Blue Mosque - Istanbul

The Blue Mosque, which was built in the early 1600's is so named because of all the blue tiles that decorate its walls. It is massive inside as you can see from the photos and is still used as a functioning mosque to this day. It's located in the Sultanahamet area of Istanbul, nearby you will find the Hagia Sofia museum, the Hippodrome, the Topkapi Palace and the Basilica Cistern.

Open House Dublin 8 October 2011

"Open House" is an iniative where buildings open their doors to the public. You can visit buildings of all kinds that would normally be closed. I went to Liberty Hall, the tallest building in Dublin.

Dublin is predominantly a low rise city, as you can see from the photos attached and the two short videos. Liberty Hall was built in the early 1960s and is only 16 stories tall. These days it shows its age, but I have to say I like it.





The height gives you a great view over the city and a bit of perspective - you can see the massive infrastructural changes in the city over the last ten years. You can see the new bridges over the River Liffey, new sports stadia and buildings like the convention centre.

The artist in me

I started taking art classes in October last year (2010). I suppose I always liked drawing and painting in school and have recently wanted to do something creative like that. I also wanted to see if I was any good at it. I have learned that I'm going to need a lot more practice.

I submitted two of my drawings from the night class to a competition in the art college where I take the night classes. I didn't win, I didn't expect to to be honest, but it was great to see my stuff up on the wall with all the other pieces. The first two pictures show my two pieces and the rest of the pictures show general views of the gallery in the college where the work was exhibited.

The clash of the ash

The clash of the ash - that's how hurling is known in Ireland. It's because the wood from ash trees is used to make the hurley stick. I went along to a game today between Cork and Tipperary in Pairc Ui Chaoimh in Cork.

The throw in (so called because the sliotar [the ball] is literally thrown in by the referee) was at 2.30. There was a good crowd there. I hadn't been to a match for a few years and a couple of things struck me about my visit there - I'll share them with you now.

I got there early and went through an old style turnstile where someone on the other side had to release a pedal to let me in when I pushed on the turnstile - really old style, if you'll pardon the pun. A traditional Irish music band was then 'entertaining' the crowd before the game got under way. Then we had the national anthem where only a singer sang and not the crowd - as you'd expect.

The size of the pitch was a surprise to me. It just looked so big and vast and the players by comparison - so tiny and lost on the big pitch. I had forgotten what it was like to see a game being played there right in front of me. If you ever see a hurling match on tv, it looks really fast paced and dangerous. Seeing it there in the flesh - it didn't seem as fast as it does on tv. I'm not sure why that is - could be to do with editing I suppose. Another thing is when you see any sport on tv, you can rely on them for replays and watching it from different camera angles, but when you're in the sports ground you don't have the same luxury and have to keep your eyes glued on the pitch or you'll miss something and never see it again.

I was sitting near a guy who had an opinion on everything that was going on on the pitch. He was looking all around him - either looking for people to back him up or for people to argue with, I'm not sure which. The rest of the crowd was surprisingly reserved. They clapped when a goal or point was scored by either side and didn't really get excited until the very last minutes of the game with shouts of 'Come on Cork' or 'Come on Tipp'. It ended a draw with 1-14 a piece.

Happy St Patrick's Day 2011

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Cork City, the second biggest city in Ireland. This is my second year living in the city and my second time seeing the celebrations for the Irish national holiday. The parade through South Mall, Grand Parade and Patrick Street was colourful, noisy and very well attended. The people marching through the streets were a mix of local cultural and sports groups and associations of new Irish as they are called; people who were born in other countries who came to live in Ireland.

I have a few pictures here showing some of the people marching in the parade. It was an education to watch all this go by - I would probably not have known that Angola's flag still bears the symbols of Soviet times. have a look out for it, complete with cog wheel, machete and a gold star. Apart from that you'll see a strange collection of images that represents St. Patrick's day for many people in Ireland.

New day

This is the view from my flat in Cork, out across the Lee river and the valley. The photo shows the early morning sun shining through the spires of St Finbarrs Cathedral. It was taken at 8.30am on 21 January 2011. As you can see it's getting bright earlier in the mornings. The winter is behind us - at last. It was one of coldest and rudest winters for a long time. We had lots of snow and ice - I'll put up a few pictures to prove it.

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.