Blogs from Cork, County Cork, Ireland, Europe - page 2

Geo: 51.8979, -8.47111The morning started with beautiful sunny weather. Our first outing was to the annual meeting of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, but on the way we stopped off at the Coffee House for a quick breakfast. It's the nearest place to get food, but we hadn't gone in before saving it for when we might be rushed or too tired to go farther. As it turned out, the coffee and croissants were delicious. We should have tried it sooner. The conference took place in St. Peters church on North Main taking about twenty minutes to walk there. We went, although the speakers did not seem to be particularly pertinent to Phil's research, because Lorna had insisted that we go paying for our ten euro registration fee. Phil did find the information about advertising ... read more

Geo: 51.8979, -8.47111Yesterday, Phil went to class in the morning then we both went on the group field trip in the afternoon. The trip was to Cobh (pronounced Cove) and Midleton. We started with a thirty-minute drive to the Cobh Heritage Centre, and there received a welcome from the centre's administrator who gave us a brief orientation to the centre and some historical background on the town. Cobh was the last port of the Titanic and the exhibition does a good job of describing what it would have been like to be a passenger on the ship. With your admission ticket, you are assigned an actual person's story to follow throughout the exhibition. You might be rich or poor, male or female, traveler or crew, but each person's journey is described and their outcomes after they ... read more

Geo: 51.8979, -8.47111Philip and I both went to the workshop today. Registration was the first item on the agenda and I wanted to be there for it. I sat through the morning lectures, too, although it was often hard to understand the speakers. I haven't acclimated to the Irish lilt yet. It looks like there are thirty to forty participants in the workshop, and Lorna who is the coordinator also introduced some of the speakers and a few volunteers who will help throughout the week. She made a point of trying to get everyone talking to each other and said that Philip and I shouldn't sit together but spread out to meet others.We ate lunch in the student canteen down the hall from the lecture room. It was boring, but also cheap. Later we got on ... read more

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Geo: 51.8979, -8.47111After a relatively quick stop in Killarney and a wander through Ross Castle we headed to the south of Ireland. DH was starting to zero in on the land of her people. With both of her parents immigrating to Canada from Liverpool, DH grew up thinking she was a product of the country that gave us fish and chips, and the Beatles. It was only in later life that she discovered that her grandparents had actually come from Ireland, and the Cork area specifically. Given the relative secrecy around her genealogy, I helpfully suggested that perhaps our start point for the shady family tree should be the nearest gaol (prison), and sure enough, Cork had one of the more infamous ones. The Cork City Gaol (although it's not common knowledge, it was often referred ... read more