CMC: Church

This is part of my Christmas Memory Challenge, a goal I set for myself to recall 25 things I love about Christmas. You can also check out Shannon's memories here.

While I am not a religious person, members of my family are and so church, more specifically the Roman Catholic church, has played a part in my upbringing. I have to admit that for all my issues with the sexual abuse cover-ups, the amount of tax free money churches generate, and my blatant disbelief in a higher being, I love to attend a church service for Christmas (or Easter or Ash Wednesday, any of the big ones, really). I love to see the place all decked out for the season with candles everywhere. It's beautiful and calm inside a church at Christmas.

Midnight Mass was the best: no kids making a fuss while the sermon was being delivered and dark enough that no one noticed if I fell asleep in the back row after the first five minutes. Midnight mass in Alberta meant walking back to my grandparents, snow crunching underfoot, while my stepdad picked out constellations twinkling above us. It was the best part of Christmas. The hustle and bustle of our Christmas meals for roughly 30 family members were all done, and it was our moment of calm before the hustle and bustle of Christmas morning.

In Switzerland, I attended Christmas Eve Mass with Michael's family. We merrily stumbled down the village lanes, drunk on joy and wine, towards the tiny 15th century church. From every direction, walkers joined us in the short pilgrimage. The inside of the church was lit only by candles placed throughout the nave. Up by the alter stood the towering tree, decked out with candles and nothing else. It was breathtaking in its simplicity.

As we left the church, we were given short white candles which the priest then lit with one of the alter candles. We walked back the way we came, cheering a chorus of Froehe Weihnachten to the groups of twos and threes who left us along the way to head to their own houses until we were the ones receiving the cheer. Once settled in the house with hot beverages and a roaring fire, we used the candles from the church to light the candles on the Christmas tree.

'Round the Salthill Prom with a Galway girl

Saying good bye to Donegal was probably the hardest morning of our trip. We ate our breakfast and wrote a bunch of postcards in relative silence. Occasionally, one of us would smile at the other and ask “do you remember last night when...”and we’d lose ourselves in thoughts of Michael wanting to know all the news from Canada, or Frankie singing some republican song, or banjo man being amazing on the banjo (never did learn his name), or Emer giving lip to some surely local who should know better than to piss off the barmaid.

Our decision to mail our postcards from Donegal would later come back to haunt us. Mailed October 10th, received in Canada on November 4th. Al and I decided that the mailman in Donegal was someone we met and he/she kept the cards a little longer to share our stories of the town with the other people we had met. Or An Post rowed the cards across the Atlantic. Either or!

We broke up our day of travel to Galway by stopping for lunch in Sligo. The guide book had talked about Sligo being a vibrant, artsy community so we figured it was good distraction from a four hour bus trip. I don’t know if we just completely missed the ‘small town artisan’ area or if Sligo had really changed that much in the three years since the book was published but neither of us were impressed. Mind, we had also just left our beloved Donegal Town; even winning the jackpot in Vegas would have been *meh* on that day.

We headed to the ruins of the friary because there didn’t seem to be much else to do. It was only €3 and a million times better than the Donegal Castle (I really can not stress enough exactly how unimpressed I was with the castle especially seeing as it was €4) but we were hung over and sad and therefore blasé about the place. With coffee in one hand and camera in the other, we wandered the ruins just taking random pictures without actually looking at what we were looking at.

When going back through my photos and remembering what I had read on the pamphlet, I found the friary a lot more enjoyable than I did on the day. It was picturesque, calm, and we all know that I love ruins. If I’m in the area, I’d stop in again... but only if I wasn’t hung over.

Despite the fact that Sligo Town didn’t really win us over, I do have to give it props for an awesome street name.

After a late arrival into Galway and a bed kerfuffle which left us scrambling for a hotel room at 9:30pm, we awoke the next morning to this:

Somewhere in that picture is Galway.

Boo-urns!

We had booked a tour to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher in Co. Clare which would take up most of the day. We got picked up around the corner from our hotel by a young, friendly and chatty driver. He spent the whole ride into Galway (we were staying in Salthill which is across the river) telling stories and giving us tips on what to see and do in Galway. Once we met up with the rest of the tour, he pretty much stopped talking. It wasn’t a bad bus tour—we saw everything they said we’d see (sort of), we arrived and left on time, we did enjoy ourselves—it was just that the guides were the quietest people I’ve ever met in Ireland. I think I did more talking on that trip than they did.

We started the day by driving through the Burren. Having done a tour through it before I know some odd facts about it but poor Al learned only this: there are a lot of limestone rocks and it doesn’t look like anywhere else in Ireland we had been.

It’s hard to believe by looking at the pictures but people actually do farm on the Burren. Some plots were painfully cleared by hand over generations of farming, others are used as grazing land. It’s easy to think ‘why would anyone bother?’ but when the English drove the Irish west, it was farm on this land or starve. Plus the soil is supposedly quite fertile... if you can find any.

There's a hike through this region called The Burren Way.

Looks like 'Ankle Twister Way' would have been a better name...

We left the Burren and headed to Doolin for lunch before we hit up the cliffs. Doolin is a cute little village but it’s also the lunch stop for every single tour to the Cliffs of Moher. For about an hour every day, the population of Doolin quadruples as all the tourists fight for the limited seats in the main pub.

Doolin = more signs than buildings!

We traipsed back onto the bus giddy with anticipation. Anyone who has ever seen photos of Ireland has seen the iconic image of the Cliffs of Moher shooting straight up from the Atlantic. ‘Come to Ireland,’ they beckon. ‘We have cliffs!’ The cliffs have even featured in a few videos such as Westlife’s ‘My Love’. (Judge me all you want, but I like that song.) We eagerly walked towards the cliff edge and took in the glory which is the Cliffs of Moher.

Aren't they just awe-inspiring? To prove I didn't just steal that breath-taking photo from another website, here's me in front of the cliffs.

The fog came in waves and we did manage to see the cliffs... sort of... eventually... a little...

If I tilt my screen away from me, squint my left eye, then realigning the

order of the planets by mass, I can totally see the cliffs in this picture!

What can you do in a situation like this except laugh? We joked that we’d tell people that we went to the Cliffs of Moher and if they took that to mean we actually saw them then that wasn’t our fault. Do you know how many people see the cliffs every year? We’re such hipsters that we went to the cliffs and didn’t even bother seeing them!

Talking Telescope asked me why I wasted €1 on it.

On our way back to Galway we stopped at the Poulnabrone Dolmen which kind of harshed my buzz, man. It’s not that I didn’t want to see it, but the radio was in the middle of broadcasting an interview with Brian O’Driscoll when the guide turned the engine off. (Just think about that for a moment: our guide was saying so little that he actually had the radio on!!) Sorry ancient Celts, but I wanted to know O'Driscoll's feelings on Ireland's loss to Wales (especially seeing as he probably won't be around next RWC) so you were not my favourite people that day!

It’s estimated that the top slab weighs about five tonnes.* FIVE TONNES!! I have no idea how those people managed to lift it but I’m going to take an educated guess and say time-travelling-crane (and operator). I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

And with that, our tour headed back to Galway.

*I read this in a book but am unable to find anything online which backs it up (or contradicts it either...) so it is quite possible that it doesn't weigh that much. Either way, it still weighs a lot!

From Dublin Culture to Culchie Culture

Obviously, the morning after a pub crawl requires one thing and one thing only: coffee. Copious, copious amounts of coffee. And who can resist when it comes in an awesome to-go cup?

Noted!

And I want these cups in Victoria.

Due to most Irish museums being closed on Mondays, our Tuesday ended up being very, very heavy on the education-front so we started with a wander through Trinity College. What better way to get our learning on than wandering through the hallowed halls of higher learning... hungover?

Perhaps I should have checked out Careers Week while we were there.

Trinity is actually part of the Pub Crawl given that so many of the writers attended school there, but it was nice to come back during the day and actually see it. Like many European universities, it's located right in the heart of Dublin and is open to just wander through the campus.

We did not bother with the Book of Kells at my suggestion. I had done the Book once before and just found it a waste of money when you consider you only get about 10 seconds to view one page of the book. The displays leading up to the Book are interesting but for the low, low price of free you can visit the Cheaster Beatty Library with books just as old and the National Museum of Ireland: Archeology and History* which has even older artifacts and bog men! That's right, BOG MEN! Four of them!

After we finished our coffees, we hit up both the Chester Beatty and NMI:A&H. Sadly, you can't take pictures inside either of them but they were both awesome. Both could easily be an entire day on their own if you're geeky enough (I totally am. Al, not so much) but two hours at either one should be more than enough time to get your fill.

A school group was leaving as we arrived at the NMI:A&H... Best. Timing. EVER!

We had an early night on Tuesday due to an early morning on Wednesday. Wednesday was when our adventure really began with a trip to the rip-roaring craziness which is Monaghan! Monaghan, of course, is where my culchie family comes from. (Culchie was originally a derogatory term for people from the country--ie. not Dublin--but there's been a bit of a reclaim on for the word. I'm doing my part to show those Jackeens that words can't hurt us!) There's not much family left there now but I always make sure I stop in to say hello to the town which I always remember fondly. Thank goodness Armagh isn't that far away so it's not usually a problem.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this is exactly how I remember Monaghan's main street.

Every trip to Monaghan involves a visit to the cemetery where granny and granddad are buried.

This is followed by a trip to the Cathedral.

 

Many a Sunday of my childhood was spent here

After I dragged Al on a whole 15 minute tour of downtown Monaghan (you think I exaggerate but I really don't. We walked the whole length of Monaghan in less than 30 minutes and that included stopping for photos), we said good bye to my uncle (and his inability to hear us) and jumped on a bus to Armagh.

Ten minutes outside of Armagh the skies opened and thundered down. Even though it stopped as quickly as it started, we kind of lost our appetite for actually seeing Armagh and instead just checked out a pub until the appointed pick up time. Hey, look at that! I sat in a pub just like I did the last time I was in Armagh!

My usual Armagh contact was out of town so stayed with the step-side of my family in Blackwater Town. I challenge you to pull out an atlas and find it on a map. No cheating and using goggle maps! To be honest, we didn't even stay in Blackwater Town. We kept driving, crossed into Co. Tyrone and spent the night in the middle of nowhere.

Apparently the middle of nowhere has an intersection!

The rains held off long enough for Al I to go for a walk around the neighbourhood farms and meet the local cows.

Shortly after I made friends with this horse, the rains returned and we had to make a beeline back home. Still, who can complain about a little rain when you're staying in a location other tourists would pay top dollar for? 

Question: Ever stayed somewhere so small and/or remote on your holidays that it's not in the guidebook? What brought you to that location?

*There are four NMI locations with different themes. They're all free and they're all worth checking out. The National Gallery and the National Library are also worth checking out but when you have limited time, you have to pick and choose :(

The First 48 Hours: Dublin Edition

The crappy great part of living on Vancouver Island is that adding a flight from Vancouver to Vancouver is ridiculously expensive so my day of travel started with a ferry ride. As much as I complain about this fact of life, it does mean that my final views of my home always look something like this.

Not too shabby, if you ask me.

 
Roughly 20 hours worth of travel on various modes of transport later and I arrived at my uncle's... where I promptly fell asleep for 16 hours. I'm not kidding. I went for a nap at about 5:00, forgot to set my alarm, woke up at midnight, took a sleeping pill, and woke up again at 8:00am. You know when you sleep too much? Tuesday was a tad more rough than I was expecting! I still managed to drag myself into town and woke myself up with a stroll around St. Stephen's Green.

What you don't see in this picture is the incredibly large coffee I had in my other hand.

There's more than one way to wake up!

I had roughly a week in Dublin on my own before Al joined me for traipsing around the countryside and the weather during that first week was amazing. After a lackluster summer, Dublin was experiencing an Indian Summer. I actually got to wear the shorts I threw in at the last moment. I even put in my contacts just so I could wear my non-prescription sunglasses! It was amazing... and it promptly disappeared the Friday before Al arrived. If I didn't have these pictures, I probably wouldn't have believed it either.

Returning to Dublin is always an odd experience. While I've never officially lived in Dublin, I grew up knowing Dublin better than Victoria. Summers spent walking around its narrow streets while one cousin taught me how to say all the counties in Irish or repeatedly crossing the Liffey while another cousin and I discussed the cute neighbourhood boys left me with a knowledge of the city that you don't get in just a few days. While I waited for Al to arrive, one of my favourite past times was just wandering the streets and rehashing old memories.

And I also saw a bunch of stuff. (I know that's the only reason you're reading this!) I made a point on this trip to be a tourist. For the first time in my life, I actually read a tourist guide and made a list of places I wanted to see. It was surreal to be a tourist in a town I knew so well. Don't worry, I was able to resist the urge to wear a bum bag. Without further ado...

I started the first day with a visit to the GPO An Post Museum and and a wander around O'Connell St. As I didn't take any photos knowing that I'd be back with Al, you'll see those later.

After a stop for lunch, I made my way to St. Audoen's Church. There are actually two St. Audoen's, one Anglican (Church of Ireland) and the other Roman Catholic. They sit side-by-side just down the block from Christchurch Cathedral. I was interested in the Anglican one. I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I love ruined religious buildings and cemeteries. Oldest parish church still in use in Dublin? Whatevs. Three-quarters left to ruin? Interesting. One half is still in ruin? Sign me up! And it's totally free? Um, you can stop selling it, I'm already there.

It boggles my mind when I stop and think about how many years people have been standing on this floor.

How many people with Sunday morning hangovers have said "never again" in this church?

The inside of the church was very lovely and peaceful... until a tour group from a nearby school showed up and I beat a hasty retreat to the ruined part out the back. It was sunny, quiet and beautiful so I took a seat on a bench and just enjoyed a few moments to myself... before I ran around snapping pictures. Although I wouldn't call St. Audoen a 'must see', if you're in the area it's worth popping in for a few minutes.

One street that every visitor to Dublin wanders is Grafton St. It's not just for the over-priced shopping or the fact that it's the quickest thoroughfare between Trinity and St. Stephen's Green, but because there's almost always something happening along its pedestrian-only brickwork. On one of my many strolls, I discovered a group called Mutefish.

The music is catchy and they are excellent musicians. As my bus stop was very close to Grafton St. I made sure to catch them as often as possible. Of course, I bought their CD so part of my repeated viewings may have had something to do with a small crush I developed on one of them. I'll leave you to figure out which one. (HINT: It's not the one with the dreaded dread mullet. That's the second one I've seen in a month; is this a new trend? If it is, then I'm going to bed and someone can wake me up when it's over.)

I started day two with a visit to Marsh's Library. I wish I could have taken pictures inside but that's not allowed so instead... follow this link. The library (you can still read the books if you are a grad student or researcher who has received permission) is hidden in a nondescript brick building behind St. Patrick's Cathedral and I almost walked past it.

The library feels very much like you're stepping back in time. I shared the place with only two other tourists, a couple of readers, and a steady clock beat. The first display was Bibles and the second was Medical Journals. While neither of them were topics I would have chosen (the previous displays of musical manuscripts or maps would have been more up my alley) but were still quite interesting. I especially enjoyed the Bibles in Irish, Malay and Ojibiway.

I headed to the Liffey to wander along its banks. I said hello to the Four Courts. The only time I went inside the Four Courts was to meet a cousin for lunch; I got in trouble for walking into a closed area. I stayed on the other side of the river this time. I learned my lesson!

A little further along, I decided a coffee break was in order. I payed $3.60 for a crap drip coffee. Even good drip coffee isn't worth that much, but I was really paying for the view:

The Ha'penny Bridge. It was the first bridge across the Liffey and was built to replace an old ferry system.

There's claims that it's the most photographed icon in Dublin. Obviously that means I need to take a picture!

After my coffee break, which included writing in my journal and eavesdropping on a group of tourists, I took off for Dublin Castle and the Garda Museum. I am nothing if not a giant nerd. Seriously people, I went to a police museum for fun. I should have known how odd that sounds when I buzzed the locked door to confirm I was in the right place. The voice at the other end said that if I was interested in the history of Ireland's police force I could come in. When I said I was, the voice on the other end of the intercom said "really?" ::pushes up nerd glasses:: Yes, I really am.

On my way to the museum, I got a little lost thanks to the somewhat vague directions at the gate to Dublin Castle ('in the roundtower' doesn't mean much when it doesn't give you what side of the tower) and ended up wandering into the chapel. I don't know if you knew this, but Ireland has a lot of churches.

The thing that always amazes me about European churches (chapels, minsters, cathedrals, etc are included in the use of the word church) is that even the smallest places are often incredibly ornate. Granted, it's Dublin Castle so they wouldn't be going for the plain and simple look but it's still incredible when you think that below is the ceiling of the lower seating area.

I finally found the museum, wandered through, and got an answer to a question I honestly didn't think was going to be answered. I knew I'd be back at the Castle with Al to check out the Chester Beatty Library (more on that later) but I didn't know what the weather would be like so I took a quick turn around the main courtyard.

The castle was originally build in 1204 but it's been added to over the years.

It creates a bit of a patchwork look to the buildings.

I had never actually been to the Castle before. As the castle still serves as a functioning building for the government, it was closed to visitors on the day I was there but I was only really looking to wander around the courtyard anyway. The 26 counties of the Republic have flags flying in the courtyard. I found the only flag that matters and sat about for 15 minutes waiting for the wind to last long enough to get a semi-decent picture.

Monaghan! Best damn county there is (as long as you're not talking GAA).

Feel free to disagree in the comments, I'll probably just delete them ;)

If nothing else, the Garda on duty near the doors to the castle were having a good laugh at my attempts to get this picture, which had me giggling as I headed for the bus back out to Blackrock.