Avainsana: Ireland

Dubliners

julkaissut Nokisuu

This is my very late post of the Saturday (and Sunday morning) we spent in Dublin right after our week in Limerick in May.

After a great breakfast at our hipster hotel in the Docklands me and Sari walked to the Trinity College for our pre-booked tour on the campus and Mikko did something on his own. The tour was lovely and the student guiding us was a very nice young man. Our tickets included the Long Room and Book of Kells which was good since there was quite a lot of tourists that day.

River Liffey
Are we in the right place?
Lovely mosaics
Old elks (the eldest found)
Huge old trees
Sphere within sphere by Pomodoro

The Long Room has been on my bucket list for ages and I was so happy to finally get to see it. For a library-lover it is a real treasure and I enjoyed immensely seeing the colorful slips in the shelves indicating borrowed books. The only thing that bothered me a bit was that it was so crowded.

I did some souvenir shopping and had a nice chat with the cashier guys about audio books 🙂 and then it was time for me to get moving in order to meet Guylty/Sonja in time. We had agreed to meet at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) which was very interesting to see too. I left Sonja to enjoy herself in the newest exhibition while I walked through the museum and it was just lovely. The museum had a nice cafe where we enjoyed lunch and also a very nice small gift shop.

From there we walked to the Marsh’s library as Sonja was such awesome guide and thought I might like it. I absolutely adored the place! I’ll always be grateful for Sonja for showing it to me.

From the Marshs’ library Sonja walked a ways with me as I was going to visit the Yeats exhibition at the National library where we parted (the exhibition was a bit of a disappointment and the other parts of the library were closed due to renovations) and then I visited the National museum’s Ór exhibition as she had recommended which was beautiful. From there I walked back to our hotel via some bookshops (didn’t find anything to buy sadly) and rested my feet for a while before we went back to the center for dinner.

MoLI inner garden
Marsh’s library
Reading cage to prevent book thefts (awesome idea!)
National Library
Ór exhibition
Gold so shiny
Oscar Wilde stretched out on a stone (made of all different stones)
Liffey at night

We had first thought to have a dinner in pub but they were all filled to the rafters due to it being the rugby and football finals that night so we ended up to a very good pizzeria. On our way there Sari stopped to admire Sweny’s windows just as they were closing and so we ended inside to have a chat with PJ Murphy about James Joyce and all kinds of things and it was just lovely. Also in the pizzeria we had lovely chat with the neighboring tables and I must say that all the Irish people were so wonderful. (Actually we came to the conclusion that Finns and Irish are quite alike, we felt like being at home with everyone, it was so easy.)

On Sunday morning we took a little walk to the city center but then decided to get back to hotel and leave for the airport since we’d heard it was going to be quite the struggle to get to the flight in time. We were lucky and made it to our flight but we queued to the security check for two hours and I didn’t have time to buy anything from the tax free, I only managed to bu some sandwiches for the plane for dinner.

Thank you Sonja and Ireland for lovely time, I’ll be back!

Homeless Jesus at Christ Church
Famine monument

Limerick

julkaissut Nokisuu

We (me, my colleague and the head librarian Sari and our media teacher and education planner Mikko) visited the Further Education and Training College in Limerick as an Erasmus+-mobility project and it was very interesting. We got to talk with the teachers and visited different campuses and took part to the LifeLongLearning Festival they had on just that week. Here is a short video from the Multicultural day, look closely and you may see me there too, just try to spot the hot pink jeans 🙂

We had tight schedule and got so much information that I think we are still processing things. We had interesting talks with people and enjoyed seeing different campuses and also met one teacher originally from Finland with whom we had a long chat about how things are in both countries. One theme for our visit was media literacy and how it’s taught in Ireland and in the end one of the teachers said that they can see how much they still need to do in order to teach it to their students so I think we all got something out of this visit.

All days were so full scheduled that we had to sneak away on Thursday in order to get to see the King John’s castle which was very nice. We also visited St Mary’s Cathedral which was very interesting, there was a chamber choir just rehearsing for their evening performance and it was absolutely beautiful.

Frank McCourt’s novel Angela’s ashes tells of his childhood in Limerick
The Magdalene laundries memorial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland
St Mary’s Cathedral
King John’s Castle

I didn’t manage to do any kind of shopping since all shops closed so early, I only bought some trousers from Dunne’s where I did some grocery shopping in the evening and their clothes department was on the same level as the grocery side.

The people were awesome and made us feel welcome. We had a nice informal dinner on Thursday night and made friends and talked about everything more easily than on the campus. One very kind lady called Máire took us for a car trip all over the county on Friday.

We drove from Limerick to Burren National park where we did a short walk. From there we drove to the seaside so we’d see the Cliffs of Moher (we didn’t go there since it was a tourist trap) via Aillwee cave (where we bought some nice cheese and didn’t get into the cave at all) and Fenore beach. From the roadside we’d see Moher very well and took some nice pics and then Máire drove us all the way over the peninsula so we’d see the other side too. Then in Clahane shore Mikko went for a swim in the Atlantic ocean and afterwards we had nice dinner in Lahinch village and later ice cream stop at Liscannor before driving back to Limerick. Then we took the train to Dublin and were quite tired after all the excitement of the week so after we found our hotel we just bought some sandwiches from a shop next door and went to bed.

Cranesbill. We have it in Finland too, it’s called cranes knee here.
Turlach
Carron church
The Pinnacle Well
Fanore beach
Fanore beach, looks a lot like Hawaii
The Pinnacle Well
Aran Islands in the horizon
Cliffs of Moher
Sea shells? Can’t remember their name in English
Mikko in the sea in Liscannon and Sari being a tourist

Okay, here was the Limerick part. I’ll try to write the Dublin part this week too.

Just a FYI I’m over Covid19 now, I only had fever for two days (38,5C degrees) and runny nose last week, I went back to work on Thursday and Friday and now I’m feeling quite myself again. I was very tired during the first weekend of June but day napped with Sirius on the balcony and it was good.