Skip to main content

Ireland Part One.


By the age of 12, a child knows at least 27 ways to tell if someone is a catholic or a prodestant.’ - Derry
On the first Saturday of my school holidays, my 12 hour bus ride -including a 4 hour ferry ride- left for Ireland. We landed in Dublin at about 6.30am and so I had a whole day of checking out Dublin. I went and had a look at Dublin Castle, and the Garda (police) memorial gardens.



On April 4th, my Paddywagon tour began at Paddy’s Palace, Dublin. First stop was The Papal Cross in Phoenix Park, Dublin. The cross was erected in anticipation of Pope John Paul II's visit in 1979. Over a million people came to see the Pope celebrate mass here.

And then.... the Guinness Storehouse! Zoomed through the factory, tried half a glass of Guinness draught, left my mark on the ‘Guinness message wall’ and headed up to the Gravity Bar, ready for my FREE Pint of Guinness!! Woo hoo! But alas, it tasted pretty funky – and as I was to discover later on the tour, it tastes a lot better with blackcurrent – so I only finished half.. Dang.
On our way to Belfast, we stopped at a town called Drogheda and checked out the preserved head of Saint Oliver Plunkett.
We stayed in Belfast. I’m really cut that I didn’t do the Belfast Black Cab tour, cos it would’ve been awesome, but alas, something to do next time I’m in Ireland hey.






Monasterboice was built in the 14th century. The bigger cross is smooth at the bottom because for centuries Monks used to walk around it with one hand on the base. 


On Day Two, our first stop was the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. The first and probably the last rope bridge I’ll ever go on in my life. It wasn’t nearly as swingy, or rickedy, as I’d hoped but it was a wooden bridge, 30m up from the sea so it was pretty cool.
After that we went and had a chill at the Irish half of the Giants Causeway - super awesome rock formations on the north coast of Ireland caused by rapid cooling of molten lava when in immediate contact with water. The story of its formation is slightly different in Irish folklore, telling a tale of two giants, one from Ireland Finn MacCool and the other from Scotland Benandonner. The Irish giant challenged the Scottish guy to a duel and built a bridge so that they could. The Irish guy basically chickened out when he realised how much bigger the Scottish guy was and went and hid as a baby. The Scottish guy then freaked out cos he thought that the baby was huge and was afraid that the dad would be massive, and he fled Ireland, smashing the bridge to bits as he went. And this is how the Irish reckon the Giants Causeway was formed.





We had a quick roadstop for a photoop at Dunluce Castle, its kitchen fell into the ocean in 1639 and has been abandoned ever since.

And that evening we stayed in Derry. We immediately did a walking tour with a local and got to see the scene of the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972. Our tour guide explained the struggle between the Prodestants and Catholics, and why many residents of Derry feel that they can only live within the walled part of the city. The night was topped off with an evening of traditional irish music at Paedar O’Donnells Pub.



Day Three we travelled to Galway via Grianan Ailligh, a rock formation built in about 3000BC and Sligo, where the site of famous irish poet WB Yeats’ grave is. And we proceeded to chill in Galway, the ‘party captial’ of Ireland. It was also the night I broke my camera, dang.



And the best soft serve ever :)
 to be continued...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Running, university and the future...

I thought I'd write a short blog post while waiting for some rice to cook. I haven't put my thoughts down in writing for a little while so perhaps this sort of therapy will work its magic on me. [ Image Source ] First things first, I've signed up for my very first half marathon. It's with the Melbourne Marathon , and is about twelve weeks away. I'm absolutely terrified. I've never made this kind of commitment... and it is a really really long way! It's further than the distance that I travel on my bike in a day, commuting to uni, and that in itself takes about an hour. I'm already worried that my legs are going to stop working halfway through. So I've been reading a lot of articles, and searching Pinterest relentlessly for half marathon training guides. I think I'll use my Nike+ running app as a guide too. If anybody has any tips, please share them with me! I reckon I'll finish it comfortably in about two and a half hours....

One month.

As of this week, I've officially been away from Australia for more than a month. I reckon I've done pretty well considering that up until now, the longest I'd been away from home was a week. I had a pretty low key week - which is always lovely. The best thing I did was the Friday night boarding activity! We took thirteen of the boarders out to the movies in a place called Didsbury, and saw Tangled! We saw it in 3D, so we got some dodgy rip-off Ray Ban inspired glasses to wear in too. In about a week I'm heading to London for five days and I am SO excited! So hopefully I'll have heaps of interesting pics to put up next time :)

MIFF Film Review: Ukraine is Not a Brothel

Kitty Green’s film Ukraine is Not a Brothel is a very honest and delightfully composed documentary of Ukraine’s topless feminism awareness group, Femen. The film that was originally sparked by an article in a Melbourne newspaper was born of over 700 hours of footage; recorded whilst Green lived with these girls in Ukraine.   The movie follows the stories of the young women who protest in order to change Ukraine’s reputation of being full of female sex-workers and the perception that all Ukrainian women are controlled by men; they wish for females to be equal to men and have the same work opportunities. It begins with quite an optimistic view of the girls, who each share tales of their involvement with the organisation, and how it affects them and their families, through interviews and footage of their bare-breasted protests. Each of the them are stunning, slim, model-like girls (apart from one, whose grossly overweight body is used for her ‘shock factor’ and publici...