BC in Ireland

These past two weeks have been so hectic (in a good way)! Between having friends come visit, going on more trips around Ireland, starting spring break in Italy, and all of the St. Patrick's Day festivities that went on in Dublin, I've been too busy having new adventures to write about them! I'll try to get caught up in the next 2 days before I leave for London for the second half of my spring break, and I'll divide my posts up based on where I traveled.

For the first weekend in March, I on a trip to Kilkenny with the BC class I'm taking. Kilkenny is about an hour and a half away from Dublin, and it reminded me a lot of Kinsale, which I went to on my way back from Cork. We stayed in Kilkenny for one night, and it was a great chance to get to know the other people from BC who are here a little better. Like most of the other trips I've been on, we started the weekend with a walking tour of the city. We learned about the history of Kilkenny, and my favorite part was learning about the Alice Kyteler witch trials that occurred in 1324. Kyteler was accused of sorcery, blasphemy, and animal torture. After she was condemned, she fled the country and there are no records of her life after this stage. Today, there are still legends of her haunting parts of town.

In addition to the walking tour of the city, we got to tour Kilkenny Castle, which was one of the coolest castles I've seen since coming to Ireland. It was built in 1195 and owned by the powerful Butler family from 1391 until 1967 when it was sold to the Castle Restoration Committee for 50 euro. The outside of the castle looks much like it did during medieval times, but the inside still looks the way it did in the 1930s when the Butlers still lived there (they moved out about 30 years before selling the castle).


On Saturday morning, we got to tour the Smithwick's Brewery (pronounced "Smittick's"). Our teacher told us that we got to go on the tour because of the brewery's "historical significance," but I still couldn't believe that BC would actually pay for us to do this! The history of the brewery was interesting though; it was originally and abbey and the monks who brewed the beer drank it instead of water because it was more sanitary.

An "historical" education at the Smithwick's brewery

We had some free time before leaving Kilkenny on Saturday, so we stopped at a bakery near our hostel. The owner of the bakery was really excited that a group of 12 American girls came to her bakery, so she took our picture and used it as an advertisement on the bakery's Facebook page, where it got 66 likes!

We're basically celebrities now

My first pint of Guinness!

After returning from Kilkenny, two of my closest friends from BC came to visit me in Dublin. It was great to see them again, and a good excuse for me to explore Dublin more! I got to do some touristy thinks here that I had been wanting to do, like go to Whelan's, which is the pub where the movie "P.S. I Love You" was filmed, visit the Museum of Archeology, and tour the Guinness Storehouse. I tried my first pint of Guinness while I was there, and although I found it repulsive and could barely drink half of it, I thought the storehouse was awesome and I had a lot of fun touring it. The Guinness Storehouse is seven stories tall, and each floor has something different on it, from information about ingredients and the brewing process to televisions where you can watch old tv advertisements. On one of the floors you can pour your own pint, and I had no idea how specific it is! To start, you hold the pint glass at a 45 degree angle, and pour the lever forward until the foam reaches the top of the "Guinness" label on the glass. Then, you tilt the glass so that it's upright, and let it continue filling until the foam goes to the middle of the harp logo, which is just above the "Guinness" label. After this, you stop the tap and let the glass sit for 119.5 seconds to let all of the gases settle. Finally, you start pouring again, but this time pushing the lever on the pump backwards. When the foam is just over the top of the glass (but not spilling over), you're done! Aside from learning how to pour the perfect pint, my favorite part of the Guinness Storehouse was the Gravity Bar on the seventh floor. The Gravity Bar is a circular room with windows instead of walls that gives you a 360 degree view of Dublin. It was so cool to see Dublin from so high up, and this made touring the factory completely worth it. 

My favorite thing that I did while my friends were here was go hiking in Howth, which is a harbor town about 30 minutes from Dublin. Like all of the other parts of the Irish coastline that I've seen, Howth was absolutely beautiful, and so easy to get to. Hiking is one of my favorite things to do at home, and it was so great to be outside in the fresh air. I definitely want to come back to Howth when (or if) the weather gets nicer in the spring! 

Howth reminded me a lot of Mizen head, except smaller and closer to Dublin

The time I got to spend with friends from BC in Ireland was so much fun, and I feel so lucky that they got to come and that I got the chance to know more people from BC better on the Kilkenny trip. Immediately after one of my friends left, I went to Italy for the first part of UCD's spring break. I've always wanted to go to Italy, and the week I spent there far surpassed my expectations of how awesome Italy would be. I just got back from Italy on Friday morning, and I'll post about the trip as soon as I can!