Day 4

On the fourth day of our study abroad trip we took a walking tour of Dublin. Our guide, Shawn (hopefully spelled correctly), utilized song and story to guide us around and teach us about some of the parts of town that we had seen, but had not realized were so important. For me, the most memorable story was of a blind poet. In short, there was a blind poet who was extremely optimistic, who was balanced by a friend who was pessimistic. Interestingly enough, the blind poet, who was a bit of an outcast in his time, was the man who’s work ended up surviving. Shawn made an interesting point out of this. The outcast’s work is the only lens we have to look through to see what life was like in his time, and you never know how the future will look back at your place in history. Below is a picture of our group with Shawn at the end of the tour.

Secondly, we wrapped up the day by visiting Howth, a subsection of Dublin. Howth was beautiful, and reminded me a whole lot of a cross between Newport Rhode Island and (more generally) Cape Cod. We came in by a train, and there was one road to follow to an end where there was an area for boats to park, with a small light house and sea wall. It was interesting that the beaches, specifically the white rock/ shells that covered the sand along with red sea weed was exactly the same as some of the beaches where I grew up. The part that reminded me of Newport the most was the mansions that hung off the side of the cliff, overlooking the ocean and the rest of the town. If I were to draw a parallel between Dublin and Howth and an American city it would definitely be most similar to Boston and Cape Cod. Boston is extremely dense, busy, filled with colleges, and is (or at least was) a great shipping city. The detail down to the chaos that is the road design in Dublin is similar to Boston. Meanwhile, while Cape Cod isn’t really just one city or town, it has the same fishing town feel. Great seafood and a quite small town feeling are great ways to describe both Cape Cod and Howth. Words really cannot explain how striking the similarities between the places are. Below, attached is a picture of the lighthouse and a bit of the town of Howth in the background.