Day 12 - Cork

13 March 2007

I am in Cork! I’ve only been in Cork for a little under a day, but I already like it better than Dublin. Dublin was great, but I love being outside the city where it is expensive and always crowded and loud. Cork is much smaller and less densely populated. It’s a port city on the south side of the Ireland, pretty much in the center of it too. We departed from the Mespil in Dublin at 9 in the morning and took our time on the road, visiting important sites on the way, arriving at the Clarion in Cork at 6PM. Just to make a point of it: Drivers here are crazy, especially on small tiny little country roads. Sometimes our bus just kind of pulls off to the side to avoid collision. Fun, eh? It’s all like a big game of chicken.

Our first stop, in Kildare south of Dublin was a really old Cathedral called St. Brigid’s said to have been founded by St. Brigid herself on the land that she claimed when she said all she wanted as much land as her cloak could cover and her cloak miraculously grew and grew and grew. St. Brigid is pretty cool. I really dig her. She was extremely bright and selfless, she was even pretty too, though she prayed to God to make her ugly. I told Colleen that’s what I pray for every night and she jokingly punched me and said that she hopes I don’t. St. Brigid of Kildare was the patron saint of cattle, blacksmithing, and poetry, and her element was fire, therefore she seemed pretty awesome. The cathedral built on her land was very old, most likely Cisterian. The verger of the property opened it especially for us. I’m really glad she did because the chuch was gorgeous, and also present on the property was the only climable surviving Norman style round tower. (see picture) These things are huge. Great round towers. Really narrow. They were built in the early medieval period in Ireland as protection against viking raiders. The door, if you’ll notice, was built 13 feet off the ground, so if the monastary was under attack, the monks would scurry up a ladder into the tower and then pull the ladder up after them, shutting and sealing the door. Most of the towers are now in ruins, though some have been built up in later years.

Right about now, I bet you’re thinking (especially Mom, Dad, or Jack) that: “Steph, you’re afraid of stairs you can see through and heights! Did you actually climb the norman tower at St. Brigid’s of Kildare?” and the answer is: yes I did! I slayed a dragon! It was no easy feat, mind you. It was a whole bunch of see through stairs just to get up into the tower (since the entrance used to be reached by ladder-wielding monks) then the “fun” started. The tower was really narrow and there were ladder/stairs (permanent ladders with slightly wider rungs.) with little trap doors to go through to get to the landings. This was not an enjoyable experience for me. I was terrified and wanted to go back, especially because I could feel a panic attack rising. But I kept going with my friend Crystal behind me. I got to the top of the tower and it was really ridiculously windy. I held onto the wire fence that was at the top for dear life, but I appreciated the lovely view (see other picture). Going back down the tower was scary, but Aaron, my latin tutor/friend gave me a hand and I did it! Hooray! I was so happy to be back on the terra firma, but I was also so proud of myself that I climbed that tower and showed it who was boss.

Later in the day we went to see a couple of high crosses (big stone crosses, the ones with the circle around the top of the cross from the early middle ages where they marked boundaries and were carved with special designs and biblical stories used for instruction by the monastaries) and we also went to Jerpoint Abbey, an old Cistertian monastary that is in ruins. It was just amazing. It had the most surviving scuplturework from the early medieval period, and it was still dazzling. The artwork was so vivid and personal. The funny thing is that Cistertian monastaries were not supposed to have any decoration whatsoever, but the Irish monks have always been a little bendy on terms of the rules. The guide told us a story of how Cistertians were supposed to be vegetarians as well (WOOHOO! Veggies unite!) but that they went by a biblical definition of what was allowable meaning that they weren’t able to eat anything with four legs. This means that they ate a whole lot of fish and even rabbits because the monks said that rabbits spend a lot of time sitting on their haunches, thus they counted as two legged animals. I think that’s stretching it a bit.

When we arrived at Cork, we proceeded to the hotel and got our room assignments. The hotel is amazingly posh. Too rich for my tastes, my room at the Clarion is about two and a half times my room in my Andreen apartment. Though, I’m not going to lie, the french hot chocolate, tea water boiler, dancing room and self-unfogging mirrors are pretty awesome. I just feel bad because there are homeless people around the streets of Cork while I’m staying in a hotel where I get persimmons and real whipped cream served with dessert.

We had class today and that was particularly interesting. I love class here and I look forward to doing homework. Except for Latin. I never really look forward to doing Latin. It’s always an ordeal and takes up my weekend making me feel behind. If it weren’t for grad school, I wouldn’t be taking it. (I’m studying Latin independently with another student and one of our professors). Today though, as always, I have discovered more delicious foods. Cork is smaller and less expensive than Dublin (thanks goodness!) but it is much more Irish and less Americanized. I’ve actually heard someone speaking Gaelic here, and there is Gaelic written on the signs and the walls. The town center is really small, but it is vibrant and cheery, a lot less rushed than Dublin. My favorite thing thus far: the English Market, a huge indoor year-round farmers market with lots of different sellers and stalls. There are bakeries and confectionaries and I got the best fresh scones ever (aka lunch) for a euro ten. Delicious! Scones, chips, ice cream, and swiss pastries (aka little pockets of happiness) are my favorite food things here thus far. I’m waiting to find out about the wild life around Cork and whether or not there are red tufty-eared squirrels, but hopefully I’ll find out soon. I’ve been cooped up since 4:30 today doing homework and emailing, so we’ll see, I think I might just pony up the cash and get a book about the trees here.

**Ooh, I forgot to mention. Yesterday in my first excursion about Cork (with the class to our classroom at a local college a few minutes walk away) I was walking past this one building, Ann said, "Oh, Steph, look over there" and there was an Irish army regular in green cami's with an M16 in the middle of downtown Cork. I was bad, I stared. But I've never seen an army guy with a gun in that context. There were other ones there too, and they seemed to be guarding an alley. I was a bit nervous and walked a little faster. The army man looked like a baby, he seemed to be about 18 and had really big blue eyes. He looked kind of flustered by the fact that 30 of us were traipsing by, some oblivious. But there were a lot of gardai (police) around too, so McDowell said that he thought it was a drug raid. That was my adventure. The end.