More of Northern Ireland!

I should have updated long ago, but I have been super busy with Danielle and Rob visiting me March 13th-18th and Matt visiting me March 17th until this morning actually. I just dropped him off at the airport! Anyways, I promise to write more about their visits, but I never finished telling you all about Northern Ireland! So, we went to the Ulster-American Folk Park, which is kind of like a Genesee Country Museum, except it shows how Irish lived in Ireland, how they traveled to America and how they lived in America. It was very interesting. They showed us a couple houses that families would have lived in with straw roofs and all. Then they showed us what the inside of the ship would have looked like that people would have taken to America. Each bunk would have to be shared by 5 people... imagine! We also saw the house of Joseph Hughes, the first Catholic Archbishop of New York, born in 1797! This is the Archbishop who ordered the construction of St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC! Less importantly, while I was there I got to feed chickens which I was pretty excited about! Next we went to the Giants Causeway! Legend has it that an Irish giant, Fionn, built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight a Scottish giant Benandonner. Fionn fell asleep before he got to Scotland. When he did not arrive, the much larger Benandonner crossed the bridge looking for him. To protect Fionn, his wife Oonagh laid a blanket over him so he could pretend that he was actually their baby son. When Benandonner saw the size of the 'infant', he assumed the alleged father, Fionn, must be gigantic indeed. Therefore, Benandonner fled home in terror, ripping up the Causeway in case he was followed by Fionn.




While visiting the Causeway I saw the most gorgeous rainbow which made the visit even more spectacular!
After visiting the Causeway we traveled a little further along the coast until we reached our next destination. We walked for about ten minutes along the coast looking at an island in the water that we were about to go on after crossing a rope bridge! The rope bridge was quite scary if you ask me! it was really windy while crossing it, but I made it! and the island itself was very windy. The view, however, was absolutely magnificent. I fell in love with the various shades of green on the island, and even more so with the shades of blue in the water and the sky. I tried to get a nice picture of myself on the island, but the wind kept blowing me over! This is the best I got! Thats all about Northern Ireland! Next post will be about my visitors and our adventures! Hope everyone is doing well!

Cheers!

Oh Goodness! Northern Ireland!

Thursday, March 6th at 9am a coach bus set off with all 37 of us American students, along with Don & Brian, our program directors and Robby our amazing bus driver! We had a crazy time!

First we made our way to Belfast, where murals are all over the place. Both Catholics and Protestants have murals on sides of buildings and walls. The odd thing was that most of the Catholic murals were very peaceful, whereas the Protestant murals were scarier and much more threatening. On the side of the Sinn Fein building there is a mural of Bobby Sands, the first Hunger Striker in the H blocks. He died after 66 days at the age of 27. After he died 9 others followed him in striking and dying.The building next to the Sinn Fein office had a mural commemorating all of the hunger strikers who died in the H-blocks. They were on the hunger strike because they wanted to be treated like the political prisoners that they were, rather than common criminals. This mural, like the other catholic ones are very peaceful, whereas in a Protestant area of Belfast, I found this mural portraying a man in a mask holding a machine gun... not exactly peaceful or welcoming if you ask me! There were many murals just like this one all over the protestant side of Belfast! After seeing the scary murals, I was sort of looking forward to moving on up north to Derry.

We stayed in Derry for 3 nights in the Tower Hotel. Our hotel was just next to the peace wall, which we were warned not to cross. The religious fighting is still fierce in Derry and it is not a secret. Our first night in Derry I found myself in a small, crowded Nationalist pub that had a great live band and a strong spirit of desire for a united Ireland. I saw many signs that said "26 + 6 = 1" indicating that they felt the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland and the 6 counties of Northern Ireland should come together as one nation.
The next day we learned about the heartbreaking Bloody Sunday, which took place literally less than 5 minutes walking distance from our hotel. We walked down the same street that the peaceful protesters walked, and found ourselves at the Museum of Free Derry. The museum is in a building that stood on Bloody Sunday and still has huge bullet holes in the side of the building from when the British soldiers attacked this peaceful march. Inside the museum I saw horrific images and artifacts. They had a gun on display that the soldiers used to shoot rubber and plastic bullets that were not supposed to "kill" anyone, just injure them badly. These bullets ended up being deadly.
One of the museum directors was very closely linked to the museum, as he participated in the march and his brother, Michael Kelly, was shot and killed at the young age of 17 on Bloody Sunday. On display they had many articles of clothing that people were wearing when they were killed on Bloody Sunday. There was also a baby jumper on display that was used to try to stop Michael Kelly's bleeding.
This museum could easily bring a tear to any persons eye. When asked how he feels, Michael Kelly's brother stated "I just want this to be over. I just want peace."
I will never be able to explain this museum, or the events of Bloody Sunday with any justice, so if you care to learn more, please visit the museums website: http://www.museumoffreederry.org/.

After the Museum of Free Derry, our group did many other things including visiting the Giants Causeway and crossing a rope bridge to get to a small island! I promise to write more about them in my next post, but its getting late here, and my sister and Rob are coming to visit tomorrow, so I should get some sleep!

Before I go though, I have come to the conclusion that I take way too many pictures and I cannot fit them all on here, so if you would like to see all of my pictures from Northern Ireland, please check them out at http://stephanieindublin.shutterfly.com/

I hope you like them & I hope everyone is well!

Goodnight!

Adventure to Newgrange!

Yesterday some of my friends and I went on an adventure to Newgrange! Newgrange is the oldest free standing man-made structure in all of Europe and one of the oldest free standing man-made structures in the world!! It was built in 3200BC, making it more than 600 years older than the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, and 1000 years more ancient than Stonehenge! Newgrange is known as a "passage-grave" or a "passage-tomb."
The people who built Newgrange were not the typical "cavemen" that you think of. They were the first farmers of Ireland, which back then was covered in forest. Because of all the trees and forests, it is likely that the people only cleared small patches of land to farm. They built Newgrange, along with 36 other passage-tombs as part of their religion. The three largest tombs are Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, Newgrange being the largest of all. It is estimated that it took between 5-50 years to complete Newgrange, proving that the people of this time period were very dedicated because their life expectancy was only 25-30 years. That means many worked most of their life working on Newgrange, knowing they may not be alive to see the final product. The civilization was also much more advanced than most would expect, they had artists, astronomers, and architects! Evolutionists can shed no light on how this structure was erected because, according to their unrealistic view, people of that time labored under primitive and backward conditions. But it's impossible for such an enormous monument to have been built by anyone lacking a sophisticated knowledge of engineering and construction.

One of the most fascinating features of Newgrange is the Roof-Box right above the entrance to the tomb. During the 6 shortest days of the year (the winter solstice) the sun would shine directly into the tomb in the very early morning, marking a new year for the farmers. This is also when the Sun God would come into the tomb and take away all the spirits of the dead that had been placed inside the tomb throughout the year. The sun-box is far too advanced to be a coincidence, proving that the people back then were very intelligent! You can see, therefore, that the builders of this giant structure not only had a knowledge of engineering, but also possessed a knowledge of astronomy that let them calculate the length of days and the movements of the Sun.

Another amazing feature of Newgrange is the entrance stone that is directly in front of the pathway to enter the tomb. It is one of the most photographed stones in the world! This stone has ancient carvings that no one knows the exact meaning of.
This stone is engraved with the popular "Triple Spiral" which some believe represents life, death, and rebirth. This would make sense to be in front of a tomb. Others believe it is simply a map of the land and the spirals represent Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. This would also make sense. No one really knows, either way, this is where the symbol originated 5000 years ago!

Looking at the back of Newgrange, one might think it is simply a dirt mound surrounded by stones.


The stones used to construct Newgrange cannot be found anywhere in the area! It is made of 3 stones: glossy white ones & perfectly circular ones make up the main wall, while huge dark slabs of stone surround the base. The closest area that naturally contains the white stones is the Wicklow Mountains, which are about 50 miles away from Newgrange. The round stones were brought from 75 miles from Dundalk Bay. The large slabs of stones, which could weigh up to ten tons, were brought from 40 miles away. It would have been very improbable and dangerous to try to transport these stones by land, considering Ireland was covered in forests that had wolves, bears and wild boars living in them!
It is believed that they used the Boyne river to transport the stones and then carried them to the sight. They may have log rolled the huge slabs, because this was before the wheel was invented!

The 93 slabs of rock surrounding the base of Newgrange are beautiful, many of them with decorative engravings. I was absolutely taken away with the beauty of the 5000 year old art.


The view from the front of Newgrange shows beautiful hills and green land. All of this once was inhabited by the people who built this amazing tomb!


Of course, it was a lot of learning, but it was also a lot of fun, which we did not forget! Colleen, our wonderful friend/photographer in training took a picture of Allie, Hannah, me, Tara and Colleens French friend, Emaline playing in front of Newgrange!


As I mentioned before, Newgrange is one of 37 tombs. The smaller surrounding tombs are known as satellite tombs.
They can be found in the middle of farms just about anywhere in the area! This is just one of them!

To get to the site of Newgrange, we had to cross over this beautiful river, which had sheep on the other side. This really excited me because I have come to absolutely LOVE sheep since I have come to Ireland.

Little did I know that right behind Newgrange was a sheep farm!! I was quite excited!


When we had all finished the tour of Newgrange, we took a bus back to the town of Draghada and went to a pub and to a couple shops because we had some time before the next train to Dublin would be in. However, we still had plenty of time to kill when we got to the train station! We were definitely all tired from a long day! However, with six girls it is hard not to have fun, so we definitely made the best of our train station wait!


When the train finally arrived, we were given first class seats on the train because that is the only place my chair would fit! All six of us could not get over the plush seats that moved back and forth! We ended up singing songs together on the train ride back to Dublin. By the time we were back in Dublin it was just about 8:30pm and we were dying of hunger! We stopped at a small pizza shop where I met an old man and spoke Italian with him! Apparently I was quite charming because he ended up paying for my dinner! He was definitely a very fun old man and I never thought I would get to use my Italian skills here in Ireland!!

After dinner at the pizza shop, we took a bus back to DCU and some of us went back to my room to use the new coffee mugs I bought for really cheap in Draghada! I was so excited when I opened the package and found that the 4 mugs I bought for 5euro had fun different colored insides!
So Allie, Tara and I enjoyed a nice cup of tea in my new fun mugs as a soothing end to a long, exciting, day!

Who new education could be so much fun!?

I hope you all are having as much fun at home as I am having here! And, as always, I hope you are all doing well!

It's All For Charity!

This week is Rag Week here at DCU. Rag Week is all about raising money for charity. Tuesday I went to the Campus bar and donated money and danced with my friends and had a great time. Wednesday night we had a lot of fun! We had a lot of the rugby team over watching the rugby game on tv since my roommate Andy is chairman of the rugby team. My roommate, Tamara and our friend Sally-May learned about the wonders of Fluff and are absolutely addicted to it now! They don't sell fluff here in Ireland, so they're pretty amazed with it...



After the rugby game was over and Tamara and Sally-May were done eating spoonfuls of fluff, we went to the Rag Ball in the student union! It was a lot of fun! One room had a live band, another room had a "silent disco" where everyone listens to music through headphones and dances so it is funny to watch! I was most interested in the 90's stage where one of my favorite bands from when I was little was playing...B*Witched! They were so cool!!



It was really hard to get a good picture of B*Witched because I was so far back, but I had fun anyway!

For the past week I have been raising money for charity and I ended up raising 115euro. Because I raised that much money, I had to go bungee jumping!



This crane was 275ft up in the air!!! crazy!



should the bungee have broken, this big air-filled thing was supposed to break my fall and save me :-/



Before going up I made sure they strapped me in VERY tight!



Then I got in the metal cage to be lifted 275feet in the air!!!



This is me going up!



This is where it got a little scary!!!



After the initial shock, it was actually a lot of fun!



I spin a lot and got very dizzy!

If you want to watch me jump over and over again, my friend Ellen took a video of it!



Altogether, it has been a great week and our campus raised a lot of money for charity!! I've had a grand time all week.

Hope everyone else is having a lot of fun too!!

Glendalough!

Hi Everyone!

Next week is Rag Week here at DCU which is a week to raise money for Irish charities and do a lot of fun activities! I decided that I am going to try to raise 110 Euro. If I succeed, I will go bungee jumping at DCU on Thursday!

Valentines Day was Thursday, so my roommates and friends invited me to go out to The Purty Kitchen to go dancing. It was a lot of fun!


Sally-May, Eimear, my roommate Tamara and me at the Purty Kitchen.

Today our study abroad program took a bus trip to Glendalough in Wicklow County. Glendalough means "land between two lakes" which is exactly what it is! The two lakes are the Upper lake and the Lower lake. St. Kevin built a great monastery here between the lakes in the 6th century! There are many monastic ruins left of the monastery, including one of the few round towers left in Ireland.


This tower is the best preserved tower and was used by the monks when the vikings and Danes invaded. Beyond the tower, there is also a huge cemetery and ruins of churches.



Also, St. Kevin's Cross is here, which is a beautiful High Cross.



I read that anyone who can get their arms around the cross will have their wish come true! Had I known that before we went, I would have made a wish! St. Kevin had a rock bed in the side of one of the mountains that is only reachable by taking a boat across the Upper lake.



However, people are no longer allowed to go to his bed because the Upper lake is known as a bottomless lake and too many people have lost their lives to it.



On the way back to Dublin we drove to a beautiful place between the Wicklow Mountains and took a couple quick pictures.



So, altogether I have a really fun week, especially today. I am so tired out, so I am taking full advantage of this weekend night by relaxing in my room watching some Irish TV and reading some books for class. I am far too tired to do anything else!

I hope you all had a great Valentines day and are doing well! Please let me know how you're doing! I love to hear from you, even if I can't always write back to all of you individually!

Malahide Castle!

Today I went on a tour to Malahide Castle right outside of Dublin and the North coast line of Dublin, both of which are absolutely gorgeous!

Malahide Castle was built in 1185, when Richard Talbot, a knight who accompanied Henry II to Ireland in 1174, was granted the "lands and harbour of Malahide". The oldest parts of the castle date back to the 12th century and it was home to the Talbot family for almost 800 years, from 1185 until 1976!

The estate survived many losses, such as the Battle of Boyne. On the day of the battle, fourteen members of the Talbot family sat down to breakfast in the Great Hall, and then they all died by that night in the battle. The Talbots even survived the Catholic Penal Laws, even though the family remained Roman Catholic until 1774.

In the 1920s the private papers of James Boswell were discovered in the castle, and sold to an American collector (they are now on display at Yale!) by Boswell's great-great-grandson Lord Talbot of Malahide.

Malahide Castle was eventually inherited by the seventh Baron Talbot and when he died in 1973, it was passed to his sister, Rose. In 1975, Rose sold the castle to the Irish State, because she could not afford the taxes.

Behind the Castle was a really old run down church.


It had a cemetery in the yard of the church and looked kinda creepy if you ask me! We didn't learn anything about it, so I can't give you a cool history about it like I did with the castle!




After the Castle we went along the North coast of Dublin where there were beautiful beaches where people were actually swimming when it was only 55degrees out!



We also saw special lighthouses that were built in the time of Napoleon to help defend against French attacks, if they ever were to come.



We also saw an island about 4 miles off the coast, which was where the Vikings first landed! The Vikings used this as a pathway to invade Ireland, but many Vikings ended up staying and living in Ireland!



All together it was a really fun day!

Oh, and Don was able to find a guy to fix my chair so it charges! I've been getting around fine and having a lot of fun! I went downtown yesterday and got a green jacket because its a bit windy here.

Anyways, I'm having a lot of fun here and I hope everyone is doing good back home!!