Teaching and Travelling Abroad

Last morning of classes for me today. After lunch I took a train a couple of stops down the coast to a fishing town called Skerries. I had come with my swimming stuff on underneath my clothes, but while walking along one of the beaches I decided not to swim, because I didn't have anywhere secure to leave my bag or get changed, plus the weather was overcast. Nice views, though!

However, after walking round part of the nearby headland, I noticed that a changing area had been set up next to a set of stone steps leading down the rocks straight into the sea... although it wasn't sunny, it was humid and I felt so hot and sticky I decided on the spur of the moment to get into the water after all! How glad I was that I did - it was so lovely and refreshing!

I had a great view of three islands which have special historic and natural interest. Reputedly the landing places of St Patrick, and later on of Viking raiders, they also form a Special Protection Area for breeding seabirds and wintering wildfowl. There are also seals around in winter months, and a particularly impressive range of seaweeds which I could see while swimming because the water was so clear.

After my swim I walked round the rest of the headland. There was another beautiful view, this time of the Mourne Mountains in the distance on the other side of the bay.

Then I passed the harbour on my walk back to the station, admiring two bird-related sculptures on my way.

I got back to campus after dinner had finished, but the lovely catering staff had put some aside for me on my earlier request, so I could still have some. Later on, a big group of teachers and group leaders went to the pub down the road and we stayed out until nearly midnight. It was good fun, although as I walked up to the pub at the start a car came speeding and screeching round the corner, mounted the pavement, smashed into the portable pub sign and carried on at full speed into the distance... a couple of metres to the right and it would have crashed directly into the pub... quite a shock to the system to see it!

The weather has been beautiful today, so this evening I went on an extended wander round campus to take pictures of various places, including a massive 500-600-year-old tree...

...the River Delvin...

...the outside of a 17th century castle which is not in current use by the school as the interior is in need of too much repair...

...and the wonderful Cloister Tree. The Cloister Tree looks like one massive bright green bush from the outside, but you step through the doorway and it opens out into two atmospheric tree tunnels - passageways created by trees trained (over a period of about 150 years, apparently) to grow sideways and then curve upwards and over, creating a very cloister-like effect.

The Cloister Tree pathways lead to a small cemetery for Franciscan priests, teachers at the Franciscan school whose classrooms we're using on the summer school.

Last Sunday I went for a walk to find a holy well of St Brigid and a Prehistoric passage tomb which I had heard were nearby. I didn't see the well where Google Maps claimed it would be, but it was a lovely if short-ish walk in the countryside to get there, crossing the border from County Meath into County Dublin as I did so. I did see what may have been the passage tomb - a grassy mound in a field with cows and couple of horses wandering around - but I couldn't access the field to get a closer look and see it from different angles and confirm if it was actually probably a passage tomb or just a normal hillock/ mound.

I'm coming to the end of my contract here - my last day is tomorrow. It's been an interesting experience being here and I'm very glad I came. This week has had the highest numbers of students and teachers that there'll be for the whole summer, so there's been a definite buzz in the air. In terms of teaching, a new experience for me was teaching Irish Culture, which I had to do in addition to the more typical EFL. I am from England (although I have a bit of Irish ancestry quite far back, I could not be described as Irish at all) so although certain things you do learn about to some degree while growing up and as an adult (e.g. via reading), I found myself learning things about the culture and history of Ireland only just before my students did. It's been valuable having lovely Irish colleagues here to chat to about different things.

Going slightly off-topic, I've had Irish colleagues before but only online, so it's been interesting to hear certain words, phrases and speech patterns face-to-face in conversation that I had only seen in text form previously. I've also learned one or two new phrases such as 'giving out (to someone)' - complaining!

Edit from August 2024: I think the 'potential passage tomb' I saw was probably just a normal hillock/ mound, as I since discovered that there are definitely passage tombs nearby, but on the coast - the Bremore Passage Tombs. I don't know how I managed not to find out about them at the time!

Yesterday afternoon the weather wasn't great - overcast, with occasional light drops of rain - but I decided to go for a walk to the nearby village of Stamullen anyway, as I hadn't had the chance to go out of the college grounds (apart from to the botanic gardens on Thursday) since last Saturday, and the nearest supermarket/ convenience store is there too, so I hoped I'd be able to get bigger and cheaper drinks than from the vending machines at the college. It was a 25-30 minute walk each way, including a bridge over the M1 motorway. I also looked round little Stamullen Graveyard, which contains the tiny 15th-century ruins of St Christopher's chapel as well as several Celtic crosses. The prices in the Centra convenience store turned out to be quite high, which I was initially a little taken aback by but then realised that the equivalent in the UK is usually pricier than supermarkets too.

The trip today to Powerscourt House, Gardens & Waterfall went well.

They are all part of an 18th century country estate, with stately home, extensive and stunning landscaped gardens (including a Japanese garden, a rose garden, statuary, wrought iron gates, flower gardens, some trees which had been trimmed so the foliage looked like perfect upturned bowls...)

...and a large pond with waterlilies and a fountain in the middle.

Like at the botanic gardens on Thursday, we were allowed to let everyone just wander round as they wished, including ourselves. It turned out that the house itself, or at least the part which visitors are allowed into, now contains several high-end shops, pretty expensive but nice to look round even though I didn't buy anything. There was also a café and a coffee and ice cream kiosk, though I didn't have anything from them. A garden centre was attached a bit further along, as well, plus a whiskey distillery which was closed today due to a private event.

We had to get back on the coach for a 20-minute-or-so drive to the waterfall. It was absolutely beautiful, and pretty impressive, especially when up close and you could feel the spray. It's 398 feet tall. We were were able to get very close, right up to its foot - there were lots of boulders to clamber around on. Luckily, nobody had any accidents! The water was very clear, yet once flowing in the river rather than falling through the air, a rich reddish-brown - maybe because of peat in the area; it was like the rivers and streams I've seen in the Scottish Highlands & Islands. Like at the house and gardens, there was a wonderful view of a mountain which is part of the Wicklow Mountains National Park, as well as other beautiful scenery.

Tomorrow I'm going to relax, prepare for teaching on Monday, meet several new teachers (as there'll be 17 of us next week - the busiest week of the summer, apparently) and hopefully take a walk to find the holy well and the prehistoric passage tomb I mentioned a couple of posts ago.

I've had a busy couple of days, busier than expected though still enjoyable! Although I finish teaching at 12:15, once I've had lunch I've had to do my online TEFL course assessment job until dinner, and then lesson prep after. An exception to this routine was today, though, as this afternoon I helped lead an excursion to the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland in Dublin.

It was a great experience, and I got to see a lot of them, though not all. There was one other teacher there apart from me, plus the two group leaders. We were able to let everyone go round independently, rather than having to walk round with the students, so that meant that we could go at our own pace too (though my colleague had just been there the day before, with another group, so she stayed in the café while I looked round the gardens by myself).

The big highlight for me was a set of two historic iron-framed greenhouses.

One had a Palm House as its central section, which contained various different types of palm tree, as well as some other tropical plants like sugar cane, banana, plantain, pineapple and Pachira Aquatica (also known as The Provision Tree or the Monkey Tree, cultivated in South and Central America for its edible nuts, leaves and flowers).

In separate sections there was a collection of cacti and succulents, including a group from South, Central & southern North America and another group from Madagascar, and a collection of orchids and carnivorous plants, though not many of them were in flower.

In the other big greenhouse I was especially interested in a small but fascinating collection of plants endemic in isolated islands around the world (such as Madagascar, Madeira, Bermuda, Pitcairn Island and the Juan Fernández archipelago), including a couple which have now died out in their original location and now exist only in botanic gardens...

...as well as a larger collection of widely grown crops and other plants, which included coffee, bamboo, avocado, olive, taro, pomegranate, rubber, papyrus, tamarind, guava and turmeric.

There was also a collection of plants from the former Gondwanaland - the ancient southern continent within Pangaea, now Australia, Africa and South America. Since it split up into different continents, related plants separated and evolved independently.

Having managed a very good look inside the glasshouses, I then had time for a wander round some of the outdoors sections, though after looking at the gardens map again now, it seems that I missed more than I'd originally thought. I missed out on the rose garden, the fruit & veg garden (which apparently contains, amongst other things, an extensive collection of Irish apple cultivars from across the country), the Wild Ireland section, the pond, and sections of larch, holly, hornbeam, walnut, hickory, maple, ash, lime and box - at least I've already seen a lot of those tree types elsewhere, of course! I enjoyed what I did see of the outside sections, though - cedar, yew and cherry trees, as well as beds of herbs, the Alpine Yard and a glimpse of a recreation of a Viking Dublin house & garden from the 10th century.

I also admired the Two Women sculpture near the Great Palm House before it was time to go.

A couple of other photos I took during the trip which don't fit in anywhere else...

I arrived in Ireland this morning for a period of two weeks and five days of adventure!

I'm teaching on an EFL summer school for two weeks and then going on to Dublin. I've only been to Ireland once before, and that was back in 2006 on a university rugby tour to Cork for one long weekend, so my memory of that is a bit hazy! As a result, when I saw the advert come up for this job, I thought it would be really nice to return to Ireland for a bit longer and have more of a look round. While in Dublin there are lots of places I want to visit, including some with connections to some of my ancestors, and I also hope to go on a day trip to the prehistoric site of Brú na Bóinne.

It should also be nice to be back teaching face to face again, as I haven't done so since Austria back in March (since then, I've been teaching exam preparation online intensively, both groups and 1:1 - IELTS, Cambridge First, Cambridge Advanced, Cambridge Business Higher). Much as I've enjoyed teaching online, I also enjoy it face to face and I haven't been able to do much of that since the start of the pandemic! Teaching General English again will be nice as well, and within a summer school context. I've taught one summer school before, in the UK before the pandemic, and it was a great experience so hopefully this one will be too!

To rewind to the beginning of the day, my flight was at 06:30 from Luton and Dave kindly gave me a lift in at 03:30 - arriving very early in case of airport problems of the nature we've heard about in the news so much recently. As it happened, hold bag check-in went very smoothly, but there were a couple of hold-ups at luggage x-ray, the next stage - firstly, the queue was massive and although it kept moving almost constantly, in my state of bleariness it still felt like a never-ending walk down aisle after aisle after aisle. Then there was a hold-up in trays moving through the x-ray... although none of my stuff had to be checked over, I still found that I'd spent about 45 minutes just in the luggage x-ray hall.

Luckily, there was still enough time left before the flight to make my way to the departure gate without having to rush. The flight itself went well; one perk of including a hold bag in my ticket purchase with Ryanair was that I could choose my seat with no extra charge, so of course I chose a window seat. Sunny weather meant I had fantastic views throughout.

My hold bag was one of the first ones out on the luggage belt, and I went almost straight through passport control at the electronic gates (no stamp given), so before I knew it I was outside the terminal looking for the right bus stop. €6.50 for a single to Gormanston, a journey of around 20 minutes. Lots of lush greenery to be seen once we'd left the outskirts of Dublin - the Emerald Isle living up to its name.

Since settling in this morning, I haven't done very much aside from relax, though I did go out for a walk to the beach. I went round in a big circle, taking in part of Gormanston village and the mouth of the River Delvin as well as the beach itself.

The beach was extremely wide and I couldn't actually reach the edge of the sea due to the stream which cut across, but I could see that the sea was extremely choppy - loads of white horses. Something unusual about the beach was that at one end, there were large patches of bright green seaweed which appeared to be growing directly out of the sand, rather than just being washed up (though there did seem to be some of the latter too). Seagulls were poking about in it, and I was struck by the vivid colour combinations; white sand, brown sand, strikingly green seaweed, white seagulls, bright blue sky, the darker blue of the sea, the clear glinting stream, plus the white horses in the Irish Sea.

Clouds were moving over, and almost as soon as I'd left the beach (a different way to how I'd arrived, further up) and had passed over the bridge by the tiny train station, the heavens opened. As luck would have it, the rain was blowing sideways and I was just coming up to a handily-placed tree growing out of a hedgerow, which blocked most of the rain from reaching me. A local passed by on foot, saw me sheltering there and asked if she could give me a lift anywhere, but I politely declined, as I knew it was only a passing shower. Sure enough, after only around 10 minutes, the rain subsided and the sun came out. What appeared to be steam rose from the road tarmac. The roads glistened as I walked along country lanes, plus a bit of main road, back to campus.

I've also heard about a prehistoric passage tomb close by, and a holy well of St Brigid, but I decided to save those for another time rather than see them all on my first day. I might see one of them tomorrow, if the weather plays along. I will be quite busy tomorrow though, meeting my new colleagues, looking round campus more properly and getting ready for Monday.