Home

I've been in Cork now for just over one month.  Time is slipping away far too quickly.  As all of you know from my continued enthusiasm, I love it here.  From the first moment I stepped off the plane to this very minute, sitting at my desk and looking out my window, I feel that I am home.

I've been a lot of places that I've loved, but I can't remember any other that gave me the heartwarming, sense of calm and happiness you get when you come home.  Not so immediately.  I am constantly in a state of peace and joy here.  If home is where the heart is, then I've found my heart here in Ireland.

I've been trying to articulate why I've loved my archaeology class so much because it reflects, I believe, why I love Ireland, but I am still unable to find the right words.  The best I can do at this moment is to say that there is simply something spectacular about standing on the same land your ancestors stood on thousands of years ago.  Of looking at the very beginnings of tools and technology and towns.  Of standing in a Cathedral, looking up at a vaulted ceiling high above your head and knowing that decades of love and care were spent by people to build the space now around you.

I'm rambling now, and so I will quickly end this post.  But I would like to make it known that Ireland is a very special country.  If ever you have a chance, visit.  Perhaps it will be home for you as well.

Always, slán agus beannacht leat.

Caves and Cashels

Me in the wedge tomb.

For our third field trip, we took a day trip through North Cork to the Rock of Cashel. Our first stop of the day was the Labbacallee Wedge Tomb, built in the Copper Age.  When it was excavated in 1934, the remains of a woman were found along with fragments of late neolithic pottery.  As we walked around the tomb, I asked Thomás if we could go inside.  He grinned and said something about it not being safe before hopping in through an opening and beckoning me in after him. 

After the tomb, we stopped at Mitchelstown Caves.  They don't have true archaeological significance, but they are brilliant and Thomás figured we'd enjoy them.  The air in the caves was the cleanest, purest air I have ever breathed.  The guide told us that some hospitals in Europe are actually built in caves to help treat patients with lung problems.  The other incredible aspect of the caves is their acoustics.  Concerts are occasionally held in the caves because the sound travels so well through the different chambers.

The Gothic Cathedral.

In the afternoon, we went to the Rock of Cashel.  Cormac's Chapel, built by the McCarthy family in the twelfth century is one of the earliest Romanesque churches in Ireland and retains some of the only frescos painted in Ireland at the time.  Built right next to Cormac's Chapel as a power play by the O'Brien family is a much grander thirteenth century cathedral in the Gothic style.  

The most spectacular aspect of the afternoon was the view from the top of the Rock of Cashel.  It overlooks the Tipperary plain and the extent of the view is marvelous.  Plus, we happened to be there during one of the few sunny hours and had the chance to bask in the landscape under the pure blue sky.

View from the Rock of Cashel. My friend Heather in the foreground.

~Slán agus beannacht leat

Field Trip #2: Newgrange

After a fancy dinner and a stay in Barnacle's hostel, my class left Dublin and headed north to the Boyne Valley for a visit to Newgrange, a world heritage site.

Newgrange from a distance.

Newgrange is a passage tomb built in the Neolithic period.  Older than England's Stonehenge and the Giza Pyramid in Egypt, Newgrange has been a site of pilgrimage for thousands of years.  During excavations, Roman coins were found strewn around the mound, suggesting the fascination with the site even in the early centuries A.D.

To give you an idea of the tomb, it is 250 feet in diameter and covers just over an acre.  The inner passage stretches about a third of the way into the mound and then opens into a central chamber which has three smaller chambers surrounding it.   Under natural conditions, the chamber is pitch black, but on the winter solstice, the sun shines directly through a hole above the tomb's entrance, up the sloped passage, and illuminates the central chamber.

There's something indescribable about the majesty of Newgrange.  We can't know for sure what it was used for, but it's widely thought to have had religious significance.  Perhaps the neolithic people had a religious connection to the sun.  Our tour guide told a story of people who believed the winter solstice was a day of renewal and a day when the earth and the sun became one.

The entrance stone stands in front of the entrance and the roof box.

I am extremely lucky to have visited Newgrange.  Thomas had to book the trip seven months in advance.  As part of our visit, we got to enter the tomb and watch a demonstration of the winter solstice.  As the light crept up the passage, I got chills.  I can only imagine what it would feel like to stand in that passage during the solstice and experience the real thing.

No one who enters Newgrange would be able to say they don't feel something.  Whether it's simply amazement or it's a connection to something greater than yourself.  For me, it was just utter awe at the engineering capabilities and beautiful craftsmanship of a people who didn't have technology of any kind.  Not even the wheel.  Not even large mammals to help cart the stone, all of which had to be brought to the Boyne Valley.  There is no mortar, nothing to hold the inner chamber's beautiful vaulted ceiling together, nothing except the perfect selection of stone and the pressure of the mound above.

Words do not do it justice.  Pictures cannot do it justice.  It truly is and was something I had to experience, and I know I will remember it the rest of my life.

Slán agus beannacht leat.

Field Trip # 2, Day One in Dublin

The second week in my archaeology class, we took a trip up to Dublin and to several sites around County Meath.  Thomas's wife was expecting a baby (who was born the following Tuesday) so another professor, John Sheehan, Viking Extraordinaire, accompanied our class instead.

St. Patrick's Bellshrine.

In Dublin, we visited the National Museum of Archaeology and History.  There, John told us to ignore the "No Photography" sign and to take pictures sans flash when the guards weren't looking.  His snarkiness continued as he led us through the museum and talked about different displays, poking fun at what we did and didn't know and at Thomas's usual giddy excitement over certain topics.  His lecturing style is completely opposite from Thomas's, but I love him just the same.  Where Thomas is loud, excited, and generally jolly about things, John is dry, soft-spoken, and quite sarcastic.  Thomas had warned us to beware his temper, as John is recently "off the fags."

John talks about Dubhlinn.

After the museum, we walked through Dublin and John told us the history and took us to various spots that had been famous for the Vikings, including what is now a garden but used to be Dubhlinn (pronounced "duvlin"), a lake around which the Vikings first built the city.  After a pit-stop for lunch in a beautiful restaurant, we headed to Christchurch Cathedral.

Once again, John's delightful snark made itself known as he pointed out the way the nave leans to one side, an indication that it will collapse in time.  He then beckoned us in closer and informed us it had happened once before, destroying the pilgrimage tomb of Strongbow.  The tomb now housed there is a fake.  Well, it's real, but it's not Strongbow's.  Awkward...

Cat and Rat.

The Cathedral itself is beautiful.  Small compared to several I've seen (i.e. Notre Dame) but still lovely.  Beneath Christchurch is an impressive collection of artifacts, including the infamous "Cat and Rat" which were found completely preserved in an organ pipe and are referred to in James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake."

This post is getting too long now, so I'll share the rest of the trip next time.  As always, slán agus beannacht leat.

 

Making an Irish Meal

My second week in Cork, several friends (Connor, Allyson, Sally, J.J) and I started a tradition of Sunday family dinners.  We figured it'd be a nice way to create a family atmosphere amongst strangers.  We take turns hosting the meal and cooking the main course.  Anyone/everyone is invited and the only rule is that you have to bring something to share-a salad, dessert, wine, etc.

This week, I volunteered to host because I was itching to try out an Irish recipe: Guinness Stew.  I simplified and combined several recipes I found and ended up making a pretty successful dinner of Guinness Stew and Colcannon (an Irish potato and cabbage dish).

To make the stew, I browned 3 lbs of cubed beef in olive oil with thyme, sage, salt, and pepper.  Then I let it stew in a pint of Guinness with carrots, onions, garlic, and several other spices until the vegetables softened.

For the Colcannon, I enlisted Connor's help to peel and slice potatoes which he boiled and mashed while I cooked the cabbage.  Then we combined the two with garlic, salt, pepper, butter, milk, and fresh parsley.

We served the meal with a loaf of fresh local bread, brought by our friend Allyson and a salad from Sally.  J. J. supplied wine and a coffee-flavored cake for desert.  

Butter and Jail: Just Your Typical Day

Butter through the ages.

Hello again!  I seem to be getting behind in my posts, so they will necessarily become less detailed as the semester progresses.  I've now been in Cork for two weeks, though it feels like much longer.  Every day is a new adventure, yet it feels like a little bit of me has always been here.  A lot has happened in the past two weeks, but here's a few of the highlights.

     Last Saturday, I went with a few friends to the Cork Butter Museum.  Ireland is huge on the dairy front, in case you didn't know.  Every time I've traveled outside of Cork, I've passed dozens of dairy farms.  There are cows everywhere.  Anyway, the Butter Museum was a fun and quick thing to do in Cork.  The man gave us an extra discount off of the student ticket price, which was an added bonus.

The west wing of the jail.

     After the Butter Museum, we hiked up on the north side of the city to the Cork Gaol (Jail).  For 7 euro, we were able to do an audio tour of the gaol which was fascinating.  If you come to Cork for one day, visit the gaol and heritage center.  The cells are set up with life-size wax figures and the audio guide tells the real-life stories of prisoners past.

     Saturday night, I went out with a bunch of people from my program.  We went to a pub called The Washington Inn and later to An Brog, which becomes a nightclub on the weekends.

    Sunday, I spent the day in the city center with a couple friends.  We did a little shopping and went out to lunch at a lovely cafe.

      Well, that's it for now.  Till next time, slán agus beannacht leat.

First Field Trip

As part of my study abroad program, I'm enrolled in a four-week pre-semester program studying Irish Archaeology.  Having never taken an archaeology class before, I thought this semester and this program was the perfect time and place to try it.  And I was right.  One week into the course, I am loving it.

In the trench surrounding the Garranes Ringfort.

Along with listening to weekly lectures from our brilliant and engaging professor, Tomás Ó Carragáin, I get to take four different field trips around Ireland to visit various archaeological sites.  On Thursday, I had my first adventure around West County Cork.  

We started the morning by visiting Garranes Ringfort which dates back to the Iron Age (600 BC).  It was excavated in 1930 and again in 1991. Today, the ringfort looks like little more than a huge round field, but around the edges the man-made trenches that served as the fort's defense are still present. After Professor Ó Carragáin talked for a few minutes about the site, I got to hike around the field and down into the trenches which were slippery from the previous night's rain. 

Next, we drove to Ballinacarriga Tower House, built in the mid-sixteenth century.  As a member of the Irish Archaeological Association, Professor Ó Carragáin has a key to all national archaeological monuments, enabling our class to enter the tower house.  He pointed out several carvings and details in the design of the building before we climbed the narrow spiral staircase, without any rails, to the top floor.  As it is not much wider than I am, climbing the staircase was unnerving.

Carvings of the Passion on the window of the Ballinacarriga Tower House.

The top floor of the tower house is open to the elements as the roof has long ago collapsed.  Professor  Ó Carragáin then showed us how several of the windows had been added at a later date, a fact we can determine because of their size and shape.  Then we discussed the elaborate Christian carvings around the windows.  It turns out that the tower house's top floor was a secret Catholic chapel when Catholicism had been declared illegal by the British crown.  

Statue of Micheal Collins.

     Before we continued our trip, we stopped for lunch in a town called Clonakilty.  Fun fact:  Michael Collins (a man instrumental in the Irish Revolution) lived and attended school there.  We passed a memorial statue of him on our way to the pub.  Fun Fact 2: Noel Redding, bassist from the Jimi Hendrix Experience, retired to Clonakilty in 1972 and played regulary at De Barra's Folk Club, the pub in which we ate lunch.

Coppinger's Court.

The white one in the back right was my favorite.

In the afternoon, we made two more stops.  The first was to Coppinger's Court, a semi-fortified house built in 1616 by Sir Walter Coppinger.  Reflective of the Renaissance style, the house today is in complete disrepair.  Profssor Ó Carragáin kept us to only one side of the house as we explored it and told us to whisper because parts of the building are so unstable.

Perhaps the most exciting part of this part of the journey was the posse of dogs who tagged along and proceeded to herd the nearby cows into circles for our amusement.  We had a hard time focusing on the lecture as we watched the dogs scampering about the site.

We ended the day at Drombeg Stone Circle which has 17 standing stones.  It is aligned on the setting sun of the winter solstice such that the sunlight tumbles up the hill and out of sight.  When it was excavated many years ago, the cremated remains of a single man were found beneath a flat, central stone.  Today, visitors often leave tokens of all sorts on this stone.

If you ever have a chance, go and explore these amazing archaeological finds or have lunch in Clonakilty.  The town is delightful and I hope to visit again. This coming Thursday, I'll be heading up to Dublin to visit the National Museum as well as Trim Castle and the famous Newgrange passage tomb.  Till then, slán agus beannacht leat. 

Drumbeg Circle, the largest intact stone circle in Ireland.