American Independence Day in Ireland

For our first Independence Day in Ireland, the wife and I went up to Swords (just north of Dublin) to hang out with some American colleagues and grill up some burgers. After I stood with an umbrella over our friend as he manned the BBQ, someone else mentioned that it's been one of the wettest, coolest summers he can remember here in Ireland since the 80's. Fortunately, we got our holiday tour in around the Ring of Kerry in early June before all the wet nastiness set in.

After our little "4th of July" get together, I began to wonder when Ireland celebrate their independence from the Brits. Funny enough, the only thing I came across was that St. Patrick's Day is supposed to be the day when the Irish memorialize their independence. I'm going to try and remember to test that out with my Irish friends because my hunch is that not a lot of Irish folk realize that St. Patrick's Day is also Irish Independence Day.

I'm guessing Michael Collins would not be happy about that! But maybe that's just because I'm a Yankee and we get kinda weird about patriotism. =) Having said that, I did NOT wear any "red, white & blue," but rather a grey t-shirt that says "Mad for Trad" that I got from Hairy Baby. How's that for patriotism . . .

Famine Memorial

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Originally uploaded by BKWellcome.

Took some time to take in the Famine Memorial site down the street from the Customs House over the weekend. Incredibly moving memorial. It captures the despair and sorrow of that dark time in Irish history well.

While many historical interpretations and analyses have been offered over the years, here are a few general facts:

• took place from 1845-52
• roughly 1 million people perished from starvation and disease
• a further 1 million people emigrated
• famine due in part to a potato blight caused by a fungus, and lead to massive crop failure
• While most of the voluntary relief came from Britain (via the Quakers), historians also note that the British government (Ireland was a part of the UK at the time) demonstrated gross negligence in it's relief efforts. (Okay, maybe this point is moving away from the "general facts" side of things to "interpretation.")
• The potato blight returned in 1860, 1879, 1890, and 1897 with further starvation and disease, though far less severe than the first famine.

A few quotes from Ireland: A Short History:
"[The Famine] established bitterness and deep resentment towards Britain, which has also had long-standing consequences." (p. 59)

"This overwhelmingly agricultural economy led to three important preconditions which made the Famine worse when it came: overpopulation, poverty and dependence on the potato as the main crop and food source." (p. 60)

". . . perhaps most significantly, the Famine placed the possibility of emigration permanently in the Irish rural mind." (p. 72)

South Dublin in Ruins

Recently, I’ve discovered a few historical sites of interest on the outskirts of South Dublin, all within a 10 minute drive from our estate. The gorgeous weather over Easter weekend afforded Kristy and I the opportunity to explore them.

First, there’s Kilgobbin Castle, located on what looks to be private property on Kilgobbin Road. However, the large gates are always open and the castle is far removed from the residence. The castle (or what’s left of it) is only a few walls overgrown with wild shrubbery and locals just think of it as a pile of rubble. However, given the height of the walls, there’s still enough there to imagine what it may have looked like when it was in use, circa 17th century.



Just up the road further into Stepaside are the ruins of Kilgobbin Church and cemetery. Also at the site is a granite high cross from the 12th century which was uncovered in the early 1800’s.

Moving on past Stepaside, through Kiltiernan and down to Rathmichael is another castle known as Puck’s Castle (pictured below). Situated in a farmer’s field, it has a great view of Dublin and the bay. King James II is known to have visited the castle in 1690 after he was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne.

Down a little further and up a gravel road is what remains of Rathmichael Church. According to Megalithomania.com, some of the stones hanging on the walls of the church show traces of pre-Celtic Neolithic art forms. (This of course isn’t to suggest that the actual church has been around since then, given the fact that neither Christianity nor "churches" existed.) While we were there, we noticed that the wall surrounding the church yard was very much intact, though overgrown in places. The place feels very secluded, until you stop long enough to realize you can hear traffic on the M50 in the distance.

Tom over at Megalithomania.com documents loads of these kinds of things around Ireland and even provides GPS coordinates for the ultra-nerdy. He also provides decent directions to the sites that we visited in particular.

Big Day in Northern Ireland

It's been slow, but the process continues to move forward for Northern Ireland. (CLICK HERE for the NY Times article and HERE for the BBC.) Today, Ian Paisley (the hard-nosed British loyalist) and Gerry Adams (formerly tied to a terrorist organization) sat down at a table for the first time to discuss power sharing between the two parties. Beginning on May 8th, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein will begin governing the UK province together, with Sinn Fein continuing to press for a united Ireland and the DUP insisting on staying tied to the UK.

In our Irish history class, the wife and I have been learning about how, for hundreds of years, successive kings of England tried to subjugate the Irish through colonization, as well as both legal and religious legislation. (In fact, in 1366 Britain even outlawed Irish people from entering cathedrals in Ireland.) From the mid-12th century on into the early 20th century, this was Ireland's relationship with Britain. It was in 1609 that the Ulster Plantation began in northeastern Ireland under James I. Lands were taken from Catholic Irish landowners and given to Protestant English colonialists.

Given the history of the conflict from an outside objective view, it's fairly easy to see how the UK's occupation of N. Ireland wasn't fair or just to begin with. However, given the situation today in a democratic society, with a small majority of N. Ireland's population preferring to stay connected to the UK, there doesn't seem to be any other realistic option but to allow democracy to run it's course. Obviously, I've simplified things down quite a bit here, but for the readers in the United States, this is the best summary I can offer (minus the bloodshed and the atrocities from both sides).

National Museum of Ireland

My wife and I are taking an Irish history course here in Dublin and for today's class, we were taken on a tour through the National Museum. Some of the more recent (and gruesome) findings in the museum include the remains of human bodies that were preserved in various peat bogs around the country. The one we saw today was killed some 4 or 5 hundred years before the birth of Christ, yet it was so well preserved that Gardai were able to take fingerprints that were as clear as any fingerprints they take from living people today!

One of the comments by our tour guide had to do with the popular ideology of a peaceful Ireland in ages past that was something close to a utopia of sorts. I've heard other Irish folk talk about this teaching in the context of a search for Irish national identity. In some ways, I guess it's the same way with whatever country one happens to be from. Where we've come from as a collective people informs our national identity, so whatever we can do to romanticize or idealize that past is the tendency.

As for Ireland, this has to be met with the reality of human sacrifices and a certain level of "barberism," as our tour guide put it today. The pre-historic man we saw had been ceremoniously dismembered and mutilated, presumably in an effort to bring agricultural fertility to the land.

W.B. Yeats Exhibition

On Wednesday I popped into the National Library of Ireland to have a look around and ended up spending a good hour in the current exhibition on William Butler Yeats. It’s a brilliant exhibition blending creative multi-media presentations and personal affects of the world-renown poet/playwright. (Click here for an online presentation on Yeats poem “Sailing to Byantium.”)

One of the things that fascinates me the most about Yeats was his preoccupation with the spiritual realm, primarily in the form of the occult. One of the documentaries being shown in the exhibition mentioned that his search for the spiritual was in reaction to the ostensibly empty forms of religion and rationalism that he saw in the late nineteenth century. Of course, throughout Ireland’s history “religion” has always been inextricably linked to political agendas. For Yeats, there had to be something more. And if there was, it was certainly not found in Christianity. Interestingly enough, he turned to Celtic paganism instead.