Free Ireland

"As I walked through the passageways in Kilmainham gaol, I pictured prisoners being lead through to their cells, and some being lead to their executions. The jail had housed prisoners long before the Rising in Ireland, but some of the most important people held there were prisoners from the war of independence and the civil war. We heard a lot of stories of people who had been there. The tour guide told us the story of Joseph and Grace Plunkett. They were married in Kilmainham the night before Joseph was executed. They could only be together ten minutes before he was killed. We also heard about 14 men who were executed because of their roles in the Easter Rising. Being in the place where all of these stories took place really helped me visualize the people who had been there, and gave me a clearer understanding of there stories. It was a good experience." Reflects Katie Marvel concerning her experiences in Kilmainham gaol.  

Another member of our group, Amanda Barry, wrote a poem to express her understandings and experiences there.

Locked behind these prison doors

Is where my love once was

We were married for 8 hours

When he was shot just cause

Being shot down as a soilder

Was more honorable than hanging

I will miss my Jospeh Plinket

It will be forever changing

Forgiveness is hard for me to give

Now my husband is dead

He left me a loving note

All my tears have been shed

The fight for independence

He will never see the end

They died for a good cause

Nothern Ireland still needs to mend.

Nicole Walker also reflected with me on her experience touring Kilmainham gaol.

"When we came to the East Wing in the gaol it was easy for me to visualize daily life for the prisoners.  Standing in the cells was unreal.  I spread my arms out as far as I could and my fingertips almost touched the walls.  As we took the tour and saw the places where the 14 Irish men were executed it became very solemn.

Although, when we were told to look up at the Irish flag it was evident that this part of history in Ireland is so important.  Because those men died for their country and because of the negative reaction the Irish had to the British, a new spirit of revolution was born.  When we saw the museum afterwards my favorite part was the Last Words of the men who were executed.  Reading the letter to the men’s family and friends it was easy to tell that they were honored and ready to die for their country if that meant obtaining a free Ireland."

After we visited the gaol, we visited Arbor Hill Cemetery where the fourteen men executed within the walls of Kilmainham were tossed into a mass grave. The Irish government recently constructed a memorial over mass grave's location. A large wall with the Irish constitution in both Irish and English stands behind the grave. A marble border edges the grave and is inscribed with the names of the executed.

Sam Alexander found those names particularly impacting. He also observed that the large gold cross signified that the men died not only for their country, but for their God.

I personally found the silence of the memorial interesting. It was a peaceful site. A quiet, still memorial for a time of cannon-fire and action and for the men who gave their lives for a free Ireland.

The Peace Process

The nice thing about our tours in the north were the varying perspectives we heard from both republican and loyalist sides and then an entirely neutral perspective from an outside observer.

The murals were particularly powerful and were an ever present force. They were everywhere, on businesses and houses. It is both frightening and interesting that the people of the north have held so tightly to their recent, violent past.

There was one mural of a little girl  killed in the Troubles. Brian told us that the girl's mother still lived up the street, passing the mural everyday. This shows just how close the Troubles still are to the people of the north. In fact, many of the faces of people in the murals are the faces of people who once lived or still live in those areas.

The large walls of Derry stand between the two sides even though they are separated by a river. Just how large they are shows how large the sectarian division was.

The most frightening thing about Belfast was the fact that the peace wall gates still close at times, particularly during marching season. The most frightening thing is that the north, though moving toward full reconciliation, still shows signs that they are balancing right on the edge of violence.

A thing to understand in regard to Northern Ireland, the south, and the peace walls in Belfast, is that there are divisions in America as well. An example of this is the border between the U.S. and Mexico. There are also sections of the cities in the U.S. where clear divisions exist.

Here are some pictures of a murals and the walls so that you can visually understand the division. The IRA letters painted on the sign are particularly interesting.

Invasion

The invasions of Ireland begin in a similar strand with many other Northern European countries. It is the strand of Viking raids followed by Viking invasions.

The feudal societies of lands like England, France, and Ireland created weak borders which offered up easy raiding targets for the Vikings. The other cause of the raids was the very society of the Vikings, Norsemen. They were a society of tribal kings who ruled strips of land with a loyal war-band. These war-band's were kept loyal primarily by loot of war and the gifts of their kings. By raiding the shores of France, England, and Ireland, striking the rich monasteries, the kings satisfied the lust for war and loot in their war-bands as well as obtaining gifts to give out at their many feasts.

The invasions were caused by the overpopulation of Norway and Sweden. The Vikings, who knew intimately the rich lands they were raiding and how to get there, saw in those places an opportunity for new and more prosperous lives.

Since they were newcomers in Ireland, the Vikings built close to the sea for supply and in tight communities for safety. This is understood through the establishment of cities like Dublin in a largely rural country. The Vikings also began to take Irish wives, therefore integrating themselves with the community and eventually losing their own language and distinctive culture to that of Celtic Ireland, though some aspects of their culture did survive.

Here's a picture of Nicole dressed as a Viking woman to illustrate what the wives of the Vikings might have looked like, minus the flowery boots of course.

The next set of invaders of Ireland were the Normans. One man named Strongbow started the flood. He was a Norman lord brought over from Wales after the Norman conquest of England. A local Irish chieftain brought Strongbow over as an ally in an effort to regain lands he had lost. Strongbow was given the Irish chieftain's daughter in exchange for his help and so, when the chieftain died, Strongbow inherited the lands.

Other Norman lords came over shortly after Strongbow. Norman architecture is clearly seen in places like Aughnanure Castle and other castles all over Ireland. You can drive down the most obscure country roads and see a looming Norman tower house just glaring down on the road and surrounding countryside from the top of a hillock or even just the center of a field.

Here is a picture of Aughnanure, a Norman style tower house with surrounding fortifications.

These Norman lords grew powerful in their holdings on Ireland. And so their king in England (probably a descendant of William the Conqueror or William himself) decided to enforce his lordship over them. And thus came the presence of a foreign crown in Ireland and the stepping stone for the English claim of dominance.

For the English, Ireland as well as Scotland became their first provinces, their first subject kingdoms. Evidence for the influence of English colonialism is seen in the Protestant Ascendancy. The English sent to Ireland protestants from Scotland, troublesome as they were to the Church of England. The king also rewarded large grants of land to Protestant English lords.

Here is a small section written by Nicole Walker about her experience regarding Christ Church cathedral and St. Patrick's cathedral.

"Christ Church and St. Patrick’s are two churches close in proximity in the Dublin area.  Both churches are medieval, Gothic style cathedrals with rich history.  Christ Church has been Church of Ireland in practice since the English Reformation and contains the body of Strongbow who is heavily connected with the cathedral. St. Patrick’s Cathedral is today the National Cathedral of the Church of Ireland and also serves as a popular tourist attraction in Ireland.  Both churches have choirs that have come together to put on concerts, one of them being the first performance of Handel’s Messiah in Dublin"

Famine on the Faithful

This blog post will be a bit more experimental. The purpose of this is to see the individual perspectives on the great famine. In the last blog post, I wrote by myself and, though the input of this group was invaluable, their wording was sadly lost.
That said, there will be obvious differences between this blog and the last.  One such difference being the greater use of pictures and another being the rich voices of the brilliant individuals in this group. The hope is that through these varying sections written by these different members you will be able to see a broad picture of life in the great famine years.

We will begin with a poem from Sam. It is reflective of the great famine and the things that were endured by the Irish Catholics during that time.

"Hunger and depression

Disease and recession 

Filled this land 

with utmost oppression 

Ships were filled 

Houses were emptied 

Naked and chilled

Plague was plenty

The ghost of the past 

Looms in this place

The memories will last 

Of the potato disgrace."

Here is also a photo taken by our group photographer, Amanda. Those tiny squares of stone walls stretching off into the distance are the lawns of Catholic families that numbered sometimes up to twelve people. Their tiny huts would sit in one of these squares and they would have to grow food to feed their family with that little piece of land. Beneath all that green, only down a few inches in some places, is solid rock.

During this period, millions of the Irish immigrated from the country.  And now to talk more on that is the charming Miss Nicole Walker.

"Our first stop on our travels to Cork and Killarney brought us to the Queenstown museum.  This exhibit was full of information about the famine ships and villages in Ireland in the nineteenth century.

In the late 1700s the population of Ireland increased over 60%.  This population increase made the country even more dependent on the potato crop.  When the potato crop failed there was mass chaos.  Total dependence on the potato and the lack of a structured landholding system led to starvation and death.  Many native Irish felt that they only way to escape death was to emigrate.

Between the years 1845 and 1851 around 1,500,000 people immigrated to countries including America, Australia, and Britain.  The 4-6 week voyage was filled with storms and sickness.  Many people leaving the country would never return or see their families again."

The conditions on the immigration ships were often deplorable. Talking about the replica ship, Dunbrody, and conditions there and on other ships, is the talented writer Kaitlyn Jameson.

"The Dunbrody is a recreated famine ship, used in the mid 1800’s to transport immigrants out of Ireland. Only one of hundreds, these ships were often called ‘coffin ships’ because of their tendency to sink and the huge number of people who died aboard due to disease and hunger. The famine ships were usually ships that were secondhand and generally in bad condition. People were crowded on, as many as two hundred in the small ship. Food rations were minimal, and whatever people could bring on board with them quickly ran out. The steerage, or lower class, passengers were only allowed on deck for half an hour, when they were allowed to cook over small fires and have fresh air. In such close quarters, and in such disgusting conditions, disease ran unchecked. The upper class passengers had it only slightly better. By paying more, they secured their own room for a family and had slightly better food. Still, it was a dangerous journey with only the slightest promise of a better life. The decision to stay or leave was a difficult one."

And here is a picture taken by Kaitlyn of the Dunbrody replica ship:

But not everybody during the famine had to suffer a shortage of food and money. There were many wealthy families and one such family even undertook the building of a mansion near Killarney called Muckross House.  Katie Marvel will be elaborating on this.

"The Muckross house provides quite a contrast to everything we have been learning about the famine. While most people were struggling to get by, there were some who lived in luxury. The Muckross house was built in 1843 with sixty-five rooms. A lot of the furniture used is still there today. The beds they made back then were shorter than ours today because they slept sitting up. They believed that it was better for their respiratory systems to be in an upright position. We also learned that in the 1850’s the house went through extensive preparation for a visit from Queen Victoria in 1861. They spent six years getting ready for her two day visit. It was interesting to see the comfort that the families lived in while they were there and the extravagance of the house and the property. It was very different from the families who were affected by the famine."

It is clearly evident that during the famine years there was immense hardship for the majority of Ireland and yet immense wealth for the minority. It seems that this is the way with all nations at some point in history, particularly nations under another nation's rule. Hopefully this blog has provided a broad picture of what it was like during the great famine. 

Salvation through Integration

St. Kevin's Kitchen, Glendalough

For hundreds of years Glendalough held a central position in the passion of post-pagan Ireland. That passion was Monasticism. And Glendalough was a monastic city of great prominence. Its prominence is evident in both the size of its cathedral and in the seven floors of the round tower.

The name Glendalough means a valley of two lakes. Valleys are often thought of as havens and places of peace and prosperity. Glendalough through its long history has contained all of those elements. Travelers could see the round tower of Glendalough from afar off. It served as a beacon, guiding to a place of rest. Visitors to Glendalough would have been given the best room in the monastic city and would have been treated with overwhelming hospitality out of the resources of Glendalough's prosperity. They would have also been protected from the secular world outside the walls because Glendalough was sacred ground where man's only judge was God.

Monastic cities like Glendalough were also havens of learning. But their learning was drawn from their passion in their faith. The monastic communities all over Ireland preserved first religious documents like the Gospels and the Bible. After that they started to preserve works of literature from the secular world. And so, in the same process, writing and through that, learning, was preserved. So through the integration of faith and learning in the monastic cities came the salvation of literature out of a chaos engulfed post-roman Europe.

The history of Glendalough is very interesting and important for understanding its importance in Ireland and its example of how monastic life and cities influenced Irish society. It was founded by a fellow named Kevin. This man had wanted to be a hermit, living in solitude close to God. But because of his reputation in piety, people flocked to him and therefore the foundations of Glendalough as a monastic city was established.

From around the mid-600s to 1497 when the last bishop appointed by Rome: Dennis White surrendered to the English crown, Glendalough was a prominent monastic city and a place of pilgrimage to Catholics all over Ireland. Another piece of evidence pointing at its prominence in history is the fact that Laurence O'Toole, who was bishop of Glendalough, was made the first Irish archbishop of Dublin in 1162.

The cultural impact of Glendalough first to mind is the conversion of the Irish people from a partly-nomadic group grazing cows and sheep to a largely agricultural country. Monastic cities, Glendalough and the others like Clonmacnoise, lived primarily off the land. They grew crops and fished the rivers. The people all around, wanting to be as close to the holiness of the monastic cities as they could, would have mimicked the methods. And it is likely the monks would have taught them as well.

Another cultural impact that can be seen through Glendalough is how Irish society upholds education as something very important. Recently I talked with an older Irish fellow, perhaps his mid-70s, and he told me that the most important thing in education is "book learning." A close second for him was writing.  Irish education has long been attached to the church as well.

"Book learning" and writing played essential roles in Irish monasteries and in monasteries established by Irish missionaries. Monasteries such as the one at Iona established by St. Columba. And from Iona came an illuminated manuscript that contains evidence of the Irish love of learning. It is the Book of Kells. It is the jewel of learning. A decorative piece of art in the form of a book. And books are the repositories of knowledge, of learning.

The Book of Kells also contains several different art forms, Germanic, Pictish, and Celtic are the main ones, but there is some debate among scholars as to whether or not there are Carolingian influences as well.

These different art forms seen with the Book of Kells indicate that once Christianity came to Ireland it became connected to the rest of the world. It was no more to be the outskirt island that Rome didn't bother to conquer. In conclusion, it can also be observed that from that time onward to the present, Ireland has remained in constant interaction with its neighbors and countries across the sea.

Also, one of the members of our group, Amanda Barry, wrote this poem in reflection on Glendalough:

When I lay my head down to sleep

This is where my soul goes to rest

The beauty, and the lines in between

Are all here, and put to the test

My soul is at wonder

in this beautiful place

but, when I finally fall asleep

I will see my reflection in God’s face

There is where I belong

And where my soul wants to be

When I finally lay down

This becomes apart of me

Up to the round tower

And down to the castle

Take a hike because

The mountains are not a hassle.

The mountains between the lake

And the river between the ocean

Is where my soul goes at night

When I lie down through the motions.