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.