A Park and a Trench

This week is heritage week in Cork and the city uses this time to open many sites and exhibits to the public for free. Yesterday, on the biggest day of the event, I went for an official tour of St. Fin Barre's Cathedral and I saw a ringing demonstration in the church's bell tower. Today, I visited the Cork Public Museum and Fitzgerald Park.

First, St. Fin Barre's:

I accidentally got in the bell tower tour line and, not learning my mistake until 30 minutes of waiting, decided to go on that tour. I climbed 54 very narrow and winding stairs to a small room where bell players come every Sunday to serenade the city with their tunes. Church bells are far more complicated than I anticipated and they teach beginners how to play on Wednesdays if my interest increases in the near future. Apparently bell ringers are a bit hard to come by so sometimes churches with bells will retire the set for a period of time because they have no one to play them. That is where the Wednesday night offer comes into play.

 

Next I went into the church for a walking tour which I was very impressed with and intrigued by. The church, an Anglican cathedral (now I know), has been involved in many aspects of the city's history and preserves that history throughout the building. 

Hanging beside the altar area is a cannon ball from the Seige of Cork in 1690. It was fired from the nearby Elizabeth Fort and was found during a construction project lodged in the spire. 

The back side of the church features a gold angel with two horns coming from its mouth. Local Cork legend claims that when the end of the world comes the angel will sound the horns. However they will sound an hour early giving Cork residents time to do whatever they want before the end. A few years ago, UCC students got on the roof of the church and stole the angel. The rod holding the angel was severely rotted when officials went to investigate. Had they not stolen it, the statue would have tumbled to the ground within two years. I am sure that this fact helped the students when it came to punishment. Because I wasn't able to get good pictures of these two interesting things, I found the following pictures of the diocese's website. 

 

The following pictures are the ones that I took.

This beautiful painting is above the altar. Right behind the intersecting beams is a mural of Jesus. The mural was painted in that location so that no one can see all of Jesus from any location in the church - one can only see bits and parts. The only place you can see all of Jesus is from where the other painted people surrounding Jesus are - a.k.a. in Heaven - it's a metaphor.

 

Today I walked to the Cork Public Museum, which I thought was free just today, but it turns out it is free always, so, I may have to go back. I went to the museum for two things. There was a replica WWI trench exhibit that you can walk through and get the feel for that life style. It was very dark and the mannequin in the corner really freaked me out. I then rounded the corner and saw another female mannequin casually reading something on the wall of the trench. I sort of jumped when I saw her too, stared a bit just to make sure, wondered why a female in modern clothes would be in a WWI trench, realized she was not a mannequin, wondered if she noticed my awkward and inquisitive looking at her, am still amazed at how still she can be, and awkwardly crept away. I then went through the trench again because I thought it would be bigger and thought I should have taken a more thorough look at the display. However there was this older man following me and when I turned to go back through I heard him say "oh, there must be more" just to follow me through the same room again and I bet he was thinking what a weird American the entire time. Sometimes the simple things are just SO HARD.

I thought there was a short film showing how women in 2005 set out to built a barrel-top wagon. I never found the short film but did find the wagon upstairs way in the back. I also went by this quickly because I was really looking for the film and later when I went back to the stairs to see it again there was a sign saying that upstairs was closed because they were building an exhibit up there - basically I think I illegally went to the second floor. I hate it when I involuntarily break the rules.

The only video I did find was footage from an Irish Exhibition held in the early 1900's. Apparently this was the relatively prosperous and happy Edwardian part of Irish history and Cork held many of the festivities. There was a blossoming film maker hired to record some events and they showed this silent, black and white footage, as part of a display. 

Random museum pics:

My coffee and raspberry treat at the museum cafe.

And finally, I wandered around the beautiful park in which the museum is situated. It is called Fitzgerald Park, and even though today was cold and rainy, I found this place very quaint and artsy.

Wow, this post ended up a LOT longer than anticipated, but as I always say (or maybe as I should say more), learning has no limit!