Joanna Mason
Overseas Columnist
Tuesday morning the Florence Program flew to Dublin, Ireland for our Spring educational fieldtrip. Except for a few students who carried on their luggage, for the next three days we were without our bags because of a strike on our Italian airline company. Despite our unfortunate luck with lost bags, we had a great four days in Ireland: staying in four-star hotels in Dublin and Galway, visiting historic sites and riding in guide buses through the Irish countryside.
When we arrived in Dublin, the first places on our tour were St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where Jonathon Swift was dean for 32 years, and Trinity College, the home of the famous Book of Kells. After our visits, we returned to the Hilton Hotel and enjoyed a delicious three-course meal for our first dinner in Ireland. For fun that night we were able to meet up with students from the London Program, as they were staying in Dublin for their fieldtrip as well. Spending time with friends from London and those in Florence in pubs and other locations in Dublin was definitely the first day’s highlight.
Wednesday morning after a fulfilling buffet-style breakfast we boarded our tour buses and drove through Ireland’s green countryside to the Blackwater Bog. As we journeyed on a mini train through Ireland’s five-and-a-half mile bog, we were able to witness first hand where Ireland generates its electricity. The bog is a vast brown colored area where milled peat is cultivated and produced. Elizabeth Whatley, our director, said it would be a shame to miss one of Ireland’s most unique and traditional aspects, and visiting the bog is something we will probably only see once in our lifetimes.
Currently the home for an order of Benedictine nuns, Kylemore Abbey was originally built as the home for Mitchell Henry and his family. Situated in the beautiful Connemara region, we spent a couple of hours Thursday morning walking through the Abbey, admiring the lake and walking to the neo-Gothic Cathedral on its property. To complement our stay in Ireland, we also had high tea at a five-star hotel later in the afternoon.
Our final day in Ireland was spent traveling through the Connemara region and seeing the Cliffs of Moher, which stand seven hundred feet above the sea and extend five miles down the coast. With winds that travel fast enough to blow people over the edge, we were all very careful to remain inside the walled in parameters of the area.
The landscape in Ireland is truly breathtaking. Sheep crowd the narrow country roads and at one point our bus driver had to honk the horn at a huddle of cows that were blocking our passageway. In Ireland there are skies with rain clouds, and peaks of the sun’s rays reflect on bodies of water that glitter on the green grass. Stone walls divide property lines and enclose baby lambs, sheep and cows.
Returning to the villa after such a wonderful experience was a little depressing: with only six weeks left in the semester and our field trip over, there is little left to look forward to except hours of hard work and lots of studying for our approaching mid-terms. As with everything about this year, the trip to Ireland, although short, was both memorable and fantastic. I am blessed to have experienced the beauty of a country far from both Italy and America, and to have spent time with people I love and cherish.
02-24-2005
