A Day in Kilkenny

During this year I’ve been travelling quite a lot around but there are some places where I still haven’t been for example Kilkenny. It’s quite small old medieval town located around 2,5 hours bus ride from Dublin to Southwest direction Kilkenny is possibly mostly known of its castle but there other attraction also like Smithwicks brewery (which wasn’t unfortunately open), St. Canice’s Cathedral and its round tower from 9^th century etc.

Round towers are quite unique Christian heritage, originally built to offer place to monasteries / abbeys to hide their relics and offer a safe place from possible raids done by different invaders throughout the centuries. There are many round towers in Ireland but usually they are not accessible, this one was. So it was a great opportunity to climb up into it: About 30 meters high and 121 steps on a narrow stairs (or actually I would call them ladders) but when the top was reached there was a great overview of the Kilkenny. 

Kilkenny Castle, built in 12^th century by Normans after they arrived Ireland. Firstly it served as a defensive fortress because having such a good strategically location but then at the end of 14^th century it was bought by Butlers family who lived in the castle until 1935. Very rich and powerful family, which could be seen on castles interior designs: Some rooms had hand painted Chinese wallpapers and they also have their own gallery room, the biggest art collection owned by a single family on that time.

Besides those two main attractions there was some other churches / abbeys and since the Kilkenny is actually quite a small place and easy to discover there was time to see it all. So in total during one day, I did visit in four churches and I started to get so bored with it because even that they are interesting in a way but still they are quite similar. There would have been still two more to visit but luckily they were under maintenance and there was no possibly to enter them… After this “holy tour” tiredness was seriously starting to take over so as a cure for that I found a nice cafeteria “a hole in the wall”, oldest tavern in town which actually was also oldest townhall that is still standing in Ireland. But it is not just these individual buildings, it the whole atmosphere in Kilkenny because of its pedestrian street that was filled with many pubs, coffee places etc.

But that’s it for the historical part then. Evening in a town is not a proper evening in town if there are no visit in a pub. Plan was to have just one pint and then head up to sleep but things change… Few more pints and conversation with an Irish guy sitting in a bar about Finland, Ireland, horses, travels etc. I laughed so much as explaining some Finnish word and traditions and when I actually heard how it sounded like on his point of view…  For example:

- Kippis (Cheers) – “Keep-Piss”

- Tampere (my home city) – Somehow he managed to twist that word sounding like champagne brand Don Perignon with his Irish accent…

- Crab parties (Traditional parties where people drink shots, eat crabs and other seafood) – This one turned out crap parties instead of crab parties… and there is a “slightly” difference.

So you can just imagine: Welcome to Finland to participate on crap parties to drink shots and rising up your glass as telling everyone to keep(their)piss. … Thank god I’m not working in a tourist office :D

Cultural Dublin

After having first Easter break from college, and then another week long own break to Finland, dates for exams were getting closer. It was easily noticed from few key features… Library was full of students and trying to find a computer to print something was a real mission impossible. Secondly, usually the coffee break at library might easily last bit longer than expected, for example 30 minutes coffee break might turn out to be few hour coffee break… Such productive studying! I also thought about the option to participate on my classes during last week, but for some reason it didn’t happen and instead I spend a few days to discover cultural Dublin before days actually ran out of my Erasmus exchange.

First I started to discover the history of Dublin itself. It all started at the age of Vikings who actually were the ones who founded Dublin around 9^th century. People quite often have a perception of Irish people being red headed, but actually the story tells that legacy of redheads is related to the time of Vikings. After Vikings, on 12^th century, Normans arrived who decided to stay several hundred years and built up castles to make them stay more comfortable and secured. This leads back into times when the Dublin castle was built. In these days Dublin castle looks more like a residence place than actual fortress. Dublin castle is still on use as a visitor attraction and also the place where the President of Ireland gives receptions to other heads of state.

Secondly, Dublin is known for its literature heritage so it merged another area to get more familiar with. Probably the most known is the book of the Kells (which I haven’t seen yet!) but it is only one of the many amazing things to see. Near Dublin castle is the Chester Beatty library that haves a collection of books, writings and texts. It was divided into two sections: First one is religious texts from all major religions in the world (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism)… and second part the art of the book revealing different features of books in different cultural areas (China Japan, Mesopotamia, Europe etc...) throughout their 

http://www.marshlibrary.ie/

history starting about 2000 years ago. Another library to visit was Marsh’s Library, the first public library founded in Dublin. It has remained almost exactly the same for past 300 years. For example Jonathan Swift, a famous writer of the Gulliver’s Travels used the library when writing the book.

Thirdly, I experienced some Irish culture... I had already been in Guinness Storehouse but the other important part of pub culture was still missing… Whiskey, the water of life as they call it in Ireland. The best place to learn about it is Jameson’s distillery that has been founded at year 1780. The tour itself took about an hour and lead through the process of making whiskey and at the end of tour a shot of Jameson to get the flavour of it. It was a good tour in the sense of learning about whiskey, but it would have been also interesting to hear about the Jameson’s brands own story and what has been part of it.

Now we have drinks, music, cultural history but one very important feature is still missing… Can anyone guess? It’s music. In Dublin there are so called “Irish nights” for tourist to get to know this part of culture. Three hours in a row including dinner, music and dancing was a really nice experience. Especially as the band told about stories of traditional music, instruments and rhythms that are part of Irish music. Besides music there were few world class professional dancers (being for example part of globally know lord of the dance show) who introduced audience into an Irish dance letting also them participate by learning some simple dance moves, luckily they didn’t pick me up on the stage :D

All in all I would definitely say that I have got much more out for myself than sitting in lectures… We’ll see then how the examinations go, but they are still around 1,5 weeks ahead so no need to stress about those (yet).

1st of May, Greetings From Finland to Ireland

It was in August 2013 when I made a promise. I was meeting my friends last time before leaving to Ireland and we were talking about student life, parties etc. as we came across the fact that what's going to happen in Vappu (1st of May)... Because I've been hosting up parties already three years in row and the tradition could not be broken, I promised that I will come for a vappu time to visit Finland. First semester had already passed and promise more or less started to fade away and become forgotten until I saw cheap direct flights between Helsinki-Dublin. Vappu, here I come!!!

Usually students start to celebrate vappu already a whole week before 1st of May and there is every night something going on. Well obviously because I wasn't in Finland I only participated on vappy eve and then 1st of May celebrations but I didn't do it alone: I had a German friend with me who I got to know during my 1st semester in Ireland. And together we of course drank some Jägerbombs to honor people and memories for the first semester.

In Finland vappu is traditionally celebrated by working class and university student but had become an event where whole nation steps outside to celebrate it with serpentine, air balloons and funny costumes. Students have their overalls, it is important part of Finnish student culture, all 3rd level education students usually have overalls which shows that you are studying and how "active" student you have been. The colors of the overalls and a logo at the back indicates which student society do you belong that is mostly based on your major subject. During the study years we collect patches in different student parties etc. so more patches you have, more you have been living the student life. 

On last of April, the vappu eve, is a normal day (shops are open, people are working normally) but students started their day to gather around somewhere. University students go to a place called Sorsapuisto to have a picnic from around 3pm onward -->. Quite same than in Ireland, it is very weather dependable how many people there are and how long time they want to hang around in Sorsapuisto. From there I had invited friends to arrive the house parties I was hosting.

Parties were great on this year! People were not thirsty (you know what I mean ;) ), they were dancing and the music kept playing from 7pm until 5am. Of course during that time at midnight everybody gather to the Tampere city center to see how the Maiden of Finland statue will have a the white hat on (different cities have different traditions). First people sing kind of a university student song, then the statue will got its hat and everyone will open their sparkling wines wishing "Hyvää Vappua!"

Those white hats are graduation hats that we will got in Finland after finished upper-secondary school by passing matriculation examinations and then you can always were that hat in vappu. 

Obviously sooner or later the celebrations will continue on 1st of May, the actual Vappy day... someone might go already 9am to terrace or then just sleep late but one thing is not to be missed: Every year at 1pm freshers of Technical University of Tampere students will receive their baptism and after they become officially students. They queue few hours to actually get into the basket that a crane will lift up and dip into the rapid, this year weather was only around 3-4 Celsius degrees. Quite refreshing, right? To see this event people just gather around having a picnic in a park and there are lots and lots people from every age groups all wearing similar kind of white graduating hats.

On The Footsteps Of Game Of Thrones

Northern Ireland and a scenic driving route of Antrim Cost is said to be one of the most beautiful in the world. It includes several tourist attraction places but also many other locations where you just feel like to pull over the car and enjoy the views. This was also also the last day in Easter Brake roadtrips and was done with a mixture of Finnish-French-German team. As you might already imagine, not too many hours of sleep during the  night before and leaving on early morning 7am. Luckily the day was anyways great and sun was shining.

First we drove through Belfast and continued a bit further in town called Carrick Fergus, known of its castle and harbour. Of course we all agreed the fact that there are castles in every corner of Ireland so it is not anything super exciting. Main reason to stop there was the coffee tooth that was screaming to for a nice cup of coffee.  At same as we were enjoying drinks, we made kind of a plan what we would like to see during the day.

 As the curvy road followed up the coastal line narrowing down in some point where an alternative scenic loop route offered its possibility to see even more. One of the alternative routes lead us to place called a Torr Head where was an old already abandoned coastal guard station.The spot is the closest as you can get to Scotland from Ireland so because of the bright day we were able to see Scotland only 12 miles away.

It started to be lunchtime already and I started to be hungry. Problem was going to solve in Ballycastle town where was a famous place for fish and chips: Morrison's They make their portions using always fresh codfish. The best fish and chips I've tasted in Ireland so far. While eating we were sitting outside in a round table like the knights themselves as seagulls were flying over us to keep on eye if we would drop something.

Completing the huge portion made sure that with full stomach is good to continue forward. The dark hedges,  fantastic drive where trees have grown over the road forming weird formation. I saw a picture of it in a guidebook which was taken at time of the day when it was still a bit dark so it looked even more better than in sunshine. Even that I should not complain if the sun is shining in Ireland and its not raining.

Even I mentioned earlier that there are castles every corner in Ireland, of course our next stop was to see ruins of Dunluce castle and after town of Castle Rock. Both places includes areas where the series Game of Thrones has been filmed. There we just stopped by for a second to stretch legs and get some fresh air before around 4 hour drive home to maynoot

One last night with around 4-5 hours of sleep before returning car back to the Airport. By curiosity I calculated that I drove in total 3500 kilometers during a week. As usual I took the airport hopper back to Maynooth. There was one couple and me on the bust at that time. I fell asleep almost immediatly after bus started... Driver drop the couple out somewhere on the road but I was in so deep sleep that I didnt even wake up for that... Week was thought: I was tired but happy because now I can say that I have seen everything I wanted and much more in Ireland.

Mourne Mountains

Spending the previous day mostly underground I felt like to doing things in a opposite site, which meant to go to see mountains - from bottom to the top as to describe day ;)

There is the place called The Mourne Mountains just behind the border to Northern Ireland. Dutch-Italian-Finnish team was gathered up and ready to go to see some castles, scenery, granite mountains in the area where highest peaks of Northern Ireland reach the sky at height of 850 meters. Morning didn't look that good, clouds in the sky and some rain while driving but as Mourne Mountains got closer, the sky became clearer and rain ended. On the way as I stopped to gas up the car, starting look through my pockets which go through them made me realize one thing: I forgot my wallet at home!!
Which means that I was driving a rented car to a different country without having ID's, drivers' licence or money with me. I kind off hoped that polices would not stop us anywhere in during that day because it might turn out to be interesting moment... It was clear that I started to be a bit tired of the whole week trips because of all long days and short nights.

Our trip followed road along coastline along a scenic drive called Mourne Coastal Road started from Newry and finishing as we drove through same city on out way back to Maynooth. In the heart of the mountains lies place called Silent Valley Mountain park and built in 1930's as damming of Kilkeel River was completed to provide water for county Down and most parts of the Belfast which it still do.

After a park we stopped in New Castle town in a tourist information point where a very friendly women gave us pile of leaflets what to do so there was no other options than sit down for a coffee and make some plans. We thought to climb up the mountains but unfortunately during that day wind was blowing that coldly that we decided to stay in lower ground levels and drive by some scenic driving loops having only photo stops. The kind of tourism that you pull over car somewhere, jump out of the car (or just open the window), take pictures and quickly back into a car to continue forward... Very experiencing indeed but still good way to see surroundings before turning back to Ireland.

After passing safely the border back to Ireland we decide to stop in a city called Drogheda to have a dinner all together. A desert ghost town in my opinion. Since we walked (in a center) there was almost more close up bars, shops, B&B's than open ones.. So we failed to find a pub to eat in, can you imagine.. Not finding a pub in Ireland!? Ending up eating Chinese food, all you can eat menu filled up with small portions to mix and match. I liked the idea and tried for example Duck in orange sauce. Totally I ate 6 portions and two appetizers, I was full! That night I slept like a baby after got home.

The Underground Ireland

Since there has been so many sunny days in Ireland that it started to feel weird (I even managed to get sunburned) it sounded like a good idea to disappear from top of the earth for a while. Once again car loaded with German-American-Finnish people left in the morning as the sun was rising up the on the blue sky.

First destination: Cave of the Cats also referred by name "Hell-mouth of Ireland" or "Gateway to Hell." It is located in the area of Rathcorghan where several ancient monuments takes place. Area is also the beginning and the ending of the tale about the battle of great bulls, that is part of the Irish mythology. The cave is well hidden and when seeing the entrance I wasn't able to imagine at all what actually was behind it. Crawling through the small entrance and after about 10 meters of tunnel cave opened up in a bigger space where I could easily stand in. It is a natural cave formed in limestone lay that lies underneath the ground surface at the moment forming about 50 meters long tunnels accessible but in total they are much more longer. There is a tale that caves would reach as far as Sligo in earlier period of time which would mean about 50km of tunnel complex... Geologically it is all part of same limestone lay so it could have been possible but there are no evidence on that. In the cave was a total silence and darkness, when turning of torches it was impossible to see anything and only thing to hear was the sound of water dripping from the stone. I thought to scare someone of us up but (at this time) decided to be polite and stayed quiet... This place is one of the places that is connected the birth of Halloween.

To reach another destination we needed to change country which did mean to drive across the border to Northern Ireland where we find the Marble Arch Caves. It was discovered at the end of 19th century and now it is one of places in Europe that has a Geopark status. Surroundings itself looked fascinating and we were thinking about movies that would come to our mind about different spots over there... Lord Of the Rings, Harry Potter, Avatar, Pirates Of Caribbean and Ariel... 

Steps lead us to underground (No crawling this time!) and first stepped on the boats that took us a short journey along underground river. After tour continued walking through various tunnels where was one after another different stone formation with funny names that had been given to them, like "Porridge pot" or "Moses walk." Cave system is totally about 11km long and about 2-3km of that is open for public.

Discovering the these underground worlds it was time to enjoy leisure back on top of the ground. There was horse racing event in Dundalk, both horse and greyhound racing is popular in Ireland so obviously is has to be part of experience to see. The venue itself was big offering bar and restaurant services and of course many places to put your bets on horses... If I would understand more about the sport, I would tried to put on some bets but at this time it was only for watching few starts to see how it is like. There wasn't that many people so atmosphere could have been better with more people. Of course I compare it what I've seen in movies which possibly is a bit unreal but still... It was nice experience anyways and now I can tick one more box "Things done in Ireland."

True Gaelic Ireland

Early morning again, somehow I just seem to like them... Car engine started at 6.30am and day started as normal tradition to pick up the team for the car. This time we had German-Slovenian-Finnish group on the wheels. As always I calculate some extra time just in case something happens... Like picking up one the person after ringing for several times there was an answer.. "Sorry I totally fucked this up, I just woke up and haven't even packed" ... Short conversation, boosting up the mood to hurry up to get going and after 15min we had a whole group in the car.

A motorway from Maynooth to Galway showed us the way and a smaller route even further to the port of Ros a'Mhil where we left our car and continued by foot to the ferry that took us to Inis Mór, the biggest island of the Aran Islands (there are three islands in total). It is one of few areas in Ireland where people mainly speak Irish (Gaelic). It is the kind of language that reminds me an elf language from Lord of the Rings, beautiful language but completely not understandable for me...  Luckily they also speak English in there. This time we had a real passenger ferry to cross sea to and only after 45min ferry trip we stepped on to Aran Islands where we rented bicycles to cycle around the Island. The main island (Inis Mór) is only about 10km long and 2-3km wide having only few routes cycling is the best way to discover it.


Landscape is very rocky and most overcoming view was many stonewalls between green fields with farm animals (cows, horses, donkeys, goats) and rocky coast. The atmosphere on the Island could be describe as peaceful, non-rushing and relaxing. As our cycling tour around island started it wasn't more than few minutes as I met a new friend. I called him "buddy", it was a dog who walked toward us (in Ireland it's normal that dogs just run around without a lease on themselves) and then joined with us for the whole day, around five hours it ran along us while we were cycling and was our "guide" when seeing the sights... It became my new best friend.

Besides the nature itself there are several sights on island that are recommended to visit. First where we visited was called "a worm hole", a natural formation on rocks that looks like a swimming pool... surrounded by ground of smaller ponds that reminded kind of poisonous ponds because of green seaweed. Not to mention raging waves onto cliffs that splashed water meters high.

Another sight, most famous on the island is Dún Aonghasa, a ring fort originally built in 1100BCE and expanded on 500BCE built on top of the hill by the sea, about 100 meters straight drop to sea and other way kilometers long view over the island... I don't wonder that it's called "the most magnificent barbaric monument in Europe."



Continuing cycling tour we stopped on one beach where I tried to teach for the "buddy" how to retrieve a stick but he didn't agree with me about the idea and decided not to retrieve it. For some reason it reminded my the dog I used to have when I was still living at home who did exactly same thing: looked on me and probably would say something like "do you think that Im stupid or something to try make me run after a stick?" There was also a place where seals where living, I counted that I saw about 10 seals on the spot.


After a night at the hostel on the Island we returned to mainland and continued our trip by car around Connemara. When I was there last time, it was mostly very windy and rainy and now sun was shining.. It is true how much difference does actually the weather do. Difference on this Connemara driving route was to visit in Kylemore Abbey, last time I only stopped there but didn't went in there. Once again it was closer to 11pm when we reached Maynooth so the same routing was keep repeating itself: Quickly to bed to have some sleep before a wake up again on a next day.