Quirks

Some things I have noticed...

I know many of these I have written about before, but there are some additions to the list now.

In Ireland, and especially in Cork, there are some quirks when it comes to the pronunciation of words.

T.V. can be quite entertaining, as you have it on for the background noise when you are cooking dinner, every once-in-awhile your ears will perk up when something sounds just wrong.

For example: it's getting closer to Christmas so there are exponentially more toy commercials everyday--this is to be expected now--but there was one commercial that just kept bothering me. It took a few minutes to understand why it felt so strange. The commercial was for a video game featuring Mario and Luigi, some cart-racing game or another. What was so strange was the way they kept saying his name! They kept saying "Mary-o" instead of "Mah-ree-o".

 Then there is the issue of food. 

Don't get me started on the whole Biscuit vs. Cookie problem. 

 We've now had multiple hour-long debates over the definition of biscuits, cookies, and bikkies...(Am I spelling that last one right?)

That is bad enough--but you should have seen my face when talking about PB&J sandwiches--when I am talking about a PB&J sandwich I would say 'Peanut-butter and Jelly'--well, Jelly is not Jam. Jelly, at least here, means what I would call Jell-o.

And so, Ciara, next time we get together we must make PB&J sandwiches, fluffer-nutters, and that one jell-o dessert I told ye about! ^_^

 OH! here's another one:

If I were to say 'sneakers', everyone back home knows what I'm talking about. Here, everyone says either 'trainers', or runners, or..something else I can't quite remember... either way, it can get confusing.

I can be speaking English with someone and still not understand a word of what they are saying!

If ye have any other things to add to the list, please do!

message me on Facebook ;)

P.S. If anyone back home wants a postcard from Ireland, just message me your address!

            Tá grá agam duit!

(I love you!)

Churches, City Crests, and Custom houses, oh my!--part1

I noticed now how I mistakenly published my earlier post with this title, even though it was the second half of the second field trip...now I attempt to remedy that!

Here we go:

We would later take two consecutive Wednesdays for our second field trip around the historic city of Cork. Ending and then starting afresh at the Cork Vision Center, but I am ahead of myself. Our second field trip started out in the misty morning in front of the Connolly building. As we departed from the square we made our way directly across the street and over the bridge to the River Lee Hotel. I must have walked past this building dozens of times before then, but know nothing about it. Between the drizzling rain and the business women chatting behind me it was difficult to catch some pieces of conversation, though by the end what I understood was the hotel was built in the early 2000s when it was placed on a small island situated in the River Lee. The land there was actually used as a railway station—this came as a surprise to me—I would have thought that all the marshland would have made it too difficult to make anything more than waterways or simple roads. As I have passed by this building most every day since my arrival in early September, the thought of its less than common appearance has been in the back of my mind, but I always brushed the thought aside as some architect taking artistic liberty and having fun with their design. 

When one is walking on Sunday’s Well Road, the spires from St. Finbarr’s Cathedral are visible, but the building of the hotel was threatening that precious view—as such, the local residents threw a fit—and the building’s shape now accommodates their wishes to keep their aesthetic vision of the city. I can attest to this as I weekly travel along Sunday Well’s Road to the UCC Music Department building. From there I can clearly see the hotel and St. Finbarr’s behind it, and I took pictures to prove it!

As we opened our umbrellas, put up our hoods, and prepared to venture out into the wet once more we were told to look to our left when crossing  the bridge so we could see what, to me, looked like large bowls. These were supports for a bridge which no longer stands, used by trains to exit the little island. The trains would run along where the bus lane now sits on Western Road going towards the Western end of Cork.

This whole area was a merchant area. All seemed to be clicking into place: the train going through the area, the shipping docks, the vault bar and shops along the road…Reidy’s Vault Bar is a charming spot in town with a really friendly host who is always willing to chat or suggest fun places to visit. The atmosphere of the building itself only adds to its character, it survives from the merchant era, its interior as well as its exterior call to mind this time now gone.

 

Our next stop was the courthouse—another landmark used by locals and visitors alike—I had walked past this even more frequently and had never been inside. We packed into the entrance and after shaking off the wet and pulling out our notebooks, we made sure to turn off our phones and put away our cameras as there was no recording equipment allowed in the courtrooms (which I found to be a pity as the robes and wigs tickled me pink!). I had passed by the courthouse once awhile back and seen a few folks standing just outside the doors wearing the robes and wigs—but I had thought then that it was part of the Cork culture week or part of some special event—It hadn’t occurred to me that they might wear them on a regular basis! The wigs were made of horsehair to make them look powdered, in my opinion they just look downright uncomfortable! If the itching isn’t enough to drive one away, the price just might—horsehair wigs cost in the thousands! There is one firm in London that still makes them.

            The Courthouse is built like a Grecian Temple, with columns, a grand set of steps leading to the main front doors, and William IV carved outside. Prisoners and members of the public alike had to be brought up and down those steps. The building was tragically gutted by fire on Good Friday, the 27^th of March, 1891. There is an 1890s oil painting hung upstairs in the main hall depicting this event. Because of the fire, all the fixtures and fittings inside are Victorian in style. There is enough marble there to make any Roman emperor jealous, in fact, it is quite reminiscent of buildings in Washington D.C.

            As we stood just outside an active courtroom a man walked out and asked if we wished to go inside. Apparently our attempts at keeping our noise level below stampeding hoard of college students were failing. We were invited inside and shuffled our way to seats reserved for the public. It surprised me how the public could walk into any active courtroom and watch. The thought of it seemed almost disrespectful—treating someone’s private matters as a form of reality entertainment—I honestly felt like we were intruding, but once we were settled into the seats and were no longer making a disturbance the feeling dissipated. The inside of the courtroom was quite opulent, with dark wood paneling, plush red cushions, and a canopy over the judge’s chair at the head of the room. It was a bit disorienting inside as the Victorian atmosphere clashed with the contemporary drugs case. Once we awkwardly made our way back out to the lobby we noticed the beautiful mosaic on the floor next to the aforementioned oil painting in the original entrance. The red marble was locally sourced from Cork and the green marble from Connemara. After a short break in the lobby we made our way outside again to a brighter sky, the rain had dissipated

We walked around the courthouse, turning left down Cross Street towards the Franciscan Friary, St. Francis Church. Sitting on Liberty Street is a brick building which was built in the 1950s. When facing the front porch, to one’s left-hand side is where the friars live. To the left side of the friary can be found some red-brick houses with steep roofs (on Fenn’s Quay), these are Ireland’s oldest example of a terrace. Fenn was a Quaker—the original Quaker meeting house was behind the Franciscan Friary—it had a separate entrance for the sexes despite both men and women meeting in the same room, separate sides or no. It was in use until 1939 and then relocated to the burial ground (where nobody is buried), and then granted a place for archival and historical purposes. We walked in a large circle to the Cork Vision Center, the last stop on this trip, and the point of starting for our last.

 Tucked between shops is a humdrum grey building only set apart from its height and slight distance from the street. The Cork Vision Center, once a Roman Catholic Church—St. Peter’s—was reopened to the public in 1998 after being deconsecrated and left dilapidated in 1949

 The Cork Vision Center is located off of North Main Street, halfway between Washington Street and the River. I often surprises me how churches, burial grounds and other holy sites will seemingly appear out of nowhere; the Huguenot burial ground on Cary’s Street, a holy well on a beach in Dingle, Cork Vision Center on North Main Street

Inside is now an art gallery and events center, though weddings can now take place there. The main floor is dominated by a large scale-model of the city. 
Above: St. Finbarr's Cathedral
Below: darkened section = original area of the medieval walled city

One can still see little pieces of the building’s past; there is a 1664 baptismal font standing guard at the front door with the initials of the church wardens carved on its face, a tall window still sporting it’s now faded gold leaf décor for what probably lit the high alter when still a functioning church, and there are two memorial plaques on the wall inside as well as a larger memorial in a side-room, both quite impressive. We all gazed over the to-scale layout of Cork city stretched across the main floor and then made our way to our next appointments until next week.