30th Bday in Dublin

My 30th Birthday happen to come when I was in Dublin studying!  I had mixed feelings about being in a foreign country without my husband, family, and friends.  But I decided to make the best of it, and I ended up having a fabulous day!  I planned activities so I would be busy and having fun all day.  The first was lunch at Boojum which has the best burritos in Ireland (not a difficult claim to hold) with some friends.  It was absolutely delicious!

Zach, Jenny and Erica ready to eat - my friend Andrew is taking the pic.

Here is my huge burrito!! I was so full but it was completely worth it.

After lunch, Andrew and I ventured out to meet Eileen at Kilmainham Gaol which is one of the most interesting historical buildings in Dublin.  We spent some time looking at the museum portion and then took an excellent guided tour of the grounds.  The museum had very comprehensive exhibits about all the political history connected to the jail as well as information about its construction.  It was originally built with the idea of separating prisoners as opposed to the old system in which everyone was held in the same room.  Unfortunately, because of overcrowding especially during the Famine (when people would commit small crimes to get put in jail because they knew there they would be fed) that system failed and there were many people crowded in each cell and some in the hallways.

The West Wing still looks the same as it did when it originally opened in 1796.

One of the cell doors in the older West Wing.

We then moved into an area of the West Wing where the 1916 leaders had been held before their executions.

One of the cell doors.

There are still plaques over the doors showing which leader was in which cell.  Although you can barely see it, this is the plaque marking Padraic Pearse's cell.  In that cell he wrote poetry and letters during the final days of his life.  Some of that poetry will feature in my first essay for the term.

A much clearer plaque - that of Joseph Plunkett who married his sweetheart in the chapel of the jail some days before his execution.  She was allowed to visit him in this cell for a set amount of time after their wedding.  Once she was asked to leave and he was taken out of the cell, she could hear the firing squad of his execution as she left the grounds.

The new East Wing was built in an effort to improve conditions in the jail especially sanitary.  Although most women were left back in the old West Wing after this new addition.

Here is me inside one of the cells - seen through the small peep hole by the door.  I don't think most inmates would have smiled that big -especially not on their birthdays!

The final most interesting thing on the tour was the site of the 1916 leaders executions.
There is a plaque in the open yard which lists all the executed.

And a cross marks the spot of all the executions.
All but one took place at this spot - the other took place on the opposite side of the yard.  That one was that of James Connolly who had to be brought in by ambulance because he was dying and could not stand.  He was strapped to the chair and then shot by the firing squad.

Okay, I know that seems like a depressing and dark outing for a birthday but it is a historical location I have been wanting to visit since I arrived in Dublin!  So I was thrilled to be able to see it.

Andrew, Eileen, and I took the bus back into the city centre.  I went home to get ready for dinner.

Jessica and Erin then came to pick me up about an hour later and we were off for the evening portion of the celebration!

We went to the Italian restaurant that has been a favorite place of me and Ashley since the beginning of our time here in Dublin.

It was a delicious meal with wine and lots of yummy pasta!  They even got the waiters to sing happy birthday to me.  It took about three tries for Erin to get a picture of me blowing out the candle so we had to keep recreating the moment.

Next we ran to catch the Dublin Ghost Tour Bus!!

It was hilarious and campy and totally fun.  We went to a old church and learned how to body snatch.  We also went to some of the most haunted places in Dublin to see if we could capture any spirits on our cameras.  Unfortunately, we did not.  But it did feel a bit creepy at some points.  The leader of the tour was an actor and while we were driving around he would tell all these crazy stories that were quite interesting.  And he kept picking on me and calling me "birthday girl"!
We learned the meaning behind the phrase saved by the bell.  Apparently when people were buried in the 18th century they attached a bell that sat on the surface of the grave down to the inside of the coffin.  And someone would sit out there all night (also origin of graveyard shift term) and listen for any bells.  If a person had been pronounced dead and buried alive, they could ring the bell to alert someone in the cemetery.


After this crazy tour, we headed out to the Porterhouse which is a great location to drink and dance.  Oh and it was raining during the tour - we had no umbrellas - so by the time we got to the Porterhouse - this is what I looked like!

Time to DANCE!!!!!!!!
We had a blast and were there until last call at 2:45am.  I did not want to stop dancing but unfortunately for me everything was closed!

All in all it was a memorable 30th birthday spent with some great friends in Dublin!

travel and a bit about 1916

I have been traveling so much over the last month that I have not even had time to think about my life in Dublin. I have been to Boston and Seattle for job conferences, and Andrew was able to see my daily life here in Ireland.  I am off again to California at the end of this week for some job interviews in Los Angeles.  It has been one jet lag filled whirlwind.
Meanwhile, my courses and all my work continue.  This week I need to start focusing on beginning my three papers that will be due in April as well as preparing for the conference paper I will be giving in the same month.  It will be busy from now until the beginning of May!!  I have been reading three novels for next weeks classes - I think all of a sudden they have given us an even larger load of reading:  Amongst Women by John McGahern, Molloy by Samuel Beckett, and The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy.  All are extremely interesting and as a result I am not reading quite as quickly as I need to be to complete them all.
For the Single Major Authors course we have switched from Joyce to Beckett.  I am enjoying looking at the prose of a writer who I only knew for his dramatic works.  He is definitely a "singular" writer as my professor calls him.
In researching my first paper for this term, I found out that the ugly building I look at every day outside the window in front of my desk is actually a historical building.  It is the place that Padraic and Willie Pearse were born.  Padraic was a poet but he is most known for his role as leader of the 1916 Easter Rising.  He is the man who read out the proclamation from the GPO (General Post Office - served as headquarters for the rebels) that first morning.  Both Padraic (or Patrick) and his brother Willie were held at Kilmainham Gaol (jail) before they were executed by a firing squad.  I actually visited Kilmainham on my birthday and will make a separate post about it!  My paper will look at the idealized poetry of these rebel men and the focus on blood sacrifice that they believed would save their country.

Here is the birth place of these men.

The street I live on and that this building is on is now called Pearse Street.  When the brothers were born it was called Great Brunswick Street.