Anyways, here's some of what I did before my break. Going back all the way to the weekend of the 21st in February. And that just made me realize how bad of a blogger I actually am:(
So, that weekend I went to Cork with three friends. Stayed in my first hostel which was actually really good! I really liked Cork because it reminded me of a smaller version of Dublin. It was a city but it was more Irish than Dublin is and it was more homey. I loved it.
We spent one day seeing the old sites which included St. Fin Barre's Cathedral which was absolutely STUNNING. So amazing. There were graves all around the church which I thought strange at first because normally churches have a single cemetery where the graves are but here the graves totally circled the church. Once we got inside, we saw a really old book that had the history of the church and they had pictures from the 1800s. Turns out, every inch of the yard used to be covered in graves. They were EVERYWHERE. It was SO creepy looking at those pictures. No clue what happened to them all... :/
After this we made a serious trek to the old City Gaol. Didn't realize how far away it was or that we'd be walking straight uphill most of the way. But it was definitely worth it! Also a cool fact is that the history course I'm taking here in Ireland is about back in the 1800s when Irish criminals used to get transported to Australia instead of staying in jail. Because Cork is on the southern coast many criminals left from there. Fascinating.
Near Cork is a town called Blarney which is built around Blarney Castle. This castle is known for the Blarney Stone which, if kissed, gives you the gift of gab. Many people have kissed this stone including Churchill! And now I have too! When I heard of the stone I thought it was just going to be a rock either built into the castle wall or something just sitting outside. Nope! You have to climb all the way to the very top of the castle, lay down at one of the openings (like a drain that's the size of a large suitcase), hold on to the bars and lean back and kiss it. A lot more work than I thought! They put bars up across the opening so people can't fall through and bars across the side that you can hold on to. And there's an old man, the keeper of the castle, who helps you as you kiss it. All in all, it was definitely worth it! Not to mention seeing the beautiful grounds and gardens around the castle. It was an amazing day!
After that trip, I had three weeks of classes until our break. I had multiple essays due, novels to read, and Irish language to learn. One really cool thing I got to do was go to the Irish National Archives in Dublin for my history class. As I said earlier, Irish criminals were sent to Australia in the 1800s and in my class we're learning about that process. Some criminals' families would spend all their money to pay someone who could write to write a petition for the criminal. The petition would be sent to the judge or whoever was in charge in that area and then it would be decided if the person would still be sent away or if they would be able to serve their sentence in jail in Ireland. Now, keep in mind, the famine was going on during this time and some people were convicted of stealing a single loaf of bread, to stealing a cow or sheep, to wearing a stolen shirt. You could be sentenced to only seven years in Australia but many didn't make it through the journey and once there, it was nearly impossible to get yourself back to Ireland. So in fact, this was a death sentence. So for my history class we had to go into the archives and choose a petition and we have to write an essay on it. Well you can only see copies of the petitions because they're so old, however I got to actually hold the original petition I chose!!! I was SO excited! It was absolutely amazing! They were really strict though so no pictures were allowed to be taken... But I took lots of mental ones!
That's it for this post!
Xoxo,
B
No comments:
Post a Comment