Summary of Ireland

By far my favorite spot on the trip, Ireland is a place that I will hopefully revisit again, again, and again. I have never met more down-to-earth people with such awesome accents that play music so addicting, with a culture so entrenched in love and happiness despite a history of religious oppression, famine, and unsuccessful rebellion after another. I hope that as you read this post, you will do so in an Irish accent :)

The Irish flag is Green, White, and Gold. The Green stands for the Catholics, the Gold stands for the Protestants, and the White symbolizes the peace between them. As I have learned in these travels, Protestant = Profit. Seriously, the correlation is not hard to understand once you've seen Stockholm's history of power and influence, and also seen the Dutch progress the way they did. The saavy businessmen in the Protestant churches did much more for the community regarding Imperialism and stretching out, whereas in Catholic faith, the money is much more stringent and mostly revolves around the church. Therefore, before the Al Gore and the internet, there was Church (I joke, but seriously). That's how civilizations were built, expanded, conquered, and crumbled. The idea that the Earth was the center of the universe did not come about until the church said so. We always hope that the smartest people are running the country, but since money attracts them and it inevitably falls in on itself, we arrive in a economic meltdown over and over again. Crises precipitate change, Red Queen hypothesis, and all that.

Ireland is such a great location to learn about Western religion, since it has been a thoroughfare of a tremendously long series of conquests and wars. I was lucky enough to travel with a native Irish archaeologist who comes from a long line of archaeologists, extremely well educated in religion, war, and history :) I learned a lot, again.

One doesn't have to look further to understand religion, power, and our remarkable human past from the Stone Age than the portal tomb of Newgrange, only a "stone's throw away" from Dublin (that's relative in Irish terms, and so its about 1.5 hrs away by bus).

Newgrange is 5,000 years old. It is the most intact and oldest solar observatory in Europe. It is 1,000 years older than the Pyramids of Giza, 500 years older than Stonehenge, and built with beautiful, intricate designs of quartz and 2,000 multi-ton slabs of rock from 80 km away. Completely intact and in the same way it was 5,000 years ago, before mortar, plaster, drywall, and METAL! Google it after you read and see my pictures. These were the cathedrals of Neolithic time. It is a portal tomb, meaning on the morning of December 21st, the power of the sun enters the pitch black tomb every year, for the last 5,000 years, aligned with 2 other portal tombs on its sister hills. However, the only way you can see light outside once you are inside the tomb is through a pigeonhole if you were at the level of the ashes, laying down. On the morning of December 21st, light is funneled through a passageway that illuminates the inside of a tomb no bigger than a single's college dorm. Regardless of whether or not one could get in, since a giant 2 ton slab was blocking the human entry way, light would still penetrate the tomb during the winter solstice - every year for the past 5,000 years. "Stone Age" people, huh? We can't even build a decent car. This is where our ancestors placed their cremated dead, but the interpretation and exactly why and how is simply speculation. As the tour guides assured us over and over again, "NOONE" knows enough about the Neolithic culture to make any concrete distinctions towards interpretation of symbols, signs, or customs. They love keeping people away, in fact - less tourism, more mystery in the story. The fact is, these Stone Age dudes were not dumb people. They settled in some of the most fertile land in Ireland, relatively close to the Ancient capital of Ireland, Tara, which only one civilization was able to overthrow (The Vikings are responsible for that, and the relocation of the capital to Dublin). The Neolithic, Stone Age people who built this tomb had an absolutely remarkable knowledge of the path of the sun, the angular wobble which aligns soltices and equinoxes, and architecture. It was something that I'll never forget, and it is a must-see to anyone travelling to Ireland.

The one thing we lack in America is the intricate old design of Europe (Georgian in Dublin). We chased away our culture to reservations and casinos, and since we are a young country founded on colonialism and capitalism, all we do is tear things down and rebuild - over and over and over again. Borderline parasitic when it comes to older culture. We like skyscrapers and things (again with the phallic symbolism of our time). Ireland puts everything back into perspective. Human time is such a relatively quick thing, so seeing a 16th century cathedral that is considered brand-spanking-new in the eyes of Ireland is awesome. I wouldn't mind living there, at all.

Since Ireland is quickly on its way to becoming one of the poorest European countries again, much of the restoration of ancient castles, churches, and settlements that riddle the countryside has halted. Clearly, the world is not in the best economic shape right now but it is still upsetting to see gorgeous castles left to wear and erode simply because of previous taxation, and now the lack of maintenance. See them while you can - they are built much better than the more glamorous, less practical French and Italian ones.

Getting around in Dublin and the countryside via train is easy enough, with cheap bus tickets and trains running to all the major counties and cities. They actually offered a railway trip for tourists to see Obama's Irish beginnings (for 89 Euro)! Amazing. No, I did not take it. I went to the Cliffs of Moher instead, with a few scenic stops along the way. The country is beautiful, and since it's a much smaller than America (all of Ireland is about the size of Indiana), it makes transportation a breeze.

Top Moments in Ireland:

1) Playing guitar for a group at O'Brennigan's and getting a pint of Guinness on the house. Everyone loved the song - kind of a big personal achievement :)

2) Newgrange. Cliffs of Moher. Glendalough. Monasterboice, beautiful places.

3) Guinness Storehouse visit (more responsible and not as flashy as the Heineken experience in Amsterdam). Arthur Guinness was brilliant/crazy businessman.

4) Participating in an Irish Rally (sight of surrender of Easter Rising 1916 - getting torn down for a shopping mall. Sad.)

5) Eating and drinking at pubs and restaurants that were established in the 12th century and soon afterwards :) I would move to Dublin in a heartbeat.