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Published: September 11th 2008
Windmill Lane Studios
The little plaque that looks like a record tells you what it once was.After most of my third week in Dublin, here are the (debatably) exciting parts:
Friday was gross... or as Ingle would say, mis. It was the first day that it rained for most of the day. I went out when it stopped raining for a jaunt about town. I found the hearing aid shop that is Bono’s namesake and U2’s original studio on Windmill Lane that is now absolutely covered with graffiti. Unfortunately, it’s not U2-worship graffiti, but it’s still a sight to see. It started to rain again on my way back, so I lazily spent the rest of the day reading and napping in sweats.
On Saturday morning we went to the site where the Battle of the Boyne was fought. This is the most important battle that ever took place in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was fought between the Jacobite army led by James II (with the support of Louis XIV of France) and the English army led by William of Orange in July 1690. James II had gone to Ireland and taken control after William and Mary became joint monarchs of England, and now England wanted control because they feared the power of
Musket Demonstration
Guy's name was Tony. the Jacobite forces to invade England from all sides. If James II and the Jacobite forces had won this battle, it would have coincided with a major French naval victory at the Battle of Beachy Head, and this blog would probably be written in French. There was a sweet model of the battle field in the museum that had lasers outlining the movement of the troops as it discussed the course of the battle. The coolest parts of the site were a musket demonstration and a cavalry demonstration (part of which can be seen in the video). We already knew most of the history behind the battle, but it was noteworthy to see some the places where it was fought to fill in the blanks.
When we got back we watched The Patriot because for some odd reason we all had a yearning to watch a good war picture… too bad it was about 100 years after what we’d seen earlier in the day and this time the British side lost. After the movie there was a desire for some sort of late-night dessert. We wondered around for a bit and thought we’d have to settle for an ice cream
bar from a gas station (ok, not a gas station. But that’s what I call them. It’s basically a gas station just without the gas pumps outside. The most common ones are called Spar and Londis. There is a Spar or a Londis on just about every street.) Then, we discovered the Waffle House of Dublin… Half Moon Crepes… open until 2 on Fridays and Saturdays. After great deliberation, Ashton and Riley split a chocolate strawberry crepe, Andrew had a chocolate banana crepe, Will had Bailey’s cheesecake, Ingle had hot chocolate, and I had a toffee ice… an a la mode crepe covered with almonds and toffee sauce. FYI, US:Hershey’s::Europe:Nutella, so the chocolate aspect of those crepes was drizzles of the hazelnutty good stuff. I was glad I’d gotten something a bit lighter, but everything was amazing. As we ate (or more accurately afterwards because there wasn’t much talking while the crepes were still in front of us), we planned where we are going to open our crepe shop in Greenville upon our return. We walked back to campus as very happy campers.
On Sunday about half of our group (including Dr. Barrington and Dr. Menzer) took the DART
Cannon
Notice the shirt. This was supposed to intimidate Central Michigan. It worked. (Dublin Area Rail Transit?) to Malahide with the intension of visiting Malahide Castle with an added bonus of being near the coast. The castle looked very cool and castley from the outside, but I don’t think the inside was really what we were expecting. The tour (which was played over speakers in each room… so it was kind of like the house was talking to us) went into more detail of the furnishings than the history of the castle itself, so that got a bit dull. On the walk from the castle to the coast, we passed a cricket match in progress. I don’t think any of us knew what in the world was going on except Dr. Barrington. Unbeknownst to any of us, he was a cricket player growing up in England. Once we made it to Malahide Beach, the group had an absolutely grand time frolicking about. It was a nice escape from the big city. Many ridiculous pictures were taken, so enjoy those.
Monday’s adventures included meeting the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Eibhlin Byrne. She is only the 6th female Lord Mayor out of almost 400. She was an extremely lovely and charming woman. Her address
Malahide Castle
Yeah, it looks really cool. to the group was an abbreviated history of Ireland with an emphasis on Dublin itself and a touch of the history of her position. Because there isn’t really any sort of clause in the annals of Dublin’s jurisdiction regarding what the title actually is if a female holds the position, her official title is Lord Mayor… making her husband the Lady Mayoress…which I think is absolutely hilarious. She also had this really cool chain (aka bling) with a picture of (ironically) William of Orange on the medallion. Figure that one out. She said the one she wears on a daily basis is a 9 karat replica of the 24 karat original that she saves for special occasions. After she spoke to us, we got to have cookies and tea/coffee. I cannot tell you how many cookies I had because I lost count. I’d say around 10. At least. They have some great cookies in these parts. Digestives are these delicious sugar cookies with chocolate on one side of them… like the ones Keebler makes but better. (As a side note, Ingle and I have discovered a wonderful Irish brownie/cookie hybrid… we like to call them BROOKIES! Yesterday, we went through
Cricket
Such an enigma. an entire package of them in 24 hours. It’s the consistency of a cookie, but it tastes like a brownie… who knew! We’re going to take America by storm with brookies and late night crepes.)
That night we went on the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl. It starts in Duke’s Pub and continues to 3 other pubs with many other stops and amusements along the way. Our guides were Derek and Frank. Both were professional actors and very entertaining guys. In Duke’s, they performed a pretty lengthy scene from Waiting for Godot that was so wonderful that we all knew we were in for a treat on the rest of the crawl. We stopped at Trinity where Frank recited a letter that Oscar Wilde had written about giving a speech on Art and Aesthetics in Ledsville, a small mining town in Colorado. There was actually a woman who had been born in Ledsville on the tour, and this was only the second time that had ever occurred in 20 years of the crawl. After the second pub stop, Derek and Frank regaled us with a scene from The Risen People that involved two beggars who could tell the difference between a
Protestant and a Catholic and thus would base the song they sang as they passed on their preference. The third pub was The Old Stand… a pub that Michael Collins had frequented and held secret meetings on its second floor after the 1916 Easter Rising. After The Old Stand, there was a quiz on some trivia about the Irish authors and playwrights that had been discussed. The winner received a Dublin Literary Pub Crawl T-shirt. It came down to a tie breaker between Will and me, but Will was victorious. The t-shirt would have been more like a dress on me, so I shook off the loss (despite the fact that I knew the answer to the question but cracked under the pressure. George Bernard Shaw was the only Irish author to have won a Nobel Prize for Literature as well as an Oscar… thanks to My Fair Lady.) We sat with the two leaders of the crawl for a while at the last pub, but I’m still not sure if they enjoyed our company or found us annoying.
After class Tuesday we all took a trip to Dublin Castle. It was very cool. A lot of big rooms
EVERYONE JUMP AT THE CAMERA!
Notice Dr. Menzer and Dr. Barrington second and third from the right. Classic. full of important stuff. They’ve filmed a lot of movies there. Like Michael Collins. Word. They also film The Tudors there, so it isn’t uncommon to see Jonathan Rhys Meyers just walking around. This info instigated a good deal of chatter among the females of the group.
Other than the castle, the past couple of days have consisted of a good deal of wandering around the city to see some areas that I hadn’t yet been. One place of note that I spent A LOT of time in was the Irish Film Institute. It’s a really neat little place that has 2 screens showing mostly indie films, a restaurant and bar, a shop full of great DVDs and books (too bad all of the DVDs are Region 2 and the US is a Region 1 country because they had some excellent Irish films that are next to impossible to find in the states), and a library. I spent a couple hours in the library on each of the past two days reading The Story of Irish Film (I’m doing my Interdisciplinary Studies project on Irish Film, so I figured this would be helpful). The book was such a great
JUMP!
Me, Ashton, and Ingle read and a perfect overview of the topic. The girl working in the library was extremely nice so I talked to her a bit as well. I would frequent the IFI if I lived in Dublin.
I also went to see a one-act play in the studio theatre above the International Bar called All Dressed Up to Go Dreaming. All of the lights in the studio theatre were off when we entered the room from outside. There were only about 10 of us, but finding the seats was a bit of a challenge as my eyes had not even begun to adjust to the light change. The play started without warning as a gentleman in tails and a top hat entered the room singing. He began to speak before turning any of the lights on, but once he turned on a lamp on his desk, we discovered that the room was the stage and the audience was seated in one row around it. The show centered around this debonair government employee as he entertains a certain…houseguest with his views on popular culture and politics with the use of tunes from Sinatra to Gershwin and works from Shaw to Plato. After
Faith + 1
Cheesy album cover. the first few references to her, the audience learns that the houseguest is a female dummy, but he kept referring to her as a teacher and a poet as they danced around his room. We actually had to watch our feet as the statesman waltzed in front of us. It was well performed and designed, but it has taken me a while to really take in all of the references and comments that the half-hour play was loaded with. I appreciate it more fully now in reflection than I did two days ago.
Yesterday I ventured to Christ Church Cathedral. Mind-blowingly large and gothic. The most unique part of the cathedral is that it has a Medieval Crypt beneath it that is one of the largest in Ireland and the UK and the oldest structure in Dublin. I kept turning corners and finding more and more crypt as it runs under almost the entire church. Right before I left, I paused in the middle of the nave to really fully take in the grandeur of the place and got chills.
In other news, Margaret Caterisano arrived in Dublin this morning, but I have yet to see her. Margaret is
Piggyback
John, Riley, and Will on Me, Ingle, and Ashton a theatre professor at Furman, and we’re basically BFFs. I’m so glad she’s here. We leave Dublin on Saturday, so I probably won’t be posting from the big city again. I’m sad to see it go, but I’m excited for the next leg of our adventure, the 2 week coach tour of the UK. Stay tuned!
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non-member comment
would that really be such a bad thing if your blog were written in French? I think not!