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High School, International Trip

Day 9 & 10: Dublin: Trinity College and Farewell

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Day 9: Thursday, June 27, 2024

Day 9 our last fun day in Ireland. After breakfast at the hotel we gathered in the lobby at 9:00 am and started day with a walk to Trinity College. We met our Trinity guide at the Bell Tower in the Front Square for a Book of Kells Experience & Trinity Trails Campus Tour. The tour was broken down to three parts of the tour; the campus tour, Trinity Library, and the new Red Pavilion with the Digital Experience of the Book of Kells.

The first part of the our of the campus was lead by what the kids called a real life Sheldon from Big Bang, he was a Theoretical Physicist student. His tour also included a bit about campus life, studies and admissions.

Second part of the tour was self guided in the Old Trinity Library. Most of the books, including the Book of Kells, have been removed for a major conservation project. The library now features Gaia, the spectacular illuminated artwork. Gaia features 120dpi detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface, showcasing the planet floating in three dimensions as it might be viewed from space.

Third part of the tour in the Red Pavilion was a self guided tour and a tour we were not really expecting. The Digital Experience brought artifacts and sculptures to life with stories motion technology. We were amazed with the technology and captivated by the stories. The Long Room from Old Library was recreated to see both the past and the future through breathtaking digital projections.

Brief look at the Digital Experience of the Book of Kells

Our tour of Trinity College ended at 11 am and we begun our walk into the Temple Bar area. Temple Bar is an area on the south bank of the River Liffey in central Dublin. The area is bounded by the Liffey to the north, Dame Street to the south, Westmoreland Street to the east and Fishamble Street to the west. The Temple Bar has a long history today its a cultural center, pubs, restaurants, night clubs, shops, art galleries, etc. We would spend the next couple of hours on own exploring the are and getting lunch.

At 2 pm we met in the Merrion Square for visit to the National Gallery of Ireland. The National Gallery of Ireland founded in 1854 houses the national collection of Irish and European art. The gallery has an extensive, representative collection of Irish paintings and is also notable for its Italian Baroque and Dutch masters painting.

At 3:30 pm we made our way Grafton Street for some high street shopping. The street is filled with best of Irish and international fashion to gifts to craft ware. Each winding street off of Grafton is filled with boutique shops, unique stores, restaurants and pubs. Not only is it a major tourist attraction it the main shopping area for Dublin.

From Grafton Street we wandered over to George Street Arcade. The Arcade is one of Irelands oldest shopping center built in the 1876. Its house in a Victorian style building with a eclectic stores, galleries, and eateries. A very unique shopping experience.

The group made its way back to hotel and freshen up for dinner. We met in the lobby of the hotel at 5:45 to walk to dinner at the Celtic Nights Dinner and Show. For our final night in Ireland we were treated a traditional dinner of Bangers & Mash, Irish Stew, or Fish and Chips. The highlight of this dinner was entertainment. The musicians played a traditional Irish tunes that may of our Fiddlers knew. We also learned that two of the musicians were heading to Muskegon in September for the Michigan Irish Music Fest.

Along with the music they also had world championship Irish dancers. They performed traditional ‘Sean Nos” old style Irish Dance and the famous Brush Dance. They also pulled a few audience members up tot the stage for quick lessons and to dance with the dancers. The lucky dancers pulled up stage was Mrs. DeRose and Parker DeRose (who is also a competitive Irish Dancer). It was a very entertaining night and a great farewell dinner.

We departed the restaurant at 8:30 for our walk back to the hotel. Interesting to see stores starting close up and the nightlife in Dublin begin. With the time change back in the US the video Portal setup with New York on the street was interesting to see. We learned the Portal shuts down at night because after a long night in the pubs shenanigans take place in front of the Portal on both sides.

The rest of the night back in the hotel was used to pack and get organize before we depart for the airport in the morning.

Day 10: Thursday, June 28, 2024

Day 10 was our travel day home. We started out with our last full Irish breakfast, the Taylor Swift buzz was in full effect from discussions in the lobby, breakfast area, on TV, etc. Tonight was her concert night. Our big concern was the AerLingus Strike, all of the pilots on AerLingus basically shutting down the airline. We had been monitoring the strike since we got to Ireland and we assured we would get home today. Two days ago AerLingus was going to keep a few routes open NY-Dublin and ORD-Dublin would not be affected.

We need to be done with breakfast on the coach by 8:30 am to arrive at the airport by 9:00 am and our flight was at 12:05 pm. We needed to be early for a few reasons staffing and the strike was a unknown, we needed to go through security, US Immigration & US Customs before leaving. Going through the Homeland security is a bit of a pain but made it supper easy when we landed and didn’t have to wait in a huge line at O’hare. We did have a huge line through security, they made the students pull all everything including instruments on their instrument cases to be hand checked. Joe was there and I think he gave each everyone us a hug goodbye. Super nice guy and very proud to show off Ireland, we were lucky to have him.

High School, International Trip

Exploring Ireland: Day 8, Dublin

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Day 8: Wednesday, June 26, 2024

Day 8 will be our first full day in Dublin. We met in the lobby at 8 am for a full Irish breakfast plus more of an American or standard international breakfast like you would find in a Holiday Inn Express in the US. After breakfast we assembled at 9 am to make a short walk down the street to our coach to transport us to Phoenix Park and the Papal Cross. 

Phoenix Park is a 2000 acre park that was established in 1662 as a royal hunting park to this day it still contains pheasants and wild deer. In 1979, 15 acres on the edge of the park were used for a outdoor mass celebrated there by Pope John Paul II. The Papal Cross was constructed as a back drop to the mass for the first papal visit to Ireland. 

Our coach dropped us off in the park close to the Wellington Testimonial, Phoenix Park Tea Room, and the entrance of Dublin Zoo. We walked to the Wellington Testimonial the tallest obelisk in Europe at just over sixty-two meters tall. Wellington Testimonial was built in 1862 to honor the Duke of Wellington. There are four bronze plaques cast from cannons captured at Waterloo; three of which have pictorial representations while the fourth has an inscription at the base of the obelisk. 

We walked from Welling Testimonial to the Papal Cross from the Papal Cross to the Dublin Zoo.     Our stay at the zoo was enough time to get some lunch and see the animals. We had some change in plans because of a errors made in scheduling our local bus charter. Instead of heading to Patrick Pearse Museum the bus picked us 1:45pm to take us back to the hotel. From the hotel the group walked to the National Museum of Ireland for a quick visit and a small tour of the Temple Bar. 

National Museum of Ireland was constructed in 1856 and the building itself is jewel of Ireland. Our tour guide’s, Joe, daughter works at the museum. Joe was able to show the group show some highlights of the museum, the “Bog People” being one of the memorable. The museum has a strong emphasis on national and some international archaeology, Irish history, Irish art, culture, and natural history.

The group walked back to hotel through Temple Bar to meet up back in the lobby at 4:30 pm. The hotel lobby and the city were starting to go Taylor Swift crazy. Taylor was scheduled to perform in Dublin in two days and the city was filling up with concert goers from all over the world. 

We bored the bus with instruments to be dropped off just outside of St. Stephens Green and walk to dinner Wagamama. Wagamama is a restaurant with a taste of Asia, our choices for dinner were a ramen set with chicken or Kare burosu, a noodle set with chicken & prawn or yasai soba edamame, rice set with chicken teriyaki donburi or yasai cha han three chicken gyoza, or a curry set with chicken cats or yasai gyoza. 

After dinner the we walked over to Christ Church Cathedral for our final performance. The Cathedral was built of stone in the late 12th century under the Norman potentate Strongbow, and considerably enlarged in the early 13th century, using Somerset stones and craftsmen. A partial collapse in the 16th century left it in poor shape and the building was extensively renovated and rebuilt in the late 19th century, giving it the form it has today. 

The performance was well attended because the performance was well advertised and many of the local news outlets, like the Irish Star.

Another venue with amazing acoustics, history, and a beautiful church. 

Facebook Live link to the performance

After the performance the bus took us back to the hotel for the night. Everyone was ready to call it a night for much needed rest after a full day of walking and another full day tomorrow. 

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Exploring Ireland: Day 7, Blarney Castle & Rock of Cashel

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Day 7: Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Day 7 is a travel day to our final destination city, Dublin, with two stops on the northeast route first being the Blarney Castle and then the Rock of Cashel with a performance. We grabbed an early full Irish breakfast in the Clayton Hotel Silver Springs so we could depart about 8:30 am on the bus from Cork. 

The 30 minute bus ride to Blarney Castle and Gardens got us to the castle as it was opening and beat the possible crowds. The current Blarney castle was built in 1446 on the site of previous destroyed castle. Blarney Castle is now a partial ruin with some accessible rooms and battlements. At the top of the castle lies the Stone of Eloquence, better known as the Blarney Stone. Tourists visiting the castle may hang upside-down over a sheer drop to kiss the stone, which is said to give the gift of eloquence. We are able to walk the grounds, kiss the Blarney Stone, visit one of the many gardens like the “Poison Garden” or the rock formations Druid’s Circle, Witch’s Cave and the Wishing Steps. We were on our own to wonder the grounds and get lunch before our 12:30 pm departure. 

We set off for about a 90 minute drive to the Rock of Cashel. The Rock of Cashel, iconic in its historic significance, possesses the most impressive cluster of medieval buildings in Ireland. According to legend St. Patrick himself came here to convert King Aenghus to Christianity. Brian Boru was crowned High King at Cashel in 978 and made it his capital.

Link to the performance:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=2323229671361188

One of the main reason for our visit to the Rock of Cashel was to perform The Fiddlers original tune The Rock of Cashel. The acoustics within the ruins of the cathedral was amazing. People throughout the castle and grounds came in for the impromptu mini concert. The group was able to perform approximately 20 minutes to a group of 50+ people. 

Including the performance, the time we spent was about a hour at the Rock of Cashel. It was long enough time to explore, take pictures, and a bathroom break before our two hour trek to Dublin. As our journey progressed we slowly watched the landscape change from farmland to suburbia to the busy city of Dublin. 

We made it in to Dublin and ready to check into Holiday Inn Express City Centre around 5 pm. It was at this time we Flan would no longer be our Charter Bus driver. We said goodbye to Flan as we would now be chartered around by a local bus company. 

With the hotel in the heart of the Dublin City centre the lobby was not as spacious as we had gotten accustomed to but a very nice hotel. Because of its size it took us a bit longer to get up the stairs to the elevators and to our rooms. We had enough time to check in, freshen up before we met in the lobby for dinner. We met at 6:30 for a short walk to Beshoff on O’Connell Street for either a Fish and Chips or Chicken Strips and Chips dinner. The was great but we all agreed the chips were some of the best we had on the trip. 

After dinner we walked back to the hotel for the night where we all made it back in time to catch Euro Cup Soccer game of the night. A early night to bed for a full day of walking and enjoying the sights in Dublin the next day.