We didn’t really bring any good weather with us this year – at least not so far. It has rained pretty much every day. One day I sat in the kitchen inches away from the heater all day because I was freezing. But I guess you don’t some to Ireland for the weather. Although you’d hope that you wouldn’t be sad about leaving your mittens at home!
That being said, we’re tough and we’ve been talking lots of walks. We walk around the parks in Cabinteely. We walk down the pier in Dun Laoghaire. In fact (and I know this is meaningless to most readers) we walked from Dun Laoghaire to Cabinteely one day. And we’ve walked in town. And I’ve taken pictures are we’ve trekked.
So our first full day Patrick and I headed to Taste of Dublin – it’s a fun event in the Iveagh Gardens where lots of restaurants sell (and sometimes give) samples of their best dishes. We have a few years in the past. SO this was the worst weather we’ve experienced – but it did seem as if there were more free tiny tastes of food and drink. Especially tiny tastes of wine, which is fun. Also we connected with old friends – Karina and Bernie. I haven’t seen Bernie in almost 20 years. I worked for her at a cafeteria at Mother Redcap’s Market. It was fun to talk to her; I have always been amazed at how smart Bernie is especially in terms of current events. We spoke a lot of time talking about fracking.
On the way out of the event we got free drink tickets for some pub – so we got a bonus free sample in a pub that Bernie mentioned did not allow anyone over 25 in when they first opened. Apparently we were looking good or they have become less fussy.
Then Patrick and headed to Glasthule to catch the tail end of a Bloomsday Party. It was fun to walk around and see the James Joyce fans.
Filed under: Dublin
It’s Sunday and we just enjoyed our last Sunday lunch of this trip. Fearghal – for years – has been so great to come out on Sundays *in a car*. When you don’t have a car, it’s really a treat to get out to see things that just aren’t accessible by foot, bus or train. Today we got to go to the lead mines. In the early 1800s the lead mines was a working lead mining and smelting center. Now it’sa tower that looms from the Dublin mountains. Patrick and I have tried to walk up to it – but it’s relaly just too far.
Anyways – we drove most of the way there – got to climb the last bit and the leadmine is very cool. There are stairs on the outside that lead to the top – now too many steps are broken to really climb up them, but they are cool. And the views are fantastic. One thing we kind of miss at home are the views. I just think it’s kind of amazing it being able to see certain things – like the leadmines, Bray head, smokestacks, ferris wheel and Howth from nearly all corners of Dublin.
Filed under: Dublin
The girls love a picnic! So on Saturday we trekked down to Kilmainham – one of the best gardens in Dublin. Patrick called it in the heart of Dublin – I might not go that far – but it’s pretty close to town. And it is beautiful. We had a nice picnic, walked through the gardens and popped into the Irish Museum of Modern Art. We saw a really interesting video by Orla Barry. Patrick doesn’t like modern art – but I drag the girls to a lot of modern and performance art stuff because I like it. Well it all paid off when I had to eventually drag them from a video by Orla Barry – about a man who wanted to live on an island and a girl who appeared to live in a cemetery.
After we walked into town along the Liffey. The Liffey can be a little rough looking in places – but it’s always a good walk.
Filed under: Dublin
Last week I dragged Patrick to the Science Gallery for a great DATA 47.0 event. There were three speakers who worked on techie, cutting edge performance arts stuff. The first was Teresa Dillon who worked on performance arts pieces in off-site locations where the scenes or acts seemed to be triggered by the audience. The audience members had RFID trackers that triggered the action. Next was Duncan Speakman who spoke about silent flash mobs or “lazy film making” where audience members are each given an MP3 – but they receive different MP3s. SO some may hear a narrative, while others are hearing instructions to perform acts (like shake someone’s hand) that would in effect lead them through acting out the stories that the other audience members are hearing.
Also he has used technology (cell phones, Google maps and an artist at a remote site) to lead individual residents through a conversation/tour of their city. Where the residents might talk out loud about what they would like to see happen (in terms of urban development) in various areas. While the residents talk, the artists work away to draw out the visions described. Then the residents convene – a map is created with the artist renderings of the ideas and talk together about their visions – making they cases as to why their visions would make sense.
Finally, Peter Petralia spoke about a project in Bristol where they had sort of a scavenger hunt that involved about 100 volunteers. People signed up, not knowing what was going on. Then for two weeks then received emails, texts, letters and phone calls inviting them to different tasks. If they were available – they participated. The participants interacted in the various tasks, which often involved some use of social media to track their impressions and thoughts.
So I have to say that all of the ideas sounded super interesting to me. Makes me wish I could participate or even lead something like that. Can you imagine anything better than a techie scavenger hunt that goes on for a week?
Filed under: Dublin
Last time we were here the girls and I spent a big day in Howth – including a boat out to Ireland’s Eye and a big hike. This time we went specifically to feed the seals. Sadly you can’t feed them anymore! We were crushed. Apparently the fee is up to 5000 euros – and the shops that used to sell the fish for seals no longer do it.
The good news is that you still see a lot of seals and we had a nice lunch. Although we were surprised to see that the Mussels and Frites did not include French fries. The very new waitress was a little surprised to hear that frites was French for French fries. (Regardless we ate French Fry-less.)
Filed under: Dublin
Last Sunday we had lunch in a fancy restaurant in a mall. It was nice – then we had a fun side trip to Tully Church. Tully Church is near to the house. I had been there before. Patrick and I walked there last the time we were here – but we had to get past a horrible, mean barking dog to get there. But on Sunday we had a car.
Cross at Tully Church is from the 12th or 13th century. Then there’s a church that’s probably older; I think they say 9th century. They’re kind of fun to see and climb on. It’s fun to see the landscape in the area too. As Lily said it would be fun to see a picture taken every year from the location – you could have seen a lot of building over the last few decades.
For extra credit Patrick and I took a walk Monday morning in the opposite direction to a dolmen in Ballybrack. Dolmens are rock formations that are burial portals. It’s kind of amazing to see all of the ancient religious building in the area. There’s a web site called Megalithic Ireland that I sometimes visit when I feel like taking the girls on a boondoggle walk.
Yup just a regular Saturday for us – Zombies, Breakdancing, Roller Girls and more. Actually even for us last Saturday was a pretty full day. We started with the Dublin Zombie Walk in Stephen’s Green. There must have been thousands of zombies – it was great. Some people clearly spent hours on their makeup and costume. We spent quite a few minutes.
There were at least two highlights from the zombie tour. First it was great to see the zombies attack the buses. They just left trails of blood all over the buses and you could see that the people on the bus had no idea of what was going on. Then the zombies attacked St Ann’s Church on Dawson Street. It’s where Bram Stoker was married. Also it’s kind of a creepy looking church in its own right. Very cool to see the zombies against that back drop.
We left the zombies march after half an hour or so to see the Graffiti and Breakdancing Festival. It has grown in the last two years! The graffiti was great. We heard some great music – depending on who you ask. (Some people are old before their time!) The girls got to try Mountain Dew plus, which we later read was not for under 18s. I’m sure the extra surge was good for Aine.
Then a quick trip to Reptile World. Our friend John (who was with us) knows the owner, who unfortunately wasn’t there. Well I say unfortunately, but I don’t mean it. I feel we would have been even closer to the snakes and creepy crawlies than I ever want to be had he been there.
Then off to Greystones for the Roller Girls. Roller girls in Dublin is different. It’s much newer here – so the skating isn’t as good as back home. It’s more like the skating in St Paul was a few years ago. But the skating in Dublin is tough! The jammers try to knock each other over. Lots more hip checks than I remember in MN. Also the bout was in a gym – not the Roy Wilkins. I suspect that in a couple of years they will have moved into a better (read cooler) location – closer to the city and in a night club setting versus leisureplex.
(In fairness Greystones is beautiful and the trek out there was very pretty.)
Finally, we headed back to Cabinteely where there was an outdoor ceili dance. It was good – lots of local food vendors, music and plenty of people.
Then we fell into bed!!
Filed under: Dublin
It’s kind of a funny mix – but yesterday we wet to the Rose Festival and the Viking Festival in St Anne’s Park, which is on the other side of the harbor from us. I know this will be meaningless to most readers – but for my friend in the know…We made a tactical error on the journey and got off the DART at Contarf – then we walked down the coast road to the park. So that added about 3 miles to the beginning of our day. (You can take ‘em out of the South Side – but not help them read a map.)
Anyways we were very lucky with the weather on the walk to the park. And fortunately I really like to walk and the rest of the posse will sort of follow without much complaint – but we were happy when we finally got there. The Rose Festival was really a series of booths – inclduing some very delicious food. We walked around. We watched a band for a while. Aine did a craft project. We saw some very pretty roses. Patrick bought books.
The just a few yards away really – was the Viking Festival. The big deal was reenactment of the Clontarf Battle. For those who didn’t attend (or pay that much attention in history class) …
The Battle of Clontarf (Irish: Cath Chluain Tarbh) took place on 23 April 1014 between the forces of Brian Boru and the forces led by the King of Leinster, Máel Mórda mac Murchada: composed mainly of his own men, Viking mercenaries from Dublin and the Orkney Islands led by his cousin Sigtrygg, as well as the one rebellious king from the province of Ulster. It ended in a rout of the Máel Mórda’s forces, along with the death of Brian, who was killed by a few Norsemen who were fleeing the battle and stumbled upon his tent. After the battle, Ireland returned to a fractious status quo between the many small, separate kingdoms that had existed for some time.
We saw the reenactment, which was kind of fun. It was also kind of fun to hear the cheers and jeers from the audience. It was all good natured – but funny. They recreated the battle three times – demonstrating three battle approaches. The funny thing was that once the actors were dead – the emcee would “call to Valhalla” to revive them for next variation on battle
On the way home we got caught in a serious downpour. It’s been raining ever since.
See our other videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S78K4dSoH58
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wka2xIeCOCA
Filed under: Dublin
This week is the Made in Temple Bar Festival. Temple Bar is an area in Dublin. It’s kind of arty by day – kind of rowdy and a favorite haunt of bachelor and bachelorette by night. The arts line up for the festival is great – sadly we weren’t able to get tickets for most of the events – but we were able to see the tightrope walker. You’ll see the from video it was kind of cool. Went with the kids and our longtime friend John. A good end to a good day. (Forgot to add that before the tightrope walker – we heard Aidan Walsh sing a few songs. He’s sort of a character around the Dublin music scene.)
See the other very quick video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJhr9li_ktk
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