The Statues and their Nicknames

Before my trip to Dublin when I started my blog I did a lot of research on the Internet to get myself into the right mood and of course to be better prepared for the coming weeks. As a language teacher and a bit of a language freak who is awfully attracted to sculptures I got really impressed when I found that web page about the statues of Dublin and their Notorious Nicknames. At first I bookmarked it and then added it to my blog info bar to be sure that I don't lose it. Walking around, discovering these statues in the real life  and taking photos of them gave me an idea to take a picture with all these mentioned statues and here they are. I have to admit that I forgot the Ace with a Base, still passed it several times, but didn't take a picture. I will definitely do it on Christmas time, probably Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzie is still standing on Grafton street and waiting for me.

A statue for the ordinary women in Dublin, with a nickname" Hags with the Bags" , one of the bags was snatched a little while after the statue was placed there, but fortunately it was returned afterwards

The Spire of Light, over one hundred and twenty meters long, located at O’Connell Street and placed there to celebrate the Millenium. A good landmark if you are new in Dublin. But it seemed that the locals don't like it as much as the tourists do :)

Molly Mallone, still wheeling her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow crying cockles and mussels alive a-live alive a-live O! Also known as "The Dolly with the Trolley", "The Flirt in the Skirt" or "The Tart with the Cart".

The statue of Anna Livia, who appears in James Joyce's novel Finnegan’s Wake and which Dubliners use to call "The Floozy in the Jacuzzi"

Me and James Joyce, the most famous writer, in the middle of the night somewhere in Dublin, actually at Earl Street North, just turn right from the Spire. Also known as The Prick with a Stick.

Oscar Wilde, very imposing statue, it shows so well the importance of enjoying yourself. And how is he called? My favourite page says that The Queer with the Leer or The Fag on the Crag :) Knowing now the sense of humour of the Dubliners I am not a bit surprised at all. It doesn't show that they don't love him, oh, they do :)

On the corner of the park there's a statue to commemorate the Irish Famine. These pillars surround a statue of the 18th century father of Irish republican, Theodore Wolfe Tone and although it represents one of the darkest periods of Irish history the Dubliners have given it a relevant nickname and call it the Tone-Henge (like Stonehenge - look at the shape of the pillars:)) 

The Chariot of Life - Abbey Street, known locally as "The Mad Milkman"

Opera in the Open

Every Thursday in August, exactly at lunchtime, at the Amphitheatre, which is situated at the Civic Offices near the Wood Quay you can enjoy the open air operas.

We went to see the Magic Flute by Mozart and it was great. Even the weather didn't matter and when it started to rain the whole audience took out their umbrellas and continued. Of course the poor singers got a bit wet, but mostly we were lucky with the weather.

It was almost like the real opera, just without all these decorations and costumes and to make it easier, there was a story teller who just came and told what is going to happen and who is who and actually that was quite funny and really helped to keep yourself on the track better than without that.

As Magic Flute is a comic opera, the mixture of the past and nowadays was very enjoyable, The singers were the young musicians and opera students and they seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Tamino and Three Ladies, seducing him with the picture of Pamina

Especially cute were these little boys, I even don't remember who they exactly were 

All through this summer Elvis haunted us everywhere we went. We couldn't have expected him to be a part of the opera, but he was :) 

Papageno with his sweetheart Papagena - a marvellous couple. 

The showers didn't ruin the day and fortunately they didn't last too long. 

After a week we did it again, because it was such a great opportunity. This time they played La Rondine by Puccini.

This opera was not so well known for me, I hadn't seen it before and knew nothing more than the name of the composer. It was good too, but my favourite was Magic Flute, somehow it suited better to play outdoors without the real opera house and stage. These open air operas reminded me the great outdoor operas in Italy or I just have to say they made me think about that again. Years ago I really wanted to go and see something like that, but somehow it hasn't been in my plans yet. But who knows, one step brings to another and maybe after some years I can say - done it, been there - as I can say now about the Dublin Opera in the Open.

Our neighbourhood

When I want to go to the main street, to the shops, to the Spire or where ever I need to go, I have to pass the Garden of Rememberance, which is situated at Parnell Square. That nice little park is dedicated to all those who have given their lives for Irish Freedom.

At the very end you can see the sculpture which is called "The Children of Lir". There's a beautiful legend connected with that statue - about the children of King Lir who were turned into swans. As in all fairy tales and legends there was again one Evil Queen, in this one from the race of Druids, who had to become a step-mother for four little ones - Finola, Aodh, Fiarce and Conn. And when she was tired of pretending to be nice, she just turned the children into beautiful swans, who could still speak with human voices and please the people who came to the lake to listen to their songs. But the Evil Queen was turned into a bat and had to stay like that forever.

I also looked up the pronunciation of the Irish names of the children, you never know it without checking :) and even then you'll find several ways how to do that.

The story itself could be read from here - Children of Lir.

At Parnell square I also have to pass the Abbey Presbyterian Church, but till now I have just passed, but never looked inside. It seemed that last summer they were renovating it a bit, but it never seemed like working.

But I like how it looks  - a nice Gothic building with tall narrow spires. It has been also called as Findlater's church after a Dublin merchant who paid for construction of the building.

Rainbow waiting for me

"Keep looking up, there may be a rainbow waiting for you".

And there was, when I arrived back to Dublin after our two weeks of  Mediterranean  summer in Haapsalu. I know, it was a good sign :) My first own Dublin Rainbow, welcoming me back.

Haapsalu Riviera, what a surprise

The Roses at Haapsalu Promenade

Enjoying the local beach

It is summer - mmmm

At Yacht Club, waiting for Smilers

Dietrich Cafe, enjoying the cake and the concert

Farmer's Tavern - very Estonian

Street concert - the Days of the White Lady

August Blues - warm August nights, the real summer feeling

Beauty of the Night

Atlantic Tides

I remember that in my 5th grade English student book there was a topic about tides - a long and boring story, mostly because of all the difficult expressions we had to underline and learn by heart. Just to refresh my memory I took down my old student book from the shelf (yes, I still have it) and looked up what it was about.

"Long ago people living near the coast of the Atlantic Ocean noticed that the level of the sea rose and fell twice every day. They noticed that this didn't always happen at the same time, at the same hour, but that it took place regularly. People did not understand the cause of this rising and falling. But they noticed that there was some connection between the moon and the waters of the ocean. Today we know that the water of the sea is always moving in or out along the shores."

When learning it, I was probably like the ones who had lived long ago and didn't quite understand how it all worked. Especially because we, living here at the Baltic sea, never had any tides and the water of the sea stood quite at the same place almost all year round, without very little exceptions and so it was quite hard to picture the tides. Later of course, when reading more literature, I got to know about it some more and in 2010, when visiting England and Wales, I was happy to recognize it, when seeing  the boats and yachts standing on the plain sand and I really thought about my old school book again.

But this time we spent three marvellous days in Duncannon, just at the sea side, in a nice summer house and I was able to see all that with my own eyes. We arrived in the afternoon, which was probably one of the three lovely days during the summer, and the beach was full of people enjoying the nice weather. Just to mention - the sea was exactly where it had to be - a nice sandy beach, not very wide, but quite enough and the sea, standing still, not moving anywhere. What was totally different from any other beach I have ever seen, were the cars, parked everywhere on the sand, some of them almost in the water.

It seemed that only I was surprised about that, because all the others were spending their time besides their cars, using them as lunch tables and playing ball over them. The ice-cream car was parked with its engine roaring over the beach, but probably it was just because of keeping the fridge working and the ice cream cold. We spent some time walking around and ended our day in the local pub, had some ciders and dinner and arrived at our nice summer house.

Our house had a small garden just looking at the sea and in the morning when I went out, the sea was gone, and it means it was totally gone, no water, just kilometers of wet sand.

We spent a nice day on the beach, found a really nice corner, where the cars were not allowed to park and enjoyed the warm day. Somewhere near 2 o'clock the water started to come back little by little. The life guards were busy to get the people back to the sea shore, because a lot of them, included myself, were walking on the wet sand that had been the bottom of the sea just a day before. And then the sea came back, just during about two hours. That was really amazing and unbelievable. So now I have seen how it really works, not just from the books :)

In the evening the local musicians were performing at the pub and everybody was singing. It's not possible to describe how much I liked it. For the first time in my life I saw people play Spoons, actually I didn't even know about that kind of instrument before. So besides being just great and fantastic and really full of enjoyment, it was also an educative weekend and I love Duncannon and want to come back the next year. And I am quite sure that I will. The next time it would be interesting to wonder around a bit more and discover maybe some neighbourhood as well.

A Day at the Phoenix Park

Phoenix Park is one of the biggest enclosed parks in any European cities. It is actually so big, that you feel that you are not in the park, but just got out of the city and wondering around in countryside. And the most amazing is that you are actually in the city and not far from the centre at all, so we took this trip just on foot and it din't take us too much time at all. 

Our first stop was The Church of the Sacred Heart Arbour Hill, which was just on our way and so we walked into the garden of the church where lies the military cemetery which is the last resting place of 14 of the executed leaders of the Rising of 1916.

There was big monument with the Declaration of Independence on the wall and with Irish flag above. 

After some more walking we reached the Phoenix park and headed to the Wellington Testimonial which was huge. It was designed by Robert Smirke as a testimonial to Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, who was born in Dublin. Duke of Wellington was one of  England's greatest military leaders, who served as a Prime Minister and who became especially famous fro his victory over Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo in 1815. Duke Wellington was also called the Iron Duke. The monument was completed in 1861 and it is the tallest obelisk in Europe, over 62 meters tall.

It has four bronze plaques which are made from the cannons, captured at Waterloo and on three of them are the pictures connected with his battles and the fourth has an inscription on it. The monument is situated on the huge green lawn square and it looks imposing.

The Phonix Park was established in 1662 by Duke of Ormond, on behalf of the king Charles II. It was founded as the Royal Deer Park and for my big surprise the deer are living there even today. And not just some deer, but there are big herds of deer walking around and not too much afraid of people who are trying to photograph them here and there. Probably the deer are quite used to be models and if you really go too close to them the head of the herd just started moving and all the others follow quite soon, but if you walk around and take some time, they will come back again or you will see just another hers walking by.

The Papal Cross was erected for the visit of the Pope John Paul the Second in 1979. It is a simple white cross on the small hill, but it looks great and powerful. Maybe because it is standing alone on the hill and there's a big emptiness around it. Somehow it feels scary, maybe because the weather turned so gray and dark when we reached there, the sun went off and the sky was quickly covered with dark and threatening clouds. When the Pope visited Dublin, he gave an open air ceremony for more than 1.25 million people and actually it's very difficult for me to imagine so many people standing there and waiting for the Pope to speak. But it was a very important event in Ireland and so after that visit John Paul became one of the most popular baby boys' name in Ireland and stayed on a high position for quite a long time. 

On our way from the Papal Cross to the Zoo we also passed the Residence of Irish President.

Our most important aim of the day was of course visiting the zoo. It was funny that we both hadn't done it for a long time, what happens of course if you don't have small children any more. But in spite of the lack of small children we decided to be children ourselves and so we enjoyed every single second of the next part of the day. Dublin Zoo is quite an old one, founded already in 1831 and today it is a very nice and modern place to spend the whole day and even then you will be short of time. It's a very spacious zoo, where the animals have good conditions and a lot of free space to feel themselves like home. The Zoo is divided into different areas with special names.

The World of Primates

Asian Forests

African Savanna

My favourite . The Elephant Baby

The elephant Baby was 6 days old and was born on the 17th of July, but already on on his feet. His mother's name is Yasmin. And now I read, that in August another elephant calf Ashoka was born and on the 17th of September the third one, a girl, just only 68 kgs heavy :)

Birds

The peacock was wondering around just on its own, swaggering its tail ahead everyone who had time to admire it. 

And all other kinds of creatures

And one of the best part were all these amazing plants that you almost felt yourself walking around in a jungle.

To end the day perfectly we finished in in the Church. No not any kind of influences from the Papal Cross this time. The Church is a big bar/restaurant that is located in the centre of Dublin and established in a former St. Mary's church. The real church was closed in 1964 and the building remained empty until 1997 when it was purchased by John Keating who renovated it and opened a bar there in 2005. The renovated building was noticed by Dublin City Neighbourhood Awards and in 2006 it won the first price in the category of Best Old Buildings. In 2007 the building went over to the new owners and was renamed "The Church Bar-Restaurant". 

So before heading back home we had some ciders at the Church. For me it was really surprising that such a catholic state as Ireland seemed to me has rebuilt not only this church for quite an unusual purpose, but also many others. One of our neighborhood churches had been a night club for some time and in one of them the Tourist Information Office is located. I think it's a great idea to renovate these old buildings instead to let them just stand abandoned. In spite that the Church is more like a tourist place and for that reason very expensive, it was a nice experience anyway and I cannot deny that I was a tourist :)