Friday 16th 2016 - Culture Night

Tonight around 3,000 events are taking place in Dublin to celebrate
Irish culture: museums, libraries,
galleries will be open until late, just for free, to discover
Dublin's creativity and hidden treasures.
A proposal might be spending the night at the James Joyce Centre....

Thursday 15th 2016

Scheduled for today these was the visit to Kilmainhman Gaol, too.
"Gaol" is the Irish word for "jail" (prison),
here the rebels of the Easter Rising were imprisoned and executed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9XvSIjuooQ

Thursday 15th 2016 - visit to Collins Barracks

Collins Barracks is a museum about Irish history, it was the headquarters
of the British soldiers first and then of the Irish army in Dublin after 1922,
when the Irish Free State was established.
Especially interesting are the sections about the wars the Irish soldiers fought in the history,
WWI (alongside the British)  and the War of Independence (1916) against the British Rule,
to obtain Home Rule. Uniforms, tanks, airplanes documents are on disply,to show
sacrifices and suffering wars always brings with them.
Watch this video about the museum....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQeg6s5GSGk
and this one about the Easter Rising (1916) (Insurrezione di Pasqua)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cew_ZLgi3Cc

Wednesday 14th 2016 . visit to the Guinness Storehouse

The Guinness Storehouse is a seven-floor exhibition about
 the history of the famous Irish beer brand Guinness,starting from its founder, Arthur Guinness,
and coming to the present production of 3 million pints every day, exported all
over the world.
From the top floor we could enjoy a great view of the city and taste a glass of the famous
stout (birra scura). Actually we discovered that its colour is deep ruby red (rosso rubino)
and that it is used also to cook, for instance the famous Irish stew (spezzatino irlandese di agnello)
Enjoy the video....

https://www.youtube.com/user/GuinnessStorehouse

Tuesday 13th 2016 - Irish Music Party




Today  we listened to typical Irish music and saw Irish dances.
Irish music has Celtic origins and to be performed  uses special instruments like
the bodhran (tamburello), the fiddle (violino) and the pipe (piffero).
The rhythm is incredibly fast and cheerful.
On these music people dance too, moving only feet really quickly.
We tried too and it was fun. The students were great, like professional dancers
Here you'll find a famous traditional Irish song, enjoy....






.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3nXku80y2Y

Monday 12th 2016 - visit to St Patrick's Cathedral


St Patrick's cathedral is the main Protestant church in Ireland.
Here St Patrick was supposed to baptize converts .
The church, in Early English Gothic style, features
wonderful stained glass windows (vetrate colorate)
and the grave of Jonathan Swift, the famous Irish author of "Gulliver's travels",
who was Dean (decano) here.
St Patrick's Cathedral's choir(coro) is famous throughout Ireland.

Watch this video, taken by a drone..


https://youtu.be/0X4dkb8letE

Sunday 11th 2016 - visit to Phoenix Park








Phoenix Park is a huge park in the north of the city, the largest in Europe
where people go jogging or cycling, play sports (cricket, polo) or have a picnic .
You can hire a bike as well.








Here is the Irish President's residence and the American embassy.
The Pope John Paul II visited Ireland and 1 million people gathered
here to meet him.








The Dublin Zoo is open to the public and hosts animals from all over the world,
like penguins, tigers, chimpanzees and flamingos. Enjoy the video...