Heritage open day 2010

Loads of interesting places opened their doors to the public today to mark the Heritage Open Day. I am exhausted after going around the city to see them. In the end I had to take refuge in a pub to rest my weary body and drink a few pints!

I went to a few places including the Shandon Bells (St Anns Cathedral), the Firkin Crane, the Courthouse and Elizabeth Fort. There was a great friendly welcoming buzz around the city with lots of places that are not normally open to the public opening their doors. It was a case of 'I always wondered what it was like inside' etc. The courthouse was the strangest one. I was never in one before, but have seen them on telly and in movies etc, but it was a weird experience, don't know why though, maybe because the building is over 100 years old and I'm sure lots of weird things have happened in there over the years! Here's a few snaps of what I saw.

Shandon Bells




The Firkin Crane (the round building)


Inside Courthouse

Paddy Games 2010

Fireman carry relay
Crawling
Running under hurdles
3 Legged race
The inaugural 'Paddy Games' took place today Saturday 14 August 2010. I'm sure that because of it the day will go down in history!! It involved many familiar sporting events but with a twist. For example there was the triple backwards jump, backwards running, the blindfold dash, a tricycle race and Irish dancing hurdles. Their maxim is "taking silly very seriously".

It was all a bit of a laugh really. It was held in the Mardyke arena in Cork city and about 1,700 spectators turned up to support the 270 people taking part.

Town of Kinsale

I went to Kinsale the other day with my brother who was staying with me in Cork for a few days. The Solitaire boat race had just landed a few days before and the boats were still there - lots of French people in the town.

We stopped at Charles Fort on the way back to Cork. It is an old star-shaped coastal defence fort built by the British in the 1670s when Ireland was a colony of Britain.

They were afraid that their enemies - Holland, Spain or France would invade Britain through Ireland. It never happened though - I'm sure they would have taken one quick look at Charles Fort with all its heavy canons trained on the narrow gap where boats enter and said IMPOSSIBLE. It was gutted during the Irish Civil War in 1922-23, but it still stands and you get a great impression of what it was like long ago.



This clip shows what it looks like around Kinsale and you can also just about see Charles Fort.

Lee Swim 2010

The annual Lee Swim - a swim in Cork's river Lee - took place on Saturday 24 July 2010. About 340 people took part in it and they swam down through the city for about 2,000 meters. They drew a lot of spectators along the quays, even though they weren't very vocal in their encouragement.

When I first heard about it I immediately thought of the Jack B Yeats painting of the Liffey Swim. We had a copy of it in my parents house when I was growing up. It always seemed a bit weird to think that people actually swam in the Liffey which was always considered very polluted, but they did and they still do.

According to the ever reliable Wikipedia!!, the Cork swim seems to get a bigger number of entrants compared to the Dublin one. Not sure why that is, maybe the Dublin swim is more difficult - it's a bigger river!

Cork Clipper Festival

A boat race came into Cork on 7 July 2010. The boats were tied up on a specially built thing - I'm not very good a boating terminology! The city council arranged a festival to welcome the crews to Cork with music and different events to get people involved. There's a nice atmosphere around the quayside. You can get info on the event here:

www.corkclipperfestival.com/about-the-festival/

Bonfire night - 23 June 2010

Well I looked out my window the other evening and saw a fire. I was going to phone the fire brigade because I was convinced a house was on fire, until I noticed another fire nearby and then another and then another and another. I then remembered someone talking about a tradition in Cork on 23 of June every year - bonfire night.

It happens on St John's eve and these days it seems to be an excuse to light a fire where normally you can't. I saw people putting unwanted furniture on some fires. The next day you could see the remains of these fires and it wasn't a pretty sight.

IMMA

I was recently in Dublin for a few days and I visited the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) on my way back to Cork. It's located in the old building known as the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham. It was built between 1680 and 1684 as a kind of army retirement home, much like Les Invalides in Paris or the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London. I'm sure there are lots of equivalents in other countries too.

It was renovated and opened as IMMA in 1991. Modern art can be a bit hit and miss I think. Sometimes you'll see some amazing works of art and sometimes you'll see some absolute crap. Oftentimes the building containing the 'art' is more impressive than the so called art.

That's kind of the case in IMMA. They have some really good stuff by Irish and international artists, but they also have some rubbish too. The building is great, real solid and well built. It should be if it has lasted all this time I suppose. The grounds of IMMA are very good, loads of space to walk around or have a picnic. There's also some sculpture in the grounds which is a very good idea.

Beautiful weather in Ireland

I know I know, it's not something that you read about often, well ever in fact, but it has been unbelievably sunny and warm here in Ireland for the last few days. Temperature was in the mid twenties celcius. The result is lots of sunburnt people walking around the place, me included. Well what do you expect from a pale skinned people who see the sun only every now and again?

It makes the whole landscape look so much better. I took my bike off down by the river Lee in Cork today, there were loads of people out enjoying the good weather. There was a boat race on too and I captured it on film - so to speak. Here goes.

WHAT, no more Beamish?

No more what? Beamish is an Irish stout, it's like the Cork version of Guinness. The old brewery off Grand Parade where it has been made for the last few hundred years is being dismantled.

The drink is now owned by the multinational brewer Heineken and it's being made in another part of Cork City along with the other Irish drink they own, Murphy's. The old brewery is being cleared of all the drink making stuff? I'm not sure what the site is being turned into but I really hope they keep something authentic of the old place.

It's unique to have all that history of brewing (and drinking) in the center of a city and it would be great for tourists and locals alike if they could turn it into something we could be proud of.

Photo taken in September 2009



Photos taken today 15 May 2010

Visit to Cobh

On a recent really really windy day, I went to Cobh. It is famous enough place because it has ties to two famous ships - the Titanic (last port of call was Cobh) and the Lusitania (where the bodies were brought ashore after it was torpedoed by a German U-boat).

The town has a certain kind of charm. I though it looked nice, lots of colour - the houses are all painted different colours. But it was a bit of a ghost town too. It has lots of empty shops in the centre due to the whole economic meltdown thing. On the whole though I liked it, with the hills and houses on one side and the sea on the other its unlike most Irish towns.

Nouvelle Vague cinema - talk in UCC

The 55th Cork International Film Festival took place recently, well in early March actually! As well as cinema screenings there was a talk on in UCC about the Nouvelle Vague era of French cinema by Pierre-Henri Deleau. It was really very interesting. It clarified so much about that era and cleared up all I thought I knew about that time in history.

The term 'Nouvelle Vague' was coined by Françoise Giroud, who wrote for the magazine L'Express. She wanted to describe the 30 or so new film makers that came on the scene in the period 1958-1959.

'Les Cahiers du cinéma' was the focal point from which this new type of cinema came about. The late 50's in France was a pretty good time, de Gaulle was back in power so there was political stability and the economy was flourishing. But young people, especially artistically minded young people saw loads of problems. At that time about 100 films were made each year. The directors were all mostly old. They were not really looking at real life and most of the filming was done in studios, not in the open air.

So young people decided to start making their own films. They didn't have much money so they employed their friends as the actors in the film. They couldn't afford to rent a studio, so they filmed on the street. Suddenly everyone says: we can do that too. So it catches on and loads of people are making their own films.

The sound they used in their films was revolutionary. It was direct sound, so if someone turned away from the microphone you could not hear what they were saying. But apparently, you didn't need to hear everything to understand what they were saying. The French language is organised like this - in a sentence you have a subject (eg. I), a verb (eg. go) and an object (home) in that order. So when an actor spoke, to understand them, you only really needed to hear the start of their sentence and the missing parts were not required.

The era known as Nouvelle Vague really only lasted for three years, from 1959-1962. After that there was a return to traditional cinema. But they did make a big impact on cinema in general. Maybe as big as Rossellini in 1945 with his neorealist films.

The directors of the NV brought up new subjects that the older directors would not deal with such as politics (Algerian war) and rural France (not just Paris, as usual). NV influenced similar movements all over the world, places like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, USA, Germany and Chili made their own type of NV films.

As I said, this talk really clarified the basics of the subject for me. I hope it helped you too.

Day in Dublin

Cork


I took these photos in the early morning on the way to Cork train station to catch the train to Dublin. It was a lovely morning and when I got to Dublin, the sun was really shining, even though it was a bit chilly. Brrrrr.
Dublin

Few trips to Dublin

Over the last few weeks I took the train to Dublin (from Cork) a couple of times. The trains are all new and the trip is quick(ish) and very comfortable. It only costs € 10 each way, which is great. If I was to drive, and spend that amount on fuel, that would only bring me half the way!

I had different reasons for going to Dublin on the different dates. Once I was going to say goodbye to one of my brothers who has just left his job and apartment and is currently travelling around the world. He started in South America, will travel to North America and then, well I'm not sure if he even has it figured out after that. He's kind of playing it by ear so to speak.

Another time I went to Dublin was to have a look at some books in the National Library for some essays I'm writing for my course. More on that later!

Ireland is having some economic problems at the moment - I can't explain it any better because I don't really understand it. Basically we are pumping loads of money (billions of euros €€€) into our banks who gave out some really bad loans in recent years. The government has made loads of cuts in spending to pay for this bank bailout (as it's called).

Anyway, it hit home recently when I saw loads of Irish citizens in queues outside the passport office in Dublin to collect passports. The problem was that the staff at the office were on strike to protest at the government spending cuts that have affected their pay.

Last Saturday 27 March 2010 I went to the National Library to view a book I needed to see for some references, but I couldn't get in because the place was shut due to striking staff. It's not until it affects you personally that you begin to question these things and see what's really going on.

I just want to include some photos of my one of my trips to Dublin. The first is a mountain that I passed on the train, with a dusting of snow on top of it. The second is a picture of the river Liffey. In it you can see a ferry on the river, the Liffey Boardwalk and the Spire on O'Connell Street.

Happy St Patricks Day 2010.

Well everything has been painted a lovely shade of green to celebrate our national holiday - St Patricks Day. I watched some of the parade here in Cork city. It started on South Mall and went down Grand Parade, then down Patricks Street and along the quay to finish up there.

There was a nice festive atmosphere in the streets with loads of families celebrating the day and food stalls set up to . In the parade there were lots of marching bands and community groups.

There were lots of boats too, I suppose because Cork is on the sea and it's very important to the city and county.

Some other pics of London

I just want to share with you some other pictures that I took while I was in London last month. Here you can see a real traditional London pub in the center of the city. I don't know why, but they always seem to be on corners like this.

You can also see some old tube station entrances. I think it's great that they renovate old buildings like this and that they don't just knock them down and build up some monstrosities like they do in some countries.

Last day in London

When in London, I stayed near Kensington Gardens, which is near the Albert Hall. I had a look at it one morning and think it looks like a nice building. Here, have a look.



As I was taking the bus through central London on my way to the airport I filmed a few minutes of the crazy traffic.





On the flight on the way back to Cork I saw the snow on the top of a mountain. Looks very strange, doesn't it?

London transport

When I was in London recently I met up with a friend of mine who I used to work with in Dublin. At closing time I said I was going to get the tube and my friend was getting a night bus. I left her at the station and I took what I thought was a train to the center of London. It finished at Earls Court and I had to get a night bus myself to get back to where I was staying.

It all worked out ok, it was like a night bus anywhere else that I've been on - a few drunk people and a few crazies! Aren't we all?

This is the ghost train as I called it that I took that night. Really eerie as I was the only person on it.

The Monument - London

The Monument in London which is known as 'The Monument' was built to celebrate the Great Fire of London of 1666. It was built between 1671 and 1677 by Sir Christopher Wren and Dr Robert Hooke.

Its height is 202 feet or 62 metres, which is the exact distance from the fire's source in a bakers shop in Pudding Lane.

You have to climb 311 steps to reach the top of it. There's no lift unfortunately - if you see the photos you will understand why. It is the tallest free standing Doric column in the world and it's made of Portland stone.

For someone who doesn't like heights, I don't know why I climbed it. It was ok going up it, except when I met someone on the stairs and I had to somehow make way for them - believe me it's very tricky in such a small space!

When I did get to the top, all I wanted to do was to go straight down it again. But I had sent time and money going up it, so I thought I should try and overcome my fear and so I walked around the balcony once, took these photos and then came right back down to earth.

These pictures show the narrow stairs, the view from the top and some views of the base of the monument, showing its story.