Dia dhóibh, tá fáilte romhaibh !

A great feeling when your two weeks in Ireland start this way… when our host mother

welcomed us that way, we had only one thing in mind “How should we practice our English and communicate with her if she speaks some weird we-don’t-know-what-and-understand-nothing language?” Luckily she knew English too and translated from Irish/Gaelic to English what she said “Hello and welcome!” Would you have guessed that? My first memory from Ireland still is how different their original language is, surprisingly only about 3% of Ireland’s population speaks Gaelic as first language. Although English is an official language in Ireland, their dialects can be very hard to understand, especially when Irish talk with each other. 

Let me tell you some more about my time in beautiful Ireland. We stayed in Bray, known as “The Gateway to the Garden of Ireland”, located in the North East of Wicklow. It is the third largest town in Ireland and its longest established seaside town. The town’s name means “hill, rising ground”. What I liked the most was the Cliff Walk from Bray’s beach to Dun Laoghaire, there are no words to describe Ireland’s beauty, just have a look at the pictures…

Kilmainhaim Gaol ( quit depressing to walk inside a
prison and read all the names of people that died there)

We visited a lot of sights ...

Some without pictures in this post where
Trinity College and the Book of Kells that
we had a look at, many many different
museums (of which most where not that
interesting or fascinating).

In Dublin's fair city...

Christ church (the most beautiful of all churches and
cathedrals we visited)

 

The Spire, Dublins emblem
(really fascinating how tall it is!)

Cliffs of Aonghasa, Galway (the weather was
really bad, so it was not that nice to be there)

At the beach in Bray

Not only the sights and the landscape showed something different from home, the people and their lifestyle is not the same as in Austria. Students, for example, wear uniforms (strange looking – as if they were going to the gym), and most schools are split, it’s hard to find a school were boys and girls where together (I wanted to go there for exchange, so I looked up many schools). Irish people drive on the “wrong” side, on the left. You should keep that in mind when crossing streets or waiting for the bus (unless you do it, you’ll wonder why your bus is not going the right direction…).  One thing that really surprised me was the high amount of Polish shops in Dublin, really, and they had way too many McDonald, BurgerKing and Subway chains there too. Oh and let’s not forget the typical Irish food, their butter is salted which didn’t taste delicious with jam, and then there are “Fish and Chips”, we tried them on our last day and I have to say – better don’t make the same mistake. Maybe we were just unlucky, but it didn’t taste well at all!

For me Ireland is one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever been to! Some time passed since my journey, but when I look through the pictures, it feels like being there again. With all the photographs I hope to give you a feeling and impression of the Green Island.