Between one project and another I've been too distracted to resume regular posting. I experience a lot of self doubt with things I intend to post, real things I'd like to write about, and I inevitably end up not sharing them at all. Otherwise, these past few weeks have been pleasant on the whole. I've been enjoying the sun when it shines, and wearing a lot of prints (see above).
Treating myself - Prosecco al fresco at A Casa Mia / Buttermilk ice cream and raspberry sorbet from Murphys Ice Cream / Yuppie tea and chats at the Twisted Pepper
The Bugle Babes at Film Fatale's screening of Notorious / Walking around Clontarf / The interior of my friend's house in Stoneybatter, Dublin
I've been devouring Broderick's treats, made here in Ireland, with some seriously cool, cheeky contemporary packaging / I'm still scouting the charity shops when I have a spare moment, I picked up these two 1970s Carriagaline cups to add to my collection, when I was last in Dublin / I wore my 1950s beaded handbag for the first time, despite having picked it up in a Glasgow charity shop two years ago.
After following it enviously for the past couple of years, and having attended their Sligo screening, I finally made it to a Film Fatale night in the Sugar Club, Dublin! The theme was 1940s, so while I brought a suitable dress in my bulky bag, but it was one of the best evenings of the year (so far! crossing my fingers) so instead I wore my new 1970s cotton dress from Enchanted Vintage. Jean outglamours me in dress, and demeanor, doesn't she look fab? Guess who was shy about getting their photo taken, the expression says it all!
The Biennale is open 6 days a week, so the stewards collectively get one day off altogether. Last Monday, we went to the Lido, a long island part of Venice, home to various beaches, some of which are public and others private. Its a popular spot for Venetians and tourists in the summer months.
The Lido hosts the Venice Film Festival every September. The Grand Hotel Excelsior is located here, once the largest hotel in Europe, decorated in Moorish style, recalling a grand Venetian place but possibly more widely acclaimed as the setting for Thomas Mann's novel Death in Venice. The celebrities who attend the Film Festival stay here.
Being only mere stewards we went to one of the large public beaches for the afternoon sun, and the pleasure of bathing in the warm, clean Adriatic Sea.
The Lido, as seen in Luchino Visconti's 1971 adaption of 'Death in Venice'
Public transport in Venice is the vaparetto, a water bus. Or you can hire a water taxi, though it is expensive (€80 in some cases). The former option is the cheapest but not necessarily so, as a 60 minute ticket costs €7 (which will realistically only be a one way journey). Residents of Venice can get a special pass so traveling between islands is much cheaper, at around €1.30 a journey. Some of the others here with who are working for the three month duration of the Biennale are finding it difficult to obtain these cards. It is a shame that there isn't better value for tourists here, even short term residents, as we are. We opted for a 12 hour ticket, costing €18.
San Giorgio Maggiore taken from in front of the Doge's Palace, on San Marco
After a leisurely afternoon on the beach we made our way to the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore. The Church here, San Giorgio Maggiore, was designed by Andrea Palladio and built between 1566 and 1610. The paintings in the church include works by the famous Venetian Renaissance artist, Tintoretto. Entry to the Church is free but it costs €5 to go up the bell tower, which apparently boasts the best view of Venice, even better than San Marco. I regret not going up at the time!
The interior of the church is very bright with massive engaged columns and pilasters on undecorated, white-surfaced walls. The interior combines a long basilican nave with a cruciform plan with transepts.
While we were there we had the advantage of taking in an exhibition at Fondazione Cini (on San Giorgio Maggiore) - Carlo Scarpa. Venini 1932–1947. Scarpa was an Italian architect, influenced by the materials, landscape, and the history of Venetian culture, and Japan. His work can be seen in many of the buildings around Venice, particularly at the University.
The exhibition consists of over 300 works, reconstructing Carlo Scarpa’s career in the years when he was artistic director of the Venini glassworks, from 1932 to 1947. Wonderful exhibition, on a beautiful island.
That evening we wandered up to Fondamenta della Misericordia, north of San Marco, to Paradiso Perduto where we found ourselves in a large group, seated cross legged beside the canal, as Venetians do, drinking from a €6 jug of red wine, chatting for hours, forgetting about our sunburn if only for a while. The place was buzzing with locals and students, with a great vibe and what looked to be some delicious food. I'd recommend it, and hopefully will find myself back there another Monday evening for some jazz before I leave!
A few weeks ago I travelled down to Westport (recently voted The Best Place to Live in Ireland in a recent Irish Times poll) and Tourmakeady in County Mayo, to visit one of my best friends in her fraternal hometown, who was on leave from her work in Dubai.
Tara and I, Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo (August )
We took some lovely pictures, that she had fun playing around with in instagram, the garish colours have a sort of picture postcard quality. I'll treasure them nonetheless and want to share some of them here, to celebrate what a wonderful part of the world I am lucky to have close at hand.
Lough Mask, near Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo
Tourmakeady, Co. Mayo
Paddy's Bar, Tourmakeady, Co. Mayo
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Before I left I hurriedly scheduled a number of posts, and this is one of them.
Maeve of The Plath Diaries has become a close personal friend of mine, and this weekend I had the pleasure of staying with her in Belfast once again. We've got very similar tastes and outlooks, so our wanderings around Belfast were most amiable and relaxed!
Myself and Maeve
Once I'd diposed of my backpack at her flat we went for a walk around Queens University and the park there, bustling with people enjoying the unusually warm weather. After sharing some heart to hearts we went to a ~cool coffee shop, Common Ground and caught up some more. I finally got to see the Queens Film Theatre, and its setting was not at all what I expected. It is linked to the university itself, being part of the QUB Drama and Film Centre and is cosily nestled in a beautiful Georgian house. I can only say that next time, I'll include a trip to the cinema in my visit. The evening that followed was unplanned and of course we ended staying out until the wee hours, I having bought a £4.75 bottle of red to accompany dinner.
Interior of St. George's Market
The next day was exciting as I had been looking forward to seeing Claire of French for Cupcake, who had recently secured a permanent stall at St. George's Market, with her independent bakery Lily Pink Bakery. I think one of the positives of this recession that some people are finding fulfilment in alternative means of employment and Claire is pursuing her dream, and I couldn't be more pleased for her. She works so hard! In fact I'm devouring one of her best sellers, the red velvet cupcake as I type.
Claire at her stall
Claire's beautifully iced cupcakes
Maeve & I outside the iconic St. George's Market gates
St. George's Market was a joy to wander around, independent businesses all plying their wares, from independent artists to leatherworkers, the stall holders were as engaging as the ware of their stalls. I bought a very delicious vegetarian burrito from the father and son team of Sol Catering (I believe that was the name but I can't find them after googling), as well as a Flax Fox Designs postcard illustration of the iconic Harland & Woolf shipping cranes "Samson and Goliath", that I'd seen on my list visit, to Titanic Belfast. She had a lovely range of quirky prints and beautiful tea towels, I wished I could have afforded to buy more.
(Also for Game of Thrones fans, there were some Stark children about while I was there, in fact Claire seems to have her photo taken with a different cast member every week!)
"Samson and Goliath", Flax Fox Designs
A leisurely hour or so later, we meandered through the streets of Belfast, making our lazy way toward The MAC, a recently opened contemporary arts centre in the heart of the city.
Gavin and Maeve, unconciously making good poster candidates for the gallery!
(Gavin's picture)
Rather decadently, instead of making our way up through the galleries directly, I was somewhat awed to see a long, well stocked bar opposite the reception desk. No generic gallery cafe, not for Belfast! The painfully chic black booths were organised along the red brick interior walls. We made our orders at the bar, what better time than now to try out "the hair of the dog" hangover cure. As we later made our way up through the galleries, I recognised Mark Garry's handiwork:
Mark Garry, The Permanent Present, 2012 (Gavin's picture!)
As we resolved that because I was "on holiday", we made our way to a favourite bar of Maeve's, and probably beloved of tourists, I don't know if there's an Irish equivalent for the word Americana, but this place was literally wall to wall of Irish bar paraphernalia. I liked it though, it was laid back with its snugs, mirrors, copper topped tables and wooden benches. It didn't feel forced, more like they had been accumulated and acquired over time.
Gavin & I, that was the first outing for the rather wonderful 1960s lurex suit I have had in my wardrobe for a number of months! It recevied loads of compliments at St. George's market, a different environment to small town West of Ireland though!
The 'Duke of York' Irishy bar (the English name puzzled me too, but its Belfast) was down this lovely wee alley with punters taking the opportunity to drink in comfort on the gaily painted red benches outside.
Dali looking over the aforementioned alley
Dinner next, and we enjoyed a curry in the delicious, it was very quiet when we were there which seems such a shame because I really enjoyed my meal. This blissful day ended, I'm not ashamed to say, with a tired Maeve and myself watching When Harry Met Sally, squeeing over our favourite scenes. Feels good to watch it with a fellow fan, rather than introducing it to an indifferent friend!
A really beautiful Catholic church that we passed on the walk home
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P.S. I have been neglectful of the blog as of late and not for the first time, there's so much to say and I scribble enthusiastic notes in my notebook, hoping one day to turn them into a tangible post, then I quickly loose confidence... and nothing.
The blog will be poorly attended to for the next number of weeks, but more of that soon.
Last Saturday, July 14th was eagerly anticipated on my part! The Sligo Field Club arranged a field trip to the Céide Fields in Ballycastle, Co. Mayo. For me, the Céide Fields are symnomous with its iconic visitor's centre, the image of which was reproduced on the Telecom Éireann calling cards in the nineties (if my memory serves me correctly?).
Remains of excavated stone wall can be seen in foreground. These would have been buried in up to 4 metres of peat, accumulated over thousands of years.
The visitor's centre, designed by Mary McKenna, is an acclaimed building, which received Ireland's most prestigious architectural award, the RIAI Triennial Gold Medal for 1992-1994, presented by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland.
The pyramid shape was selected, as a unified peak growing out of the bog to form a natural extension of the landscape. The landscape and building join and are connected by the external steps.
Upon entering the visitor's centre, this beautiful centrepiece is adjacent to the entrance, right at the base of the glass pyramid. It is a 4000 year old Scots Pine retrieved from the bog while it was being excavated in the 1970s.
These silk banners are an artistic interpretation of the Céide Fields story. First we see the forest which came to the edge of the cliffs. The forest is felled and replaced by the stone walls, house enclosures and tombs of the Céide Fields farming community of 3000BC, before becoming enclosed in the peat* over thousands of years.
Dad started off the day by making a beeline for the café almost as soon as we arrived whilst I was still gazing in awe at the Scots Pine. Here he is enjoying a slice of rhubarb pie with cream, washed down with a pot of tae. The café is lovely, spacious with wonderful sturdy wooden seats and tables (covered in awesome "wood grain" oilcloth that fooled my Dad, har har). This is a small moot point but nothing spoils a great design more than those horrible grating plastic seats in museum/gallery cafés that are a horrid reminder of primary school/every soul destroying waiting room ever. There was a fluidity here that I felt really comfortable lounging in, even though I had no cake (one of my rare "I shall abstain" moments). In short, I always rate somewhere coupled with the merits of its bookshop/café.
The interior of the centre is fresh and modern, hard to believe this is almost 20 years old, a mark of great design.
The centre and its interior are constructed from natural materials; sandstone, oak and glass, it was a combination of local work and resources initiated by a local archaeologist, Dr. Seamus Caulfield (Retired Associate Professor of Archaeology at UCD) and the Office of Public Works (OPW). The centre is one of over 60 Heritage Sites run by the OPW.
In 1989, Dr. Caulfield (then Professor at UCD) launched a project to build a visitor centre on the site which opened to the public in 1993. It was a fantastic privilege to have Dr. Caufield as our guide for the day. It was his late father, Padraig Caulfield who discovered the Céide Fields while cutting for turf* in the 1930s. Seamus went on to study archaeology and later excavated the site in the 1970s, with a team of archaeological students.
The Céide Fields are the oldest known field systems in the world, over five and a half millennia old. The remains of stone field walls, houses and megalithic tombs are preserved beneath a blanket of peat over several square miles.
Recent Shell To Sea tensions are not forgotten in this historic landscape. Maud Gonne gave a speech here to the local farmers during the Republican Uprising, and stayed in the local hotel where we had our lunch - that had been a railway hotel at the time - built so to accomoate the expansion of the British Empire.
Dr. Caulfield took us to his village of Béal Deirg (anglicised as Belderg), a Gaeltacht village. The Céide Fields encompass Béal Deirg, where remains a pre-historic farming site, that we also visited. Seamus Heaney stayed with the Caufield's as a guest and conceived a poem inspired by the village and its history (the last of Heaney's bog poems, found in his book North published in 1975) -
Belderg
They just kept turning up
And were thought of as foreign'-
One-eyed and benign
They lie about his house,
Quernstones out of a bog.
To lift the lid of the peat
And find this pupil dreaming
Of neolithic wheat!
When he stripped off blanket bog
The soft-piles centuries
Fell open like a glib:
There were the first plough-marks,
The stone age fields, the tomb
Corbelled, turfed and chambered,
Floored with dry turf-coomb.
A landscape fossilized,
Its stone wall patterings
Repeated before our eyes
In the stone walls of Mayo...
Seamus reflected upon the complicated nature of his profession as an archaelogist - there are never any definite answers, each new discovery only raises more questions. One of the most pressing questions remains unanswered - Béal Deirg was a fishing community in pre-historic times, so what made them change to farming - was it a social or environmental cause?
Dún Briste (The Broken Fort), a magnificent sea stack off Down Patrick Head (in the Atlantic Ocean) with evidence of medieval settlement. Seamus Caufield, along with a small group landed there via helicopter some years ago, the first people there for centuries.
The ruin above is the remains of a lookout post, used to watch out for enemy aircraft/boats in WW2, these were conceived to protect Ireland's neutrality during the War. These posts were manned by soldiers and the institution they formed was called the Coast Watching Service.
Seamus was a fascinating host, he had a rapt audience in us. You could acutely sense his passion for the landscape, his roots here and its pre-history. He made a particularly interesting comment on Cultural Heritage; the pattern of population distribution in Ireland has remained almost unchanged since pre-historic times, outside urban centres (and Ireland remains largely rural). A "village" is perhaps what with associate with Emmerdale, but in Irish terms it is a homeland, a number of houses scattered throughout a valley, they do not necessarily exist in a nucleated arrangement. Forced villagisation has been taken place only in the 19th and 20th centuries throughout some Western societies, and more recently in the developing world, often argued for due to the need for "protection". Such protection was unnecessary in the West of Ireland, due to the rough Atlantic Ocean on its side. Seamus described our cultural heritage as "Céide planning", as we continue to live in a similar arrangement to our Neolithic ancestors. He estimated that around a third of Irish people still live this way. Putting this unbroken legacy into perspective left me stunned and gave me goosebumps.
Another thing I found myself reflecting on afterward, was the question of the interpretive exhibit. It is the standard exhibit found in most museums, more often older regional museums with limited resources and funding. It is usually comprised of reconstructed living quarter, replete with museum mannequins and reconstructed living quarters, as well as artistic time scales. Seamus explained to us as he briefly lead us through this exhibit that due to the evolving nature of archaeology, new research constantly outdates the information presented here, which is now twenty years old. This is one of the difficulties of housing an archaeological museum, due to our ever advancing scientific knowledge, the limits of static exhibits becomes increasingly apparent. Can it therefore be called a museum, when a museum's purpose is to host artefacts, but for archaeological "artefacts" how can we preserve and how these when our knowledge of their use may change and evolve, and there are not the resources to constantly update whats there. Anyhow, that is a conversation for another day, and I do not have an archaeological degree. One of my good friends has worked at Knowth for a number of years so I'm sure we'll have this conversation over a bottle of wine at some point!
A snap of the group at the tomb excavated by Gretta Byrne, shortly after she completed her Masters field report on the area, in the 1970s. Gretta is currently Manager of Céide Fields Visitor Centre and Archaeological Site.
Seamus left us with these words: "If there's a car in the drive, knock on the door." (His house is by the small port I have pictured above). Which acurately summarizes his welcoming nature, he's an Irish gentleman, proud of his history.
* peat is a highly organic material found in marshy or damp regions, composed of partially decayed vegetable matter: it is cut and dried for use as fuel, known as "turf". It is a non renewable source of energy, a fossil fuel.
Details on opening hours and admission prices can be found here.
