after our break, we took a quick stop at a wall that showed the Irish Music Hall of Fame. The only people I knew on it were Van Morrison, U2, and The Cranberries, but the others were Sinéad O'Connor, Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher, The Undertones and Boyzone, for those of you who might know them.

Then, we strolled on over to Trinity College, Ireland's oldest university founded in 1592. I don't know a ton about the academics there, except that it is a prestigious college, like Oxford and Cambridge, but I do know some fun facts. For example, it has a miraculous room called the Long Room, which has books floor to ceiling and part of the Jedi Temple in Star Wars Episode II was apparently based off of the Long Room. Also, it looks like it's straight out of Harry Potter, from what I've heard, but the one out of Harry Potter was apparently inspired by somewhere at Cambridge. Also, apparently the one in Indiana Jones movie too, so you get the point. Anyway, there is a very famous book there called The Book of Kells, which is "an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks circa 800 or slightly earlier" (Wikipedia). The illustrations are supposedly incredible and a lot of people pay the 9 euros ($12.31) to see it, but also it's apparently hit or miss, because the staff turns a page everyday to preserve the binding and to display the whole book, so it's possible to go on a day when the page is boring. Like I said though, I heard the Long Room is pretty impressive.
Trinity College
After Trinity College, we went to a little square that had the National Library of Ireland, Irish parliament, and the National Museum of Ireland. We learned about what was inside both of the museums and we learned about how the White House was [loosely] inspired by the Irish parliament building. I threw in the word loosely because there are quite a few differences. One last thing about the building...notice how the windows are smaller at the top? It's because glass used to be (maybe still is, I don't know) really expensive, but people wanted to have big windows because it made them seem rich and made the building look taller so they put big windows on bottom, but then put tiny ones up top to save money.


Irish parliament
Our next and final stop was St. Stephen's Green, which is a public park. We really only went to the entrance of the park and saw two statues. One of Wolfe Tone, who was an Irish revolutionary figure, and the other to represent the potato famine and this is where (I think) it gets ugly with the British. So we know that around 1 million people died and 1 million people emigrated, causing a 20-25% decrease in population, but did you know that the country was producing enough food to feed everyone? It's just that all of the food was being exported by the British landowners. Long story short, the Irish were forced onto plots of land that really had soil good enough to grow potatoes, so they became completely dependent on potatoes. Then, when the disease hit the potatoes, the Irish lost everything and couldn't survive. Then, over the next several years, a bunch of politics happened and a revolution and Ireland gained independence in 1916. And that's that. That was our tour.
Potato famine sculpture
After the tour, we went back to the National Library because we heard they had a cool genealogy department and Tim and I both tried looking up things, but neither of us knew enough information. Heck, I don't even know if I have any Irish in me. Ha. Then, we took a quick stroll to the National Museum only to see the "Bog bodies" that our tour guide mentioned and they were pretty cool. They are human bodies that have been naturally mummified in a bog. Most of them had stories that they were murdered and thrown into the bog. It would suck to be one of those guys, but they were pretty interesting to see.

One of the Bog bodies
After that, Tim and I ate dinner at a bar. Have I mentioned that I love Irish food! It's so good and they give you so much! You just go up to this buffet type area and point at what you want and they just pile it on your plate. It's amazing! Also, they still love their potatoes! Notice the three different kinds of potatoes on our plates! Yum! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. 

Anyway, enough about the food, after dinner, we went back to the hotel and Tim passed out! I literally killed him! I think he had been up for over 35 hours or something like that. Ha. Poor guy had an 8 hour flight and a time change and I made him walk around all day on a tour. Ha, he was a good sport about it and I know he enjoyed himself, but really, I killed him. Whoops. Oh well. It was a fantastic day and at the end of it, I was happy to have him there, dead or not. :P

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