Cram Central

Not much of an update today. Took a nap, went for a run and dove into a bunch of studying. I know so much about terrorism now. (Or at least legal responses to it.)

Also, if you would like any Irish souvenirs, please let me know. I think I am going to have to buy an extra bag so I should have some extra room. (This can be from Limerick, Cork and Blarney, Scotland and St. Andrews or Newark Airport.)

Time for some sleep before this final. Let's get a P!

The Return to the Homeland

During the first week of classes, I was talking to one of the girls in the program — Anne — who came over to the country with her family a week early and went around the island tracking all of her family history. This got me thinking and itching to dig up the past of the Arneals. It just so happened we were to have an extra day of adventure following our Dublin/Belfast trip. In talking with the group, I discovered that Jillian also had ancestors from Ireland and it turns out the homelands of our relatives were about 30 miles apart. I smell a road trip. Since the places were in the middle of Northern Ireland we figured the best way to get to them would be via car.

Seven years ago, my brother Nathan and I did a whirlwind tour of Ireland. We rented a car and saw the country the way it was meant to be seen. It remains one of my favorite parts of the trip. Needless to say, when the opportunity to drive through the Irish countryside presented itself, I was sold. In addition to Jillian and I, Adam, who has no Irish blood in him, joined us on our journey.

After picking up our car from the Dublin airport our first mission was to get to the Irish Sea. We picked an exit and drove along the seaside until we found a parking spot where we could go exploring. The only downside to the stop was the Sea was at low tide so we had to walk a long way to get to the water. In the gap between the shore and the water were hundreds of jellyfish on the beach. Luckily, it wasn't raining during this time and we were able to wade out into the water. I found the water incredibly cold, however, Jillian and Adam both thought it was warm compared. We collected a few shells and made our way back to our car. It so happened off that the next town up the road Clogerhead. I thought Whitney would like to live there.

From the shoreline, we navigated up Northern Ireland. We took a mostly side and winding roads, it soon became clear that Irish drivers are insane. I was going about 10 km under the speed limit and we felt slightly uncomfortable taking the turns so fast. Yet, the Irish drivers still caught up and passed us. Oh, and this is forgetting to mention that the roads were ridiculously narrow and their idea of shoulders were 10-foot high bushes. Good times. Also passing on their version of highways is great fun. Instead of using the right lane to pass, the slow car essentially moves onto the shoulder to allow the faster one to go on.

Anyway, In just under two hours we safely arrived at Jillian's town, Irvinestown. This strand of family stems from her maternal grandmother's family. They descended from Christopher Irvine, an English nobleman who was granted the land by King James VI in the early 1600s. The castle is currently an equestrian operation with lots of horses and trails, but still has a great view of the countryside. The old part of the castle has undergone major renovations and was last used as a military hospital during WWII. You can see the windows and doors are now painted a lovely shade of blue and trimmed with red.

The other cool part about Irvingstown was after we exited a cafe for lunch, we heard bagpipes. As we looked up the town centre, a marching band emerged followed by about 40 people wearing suits and orange sashes. This was a live Orange March that our professor told us about. We watched them march down the street (along with a smattering of other people) before walking out to the castle. We spent about an hour or so wandering out around the castle. Upon our return to the town centre, the crew was still marching. They were hardcore.



After doing a little postcard hunting, we took off to Killeeshill. A quick overview of my trip destination. I don't know much about my family other than John Arneal traveled from Ireland to Ohio sometime between 1810-1820. We didn't have a castle or anything.

Before the trip, I knew that the Arneals came from the County Tyrone, which is now part of Northern Ireland. After doing a little research and e-mailing a few people, I narrowed the county down to Killeeshill, which isn't a town, but rather a road and parish. Knowing I was looking for a parish, I found the Church of Ireland on Killeeshill Road. It took one drive by, but we ended up finding the road and the church quite easily. The chapel, St. Paul's Church of Killeeshill, was perched above on a hill. We parked outside the gates and let ourselves it. It appeared that the church was still active as it had service times posted on a badly stained sign, which unfortunately was the only sign of identification. The church had been renovated, but the back part looks like the original section. Huge trees blocked the front side to prevent any pictures from that angle, but the backside was still quite the sight.

The cemetery surrounded the church on all sides. Most of the front section was filled with newer graves (as recent at 2003) while the back was overgrown. I read on a website about the church that the front side was the Protestant section and the back was reserved for Catholics. Several of the graves looked to be quite old, but we were unable to read them because most of the inscription had been worn off. We pieced together enough information from several graves to figure out that the cemetery existed back in the early 1800s. (The website said it had graves from the 1700s, but I could find no proof.) Even though I didn't find the ultimate prize and find a gravestone with "Arneal" on it, being in the cemetery and church were my ancient relatives walked was still an amazing experience.

I walked around a little more taking pictures of as many gravestones as I could before we (and the rain) decided it was time to move on. However, before we began our trip back to Dublin, I spotted a sign by the highway for US Grant's ancestral homestead. We drove to the sight and toiled around for a minute or two (long enough to take a few pictures) and took off again. The Grant House was only a few miles from Killeeshill, so if you think about it, there is a pretty good chance that my ancestors knew the relatives of Ulysses S. Grant. (Also, we drove around Killeeshill Road for a little while and there are some huge amazing houses in the area. Glad to see the natives are still doing well.)

The drive home was uneventful and smooth. We had an automatic shifting car so we didn't have to mess with using a stick shift on the left side. The last thing to cap our amazing day was a full rainbow that appeared to end right on the road.

In all, it was a great trip. Even though I fell short of the ultimate goal, it was still worth it to explore the area and feel connected to a little bit of my personal history.

That wraps up the four-day trip to Dublin. In itself, it would have made a great vacation. But there is more to come. This weekend, I am off to Cork and Blarney Castle. But not before I have a final on Friday. We've been busy studying for it so not many updates for the day. I'm going to knock it out of the park.

Cheers,

LJLA

Belfast and the North

As part of our Dublin trip, we also scheduled a day trip up to Belfast and Northern Island. Probably the most interesting part of the trip has been learning Irish history — a large part of which stems from the fight for independence and carries over to conflict between Ireland and Northern Ireland or as they are known here — The Troubles.

While it seems like Ireland is a modern country, the ceasefire between the North and South wasn’t signed until 10 years ago. Driving around Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland

One of the reasons Northern Ireland even exists is shortly after Ireland was granted independence from the United Kingdom in 1922, we each county took a vote on if they wanted to go with Ireland or remain part of the UK. Six counties in the North that were part of the Ulster region, which was heavily populated by Protestants remained and formed part of Northern Ireland. Today, Belfast is nearly split between Protestants and Catholics, but still very segmented and divided. In fact driving around, you will see gluttony of British flags on bunting on one street and then Irish Flags on the next.

Belfast and Northern Ireland were also the sites of most of the IRA and terrorism attacks. While not many physical signs remain and most tempers have calmed, the tension is still real and present. The most obvious of the signs that still remain are giant murals painted on the sides of buildings throughout the city, as seen below.


All of the murals had some political meaning behind them, whether it was arguing for a side or remembering the acts of the past. Some of the murals were quite graphic and featured a large gun pointing right at the viewer, blood and guts or dead bodies. The murals have been more toned down in the past few years as the government has funded most of the newer ones and they don't want to be tied to the more controversial one.


The Fredrick Douglass mural appeared on a wall full of international-themed murals. Another featured JFK and more had other political figures. One of the running themes was Northern Ireland's distaste for President Bush. They don't agree with the invasion of Iraq and are wary of America's potential reach into Cuba after Castro dies. In fact, I had an interesting discussion with our Irish professor about the differences in world view between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Perhaps the best case is the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Ireland backs Palestine and a country that is unlawfully ruled and should have the right to self-sovereignty. Northern Ireland thinks more like the British and has a much more pro-Israeli and pro-American point of view.

I found these murals incredibly fascinating and could go on about them. I purchased a book with them in there and am willing to share when I return. If not for the legal studies, being able to examine the Irish-UK struggle has been the most intriguing aspect of the whole trip.

We also drove around Belfast in a bus for most of our time in Northern Ireland. At left, you will see a picture of the dry docks where the Titanic was built. Belfast used to have the largest shipyards in the world and still have great pride in the shipbuilding industry. In fact, they were so heartbroken about the sinking of the Titanic that they didn't say its name for a long time after. In fact, our tour guide said they have a shirt that says "Ship 401: She was fine when she left Belfast." We didn't get out and look around because it was raining hard, but you get the idea.

Our final stopping point was Queen's University. A bunch of the nerdier people in our group was really excited because I think this was the campus the Harry Potter movies were shot at. I had no idea and coolly walked along.

We heard an international human rights lawyer talk to us about how Northern Ireland dealt with the violence, police ignorance of crimes and other problems during the Troubles.


When we returned to Dublin, three of our group — Jillian, Ramsey and myself — went on a Ghost Bus Tour of Dublin. We saw a lot of the older buildings in the city including St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Cemetery. I'm just going to paste the description from Wikipedia than write vague paragraphs about the tour:

The bus leaves from outside Dublin Bus Headquarters on O'Connell Street and heads down past Trinity College. Along the way, the tour guide (a professional actor) tells the story of Bram Stoker and how he came up with the idea for his Dracula novel as well as several other stories, involving a myriad of creatures such as banshees and gruesome tales of surgeons paying body snatchers for fresh corpses, such as the famous Dr. Clossey.
This story sets the scene nicely for the trip to St. Kevin's Graveyard, on Camden Row. The tour guide possesses a key, which he uses to let the group into the disused graveyard and locks the gate afterward. He then precedes to regale the group with tales of hauntings in the graveyard before talking in further detail about grave-robbers, including Burke and Hare, before using a volunteer to simulate what a real grave robbing would be like. The next stop on the tour is St. Audoen's and the 40 steps, where two nuns and a police officer saw a ghost in the 1970s. People on the tour are then encouraged to take pictures or videos, with many showing strange spots or orbs when viewed. (We tried this and got spots, but it was also raining. The jury is out.)
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Live Update: On Tuesday, we went to downtown Limerick after class. Man, it was hopping. For the first time, it actually felt like Limerick was a big city. Usually, the only time we go downtown is during the evening for dinner and pubs, but we went early and it looked like a shopping district on a weekend. We purchased tickets for hurling on Sunday and picked up a few souvenirs.

Ooooh, Those Irish Niiiiiiiiiiiggggghhhhhts

Below are some thoughts and experiences from the three nights we spent in Dublin.



— One of the great things in Dublin is its downtown district. We stayed at a hostel along the River Liffey. A block away was the Temple Bar, which is actually an area and not just one bar. Think of it like Times Square meets O Street. It had dozens of restaurants and pub after pub.

— One of the great things about these pubs were they stayed open late (2:30 a.m.) and many featured house bands every night. In addition to being schooled in traditional Irish music, they knew a lot of other classic songs. For example, we heard "Losing My Religion" by REM, "American Pie" by Don McLean, and Metalica's "Whiskey in the Jar."





With the bands playing in the background, every now and then a little Irish dance-off would develop. Think Riverdance, but three feet from you. Sorry for the darkness of this video and the sideways flip during the middle of it, but hopefully, you can get the idea.



— Our Fourth of July celebrations started after midnight on Thursday. We ran into several Americans at a pub and gave each other toasts to our superiority over the British. Also, we ran into many Canadians, who seemed unimpressed with our celebrations. Later that evening some of the members of our group who had a little more beverages decided it would be a good idea to sing "Proud to be an American" and the "Star-Spangled Banner" I decided it would be a good idea to walk faster to get away from them.

On Friday, we all went out for the Fourth and ate dinner at a boxty restaurant (think wraps with pancakes). Then it was off for a night on the town. We went to one pub, which was actually older than America, and started the night off in style. As you can see from the picture to the left, we decided to express our American attitude with popped collars. Although no one had a Jaeger bomb, we still got our drink on. For some reason, the natives thought we looked really funny with our popped collars and stared at us as we took the picture.

While I do not think the Irish give two licks about the Fourth, I believe they like the idea of the holiday. Here in Ireland, they do not care for the British one bit. (See: The Troubles, and War for Independence) So I think the general idea is that Irish like the Fourth of July because we stick it to Great Britain. However, I saw no outward signs of this affection. No one bought anyone in our group drinks. Instead, we bought ourselves drinks. As you can see below, we did a shot of tequila to celebrate the Fourth because nothing says American like drinking a Mexican liqueur.

— Another running joke of our running jokes started on the Fourth (for previous jokes, see Duffy, Patrick). Because we were feeling quite libelous and independent on the fourth, we took a page from the pages of history and began to dream of Manifest Destiny. Our original table was too small and we need to expand. In the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, we decided to Manifest Destiny another table next to us. (Thus turning the phrase into a verb). From then on whenever we took something over moved into a new territory we were Manifesting our Destiny. Feel free to use this in your daily life.

— One random thought: Unlike the states, Dublin is the singular destination for bachelor parties in Ireland. In the states, if you are getting hitched in Nebraska, you could go to Omaha, Lincoln or even Fremont. In Ireland, go to the Temple Bar area of town. They don’t just drive in; they fly in too. When I was at the Dublin airport, I saw two different groups. Friday night in Dublin we ran into no less than seven bachelorette parties and two bachelor parties. Included in the sights were pirates (YARGH!), a rugby team, pink cowboys and several others.

— A parting shot from the end of one of the nights. The dude has a Guinness on his head.

Finally, sorry for not getting this up on Monday, but we went out to celebrate Jake Steiner's birthday. Good times. Happy birthday big guy.

Dublin our fun

My intention was to write one really long entry detailing the trip to Dublin. But then I sat down on Sunday and started to list everything I wanted to write about and realized that it would be impossible. The past four days have been incredible. By itself, it would have been worthy of being a summer vacation in itself. What I plan to do is play catch up during the next week. You can look forward to reading about tourist events in Dublin, the nightlife in Dublin, the trip to Belfast and the excursion to find my roots in Ireland. We’ll start with the first two days in Dublin.


After sprinting out of class on Thursday, we rushed back to our apartments and packed for a 3.5-day weekend. We took a train to Dublin. The train ride gave me the first major view of the countryside of the trip. It would have been great except for massive hedges every 100 yards or so.

The first spot on everyone’s list was the Guinness factory. I don’t know if you know this, but Guinness is brewed in Ireland and old. The tour was self-guided but included several neat aspects. It is hard in words to describe it here and do it justice (as our most of the tours I go on) but we’ll give it an overview.

The bottom floor consisted of an overview of the ingredients of the beverage. Barley, Hops, Water and something else. Left a great impression, I know. It also gave a history of the company and how they signed a 9,000-year lease on the property. They have almost put 250 years. As law students, we studied the contract and verified that it is binding. Other floors covered the various types of brews, advertising and transportation among others.

The top floor featured a bar with a 360-degree view of Dublin, perhaps the best in the city. With the price of admission, we also received a free drink at the bar. Naturally, I ordered a Guinness. When serving it they made a cool shamrock with the nozzle in the foam. It would have been easy to not want to destroy the artwork, but I took a drink. My initial reaction: Ugh. Now, I cannot say I am an expert beer taster, but the Guinness was foul. The best way I can describe it is like a bitter, bitter coffee. And I don’t really care for coffee. Bluntly, the beer did not sit well with my taste buds. Not wanting to be so judgmental on the first try, I gave it another shot a few minutes late. Yup, still didn't care much for it. My friends were more than willing to help finish the rest of the pint. That’s the story of my first (and last) Guinness.

The first sight of Friday morning was the Four Courts, which would be equivalent to the Supreme Court in the USA. We got an overview of the courts (most of which we covered in the first week of our criminal justice class, but we did pick a few interesting bits such as the wigs worn in court came into fashion in Europe after syphilis (which caused the hair to fall out) was brought back from the new world and each judge has a stick man that leads him around and beats people up with the stick if someone gets in the way.

After the overview of the court proceedings, we watched the closing arguments for the defense for the Special Criminal Court. Here’s the summary, a woman contacted a guy via the e-mail address hitmanforhire@yahoo.com to murder her husband and son. The guy came to Ireland and was nabbed. We witnessed the lawyer for the hitman for hire make his closing speech. It lasted for almost an hour. We were up in the balcony so it was hard to see everything going on and the barrister wasn’t miked so we couldn’t hear everything clearly. He did raise his voice at one point and that caught our attention. But mostly he was saying how the client should get off because he was a patsy and if he was brought up on conspiracy problems, then a bunch of other people should as well. Read about it more on www.irishindependant.com.

The afternoon started with a long hike to the old Dublin prison. This opened up around 1798 or thereabouts. Here we heard a lot about the history of the prison, which mainly revolved around the various uprisings and revolutions. The first of which started shortly after the prison ended. Most of the cells the political prisoners were in had labeled. We saw where the prisoners were executed and heard the stories of their struggle for self-rule. There is so much more to tell here, but I don’t feel I can do it justice. Let’s just say the history buff in my enjoyed the tour quite much.

One of the funniest moments of the trip happened when we hopped in a cab from the jail to go to the James Joyce Center (Centre) and the cab driver’s name was Patrick Duffy. (Hi, I’m television’s Patrick Duffy.) This became a running joke. On top of his name, he would hum to himself throughout the trip, but it wouldn’t be coherent stuff. He would just give out a “Haaauuummmmmmm.” Crazy, yet awesome stuff.

The James Joyce Center was the final stop of the day before we had a group dinner for the Fourth. A lot of the memorabilia focused on his magnum opus, Ulysses. It contained several interesting videos about his life and influences and the controversy around Ulysses. I knew of Joyce’s importance (Nathan and I rode on a ferry to Dublin on our last European trip called the James Joyce) I had not read the book. I purchased a copy in the gift shop and hope to finish it in the next 10 years. I doubt I will have much desire to read such a dense piece of work (it has been rated the hardest book in the English language to read) during law school, so I’ll give myself a nice comfy window.

That’s it for the first two days. I’m riding the train back to Limerick now and can’t wait to go to bed tonight. So many good times and so little sleep. At least this is a good prep for Workshop. Look for a Dublin nightly (I have lots of great videos I need to put on YouTube)/Belfast entry tomorrow.

I don't like to end on a somber point, but during our trip, we learned that a Kansas law student was killed last week. Most of the KU students here knew here and it was a shock to the system. It is difficult to comprehend something so tragic here when it doesn’t seem real yet. Please keep the family of the student, Jana, and all of the KU people in your thoughts and prayers.

Cheers,

LJLA

Happy Birthday Clara.

Today my niece, Clara, turns 1. Happy Birthday. I will say no more and let you admire her cuteness.


Happy Birthday, corker.