Heading off to Belfast on this, one of my favorite holidays. Our study abroad program is planning a nice dinner for us tonight, but it won’t be the same without some of those standard Thanksgiving foods…like fried turkey! Also, while the company will be great, I miss spending this Thanksgiving with friends and family.

I’ll have plenty of pictures from my trip to Belfast and Northern Ireland when I get back. Until then, everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving, and remember to be thankful for all our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who aren’t home for Thanksgiving with their families this year. They’re fighting to protect our freedom to celebrate this day with our loved ones. God bless ‘em.

I’m a little late posting these pictures, but better late than never, right? My friend Todd and I took a quick weekend jaunt across the Irish Sea to the United Kingdom and London. The story about getting there and back is one all by itself. Most Americans probably didn’t hear, but last week Ireland had a really bad flood–the “worst in 800 years,” says the BBC:

Last week’s flooding in the Irish Republic was the worst the country had experienced in 800 years, Environment Minister John Gormley said.

Mr Gormley was speaking ahead of Irish PM Brian Cowen’s visit to the parts of the country which were worst affected.

“We are talking about events which have been described as once-in-800-years,” he said.

The road between Galway and Dublin was flooded and the bus service between was cancelled. We flew out of Shannon, which is located in the southern part of County Clare closer to the worst parts of the flood. We wisely got on an earlier bus to the airport, and it was a good thing: the usually two hour drive took us four hours, and we got to the terminal just in time. The flooding backed us up in all these small towns, and at one put we were basically driving through a lake in the middle of a road. Gotta love that Irish countryside!

Anyway, our plane took off on Friday night, no problem, and we landed at Gatwick Airport outside of London. We took a train down to London’s Victoria station in Westminster and bought our tickets for the Tube (the nickname for London’s Underground, the subway system). After a couple line changes, we got off at our stop (called Swiss Cottage for the Alpine-themed pub nearby) and headed up to our hostel. The hostel was very nice and clean, and much more like what I expected a hostel to be like. After some quick dinner, Todd and I got to bed early, because we had plenty of stuff to do the next day.

We got up early and had our continental breakfast before hitting up the Tube. Except…we didn’t hit up the Tube. Turns out that our line was one of about five in the system that would be undergoing construction this weekend. Luckily, they were running replacements buses, so we were able to get into Central London. Still, it seemed like transportation didn’t seem to be going our way this trip.

Anyway, we headed down to Green Park in Westminster, which is pretty much the most posh part of London. Not coincidentally, this seemed to be the part of London most influenced by Queen Victoria and the Victorian era sensibilities. Green Park was quintessentially Victorian. You had the feeling you were walking through the English countryside in the middle of a metropolis. It was a return to nature, but an ordered, ideal nature.

But, as a reminder of the opulence and wealth of the British Empire, you had this ornate gate, as well.

The monument to Queen Victoria sits here, in front of Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace is an impressive sight if only for its size.

There were those guards you see in movies, but they weren’t in their typical redcoats. What gives, chaps? They were very poised during the Changing of the Guard, and they didn’t trip like this poor guy.

Here’s the London Eye, one of the biggest Ferris wheels in the world, from a distance.

After leaving the Palace area (we didn’t go into many of these places, since we were trying to see everything), we headed off toward Westminster Abbey. But first, we caught sight of Westminster Cathedral, the seat of the Roman Catholic archbishop and one tall building.

The first shot of Westminster Abbey (the Anglican church) is my favorite, but it doesn’t give you the whole facade. The second is the whole facade. This is where the British monarch is coronated. It’s impressive.

Nearby is Westminster Palace, which features one of the most iconic landmarks of London, Big Ben.

Westminster Palace is where Parliament is housed, right on the Thames. It is probably my favorite building (that I saw) in London. The architecture is so detailed and beautiful in a British sort of way.

Here’s a statue of Oliver Cromwell, the bastard who said, upon colonizing Ireland in the 17th century, that the Irish could go to “Hell, or Connaught.” Connaught’s the Irish province in which I’m currently typing. It ain’t Hell, but it sure rains like hell.

Here’s a statue of George V. He was the grandson of Queen Victoria and the son of King Edward VII. He was the king himself in the early 20th century, including during WWI. Interesting fact: he was the first monarch to take the Windsor royal family name that still remains today.

Here’s Richard I, a.k.a. Richard the Lionheart. He’s most famous for being the crusading King of England and also a contemporary of the made-up Robin Hood. Another interesting fact, this time from something I learned in class and not Wikipedia: Richard lived only six months in England during his ten-year reign and spoke French. Go figure.

Here’s Winston Churchill, looking out across the street with a menacing look and a cane. You do not want to mess with him. In real life, he was also a badass, standing strong in the face of the Nazi war machine as it advanced across Europe (but not across the English Channel).

We made our way down Whitehall, the street that leads from Westminster Palace to Trafalgar Square. This is the Cenotaph, which is the monument to the British soliders lost in battle. There was also a small ceremony happening when we walked by, commemorating a Scottish platoon.

Nearby is Downing Street, the mini version of the White House. It’s where the Prime Minister lives, and the current resident is Gordon Brown. Downing Street was closed, so we couldn’t walk down it, unfortunately.

We continued on to Trafalgar Square.

One of the places we could go for free was the British Museum, which featured an amazing collection of artifacts from Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The museum also houses the Rosetta Stone, which gave archeologists the first chance to translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

After the museum, we ate lunch in Chinatown, in SoHo. Soon after, we headed back down to the Thames to cross London Bridge. Here’s the Thames from the north side, looking east.

We crossed the London Bridge and then walked down along the Thames. There’s been a bridge at or near this area since the time of the Romans. The famous bridge built in the 19th century was bought by an American and now sits is Lake Havasu City, Arizona (weird, huh?). The modern bridge was completed in 1973.

The HMS Belfast, a World War II-era cruiser ship, sits on the Thames in between the London and Tower bridges. It’s now a part of the Imperial War Museum.

This is City Hall. Pretty cool looking.

Here’s a view of the City of London skyline. The City of London is the original site of the original city, and is only about a square mile large. The whole of what we call “London” is considered Greater London in sort of its own special metropolitan status. My favorite building in this picture is 20 St. Mary Axe, known as the Gherkin because it looks like a gherkin, which is Obama-speak for “pickle.”

Here’s a picture of the Tower Bridge from the riverbank, and then one from on the bridge itself. This is another of London’s most famous landmarks, although I was a little bummed out since the bridge is being restored and part of the support was covered up.

Across the Tower Bridge is the bridge’s namesake, the Tower of London. The Tower is actually a set of towers and a castle comprising the whole keep. The oldest of the structures dates back to 1078 and the time of William the Conquerer.

I just thought this was funny.

I think it’s flooded?

By this point in our day, it was getting dark, so we headed back up to the hostel, went out for dinner, and hung out at a few pubs. We hit the hay and were up early again so we could make it back up to Gatwick and catch our flight back to Ireland. It was a quick but unforgettable weekend. I can say I’ve been to London now, although I didn’t see nearly as much as I could have. I guess that means I have to head back one of these days. Thanks for reading.

So yesterday, most of the Irish civil service, including professors at this university, went on a one-day strike in protest of their expected pay cut. I wrote about this on the Corner at NRO:

The strike includes, as I found out in class yesterday, university faculty at all of Ireland’s public universities. Here at the National University of Ireland in Galway, practically all of our November 24 classes are cancelled. There are even rumors that the library will be closed, which practically renders that day useless for working on final papers. The faculty is well organized, but their union did not make this decision unanimously. One of my lecturers, a union member who hinted in class that she might be against the strike, said that a good one-third of the union voted against the strike.

What it amounted to for me was that all my classes yesterday were cancelled. On the last week of class before finals. The business of this time is reflected by my lack of posts on this blog, I think. Having no class yesterday did not help this!

But anyway, we are back in school again today, with today being my official last day of class (no class on Thursday or Friday). That’s a good thing, since I’ll be leaving for Belfast tomorrow with my study abroad group. I’ll have more about that, my Irish Thanksgiving, and my trip last weekend to London when I get the time. I promise to have all these topics covered soon. Thanks for reading.

So I got an e-mail from the president of NUIG, addressed to the whole student body, to talk about “anti-social behaviour.” While that term usually means some sort of loner behavior, here it mainly means drunken debauchery and vandalism. This is not that uncommon at an Irish university, and Galway is no different, hence the e-mail. The Garda Síochána, Ireland’s police force, is pretty ticked off, I suppose. There’s been a lot of bad press about Galway students engaging in anti-social behavior, and I guess Halloween was a big enough problem that the university’s president got in on the act. From President James J. Browne:

The Gardai have described students “on the rampage” through the city during week nights. Whilst this problem is caused by a minority of students, not all of whom are students in the University, it reflects badly on the reputation of all students and the University, and it is a cause for concern in relation to the health and welfare of students and others. The University unequivocally condemns any such behaviour and, in the interests of all our students, is determined to do all in its power, in cooperation with the Students’ Union, to deal with the problem.

This is one of the biggest differences I’ve noticed while studying here. In America, most college students work day and night throughout the week, then socialize (parties, bars and clubs, etc.) on the weekend–which starts early enough on Thursday night. Here in Ireland, though, students study all day, party on weeknights and then…go home on the weekends, presumably to work and do homework. It makes absolutely no sense to me and most of the other Americans: wouldn’t you want to work all week, get everything done, and then hang out in Galway on the weekend with all your friends during a big chunk of free time?

Anyway, I guess that deserves its own post, so back to the e-mail. I found this part the most interesting:

We also urge all students to take some communal responsibility for their fellow students, where possible,and to encourage them to avoid behaviour which is likely to lead to injury to individuals or damage to property and consequent criminal conviction.  Students should be aware that a criminal conviction will seriously jeopardise their prospects of being granted a US entry visa now or in later years.

Now that’s interesting. Lots of Irish students go to the States during the summer, work a job and travel; two of my Irish friends are doing that this coming summer. And after college, the United States is a really popular place to do more studying, traveling, or working. For instance, the Burkes of Grange Ballinlough, who are distant relatives I met during my search for the Naughtons, have a son who is a doctor currently doing his residency at Columbia University in New York.

I find it interesting and fascinating that the president of NUIG would use the threat of losing the opportunity to go the US as a way of curbing this behavior. What does that say about the United States and its pull for others throughout the world? I think it says a good deal. Just food for thought. Cheers.

The first part of the headline normally doesn’t make news, especially for me, but consider this an interesting case. Academy Award-winner Michael Caine, speaking with Sky News in his native Britain, makes a couple of points that seem mild to American conservatives but are certainly heresy in the Church of the Welfare State of Western Europe. Caine blames the moral decay of British society on the welfare state, questions the orthodoxy of taxing those evil rich folks, and criticizes the British government’s spending policies. Check it out, check-it-outers*:

If I didn’t always know in my gut that Caine was a right-winger, I tricked myself into believing it since he seems to embody one in one of his more recent (and one of my favorite) roles as Alfred Pennyworth in the new  Christopher Nolan Batman films. I wanted to embed this clip, but I couldn’t find one that allowed that, so follow the link to watch one of my favorite scenes from The Dark Knight featuring Sir Michael.

You’ll notice, of course, that Caine won’t go so far as to criticize the idea of government intervention to help others (he calls himself a “right-wing socialist” which is perhaps almost as frightening as a left-wing one), but that just goes to show how entrenched the welfare state is in Britain. It’s even more this way in Ireland, where social welfare is just a part of the political culture.

It’s a harbinger of things to come, too, if the United States adopts this Pelosi-Obamacare monstrosity. Like many great minds on the right have argued, once a government-run health care system is in place, Republicans won’t be able to argue against it; they’ll just have to argue they can do it better, more efficiently, etc.

Still, it’s refreshing to see one of my favorite actors of all time speak about politics with some sense.

*Apologies to Greg Gutfeld.

I suppose it’s fitting on this Halloween night in for me to update everyone on my trip last weekend to Cork for the Cork Jazz Festival. IFSA-Butler, our study abroad company, picked us up on Friday morning in a nice big coach. We rode down to Limerick, where we picked up the group of students of University of Limerick in our program. It took us a total of about 4 hours to get to Cork, but it was well worth the wait. Our hotel was AMAZING. Check it out:

We were located on the western edge of the city, upstream from the city center but well within walking distance of everything. After we got our rooms, we were basically free to do whatever we wanted until the bus left Sunday morning, although they did have a nice dinner for us Friday night in the hotel’s restaurant. Anyway, I got a map and a schedule for the jazz festival and hit the streets of Cork with a couple friends. We had 56 choices of venue for the weekend, which was pretty remarkable for a jazz festival in Ireland.

We walked through Cork, and saw some pretty interesting things, including this sign and a impromptu street jam from a Spanish jazz band.

I really enjoyed Cork; it’s a bigger city than Galway, but nowhere near as big as Dublin. There are a lot of older, established-looking buildings, and the way the river runs through the city makes for some great photos.

After dinner, we went to find a few pubs, bars and clubs to hear some jazz in. We weren’t too successful in finding some real jazz, and as we were to find out, that endeavor turned out to be quite difficult. The Irish concept of jazz is a bit, well, loose. I heard some great big band and swing jazz over the weekend, but I also heard plenty new wave/punk, rock, and country rock too. I’m not complaining–I like all that kind of music–but I’m not so sure we could call it a full-on, pure jazz festival. No bother.

The next day, I took a cab up to Blarney, a town about five miles away and home to Blarney Castle and the world-famous Blarney Stone. It’s pretty touristy, but I couldn’t go to Cork without kissing the Blarney Stone. Our taxi driver on the way up was very nice and eager to tell us about his life in and around Cork. He said he and the other kids used to walk to Blarney and back for dances (in the snow, uphill both ways!). It didn’t take long to get there, and it was fantastic when we did. The country around Blarney is the most beautiful non-coastal part of Ireland I’ve seen. Behold:

Blarney Castle is pretty old. This view of its facade is the most imposing because, as my handy little guide informed me, the walls incline backward as they go up. It looks pretty menacing from below. Also, a keep tower:

This isn’t quite the sign you want to read before you enter an old castle:

So it was up several hundred stairs to the top of the castle and the Blarney Stone. The Stone itself is at the bottom of the middle portion of the top wall on one side of the castle’s roof. There’s nothing remarkable about its physical appearance except that it’s smoother than the rest of the stones. There’s an open gap in the roof underneath the part of the wall where the stone is, presumably for the pouring of hot acid on an enemy, or something. Anyway, here’s a look at it. They’ve installed guardrails, but back in the old days, you used to have to hang precariously in order to kiss the stone.

They say you get the “Gift of Gab” when you kiss the Blarney Stone, which I ascertained means one of two things: either you become more eloquent and persuasive, or you just talk a whole lot more. Judging on the Irish people’s natural tendency to talk a lot, I’m guessing it’s the latter. Here’s me kissing it (the Blarney Stone, people):

We returned to Cork and spent the rest of the day and night hearing some really great music. My personal favorites were the Jazz Freaks, who were playing right in our hotel. Definitely the jazziest bunch of old timers I’ve seen. Anyway, thanks for reading. Cheers!

If you’ll pardon the lame rhyming headline, I’ll tell you a bit about my side trip to Versailles a couple weeks ago. We woke up on Saturday morning and hopped on a train out of Paris to the suburb of Versailles, which is about 10 miles from Paris and home of the Palace of Versailles. This was the home and seat of the French monarch for over 100 years, made most famous by the Sun King, Louis XIV. It’s also where Louis XVI lived with his wife Marie Antoinette until the French Revolution brought down the monarchy. The Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War, was signed at the palace. It’s a place of great history, so needless to say I had to go.

We got off the train and headed right for the palace. I really liked the statue of Louis XIV out front, standing guard in front.  The palace itself is a pretty commanding presence, but it looks more magnificent the closer you get to it. I paid for a ticket to go inside, and off we were.

Before you enter, there’s this plaque, which translates roughly to this: “After the World War, a citizen of United States of America, John D. Rockefeller Jr., contributed magnificent donations to restore the chateau and park of Versailles, Trianon Palace, the gardens, the Cathedral of Reims, and the chateau of Fontainebleau.

By entering the name of John D. Rockefeller Jr. the government of the Republic wanted to show him the gratitude of the French people.”

The palace is absolutely beautiful on the inside. There are so many different rooms, all with really ornate, detailed art and decor. I really liked this huge organ:

It’s remarkable how much money and wealth was poured into this palace. It really shows the might of the French king in the 17th century, as well as the excess of that institution. The king’s and queen’s bedrooms are another example of this opulence.

The Hall of Mirrors is much less spectacular than I expected, but pretty impressive nonetheless. There are lots of mirrors (natch) and it’s where the palace’s namesake treaty was signed to end WWI.

There are also so great replicas of some famous paintings about French monarchs. Here’s a detail of a replica of David’s The Coronation of Napoleon. The story (which is probably not true) is that Napoleon took the crown from the pope’s hands and crowned himself. Either way, this doesn’t show that, but rather Napoleon’s crowning of his wife, Josephine.

After this, we went out to the gardens, which cost us another few euro but was well worth it. This was the most beautiful part of Versailles for me. There were fountains and topiaries and beautiful trees and columns. It was like a rich, French monarch’s playground–okay, that’s exactly what it was. They even had stealthily placed speakers blasting baroque music as you walked through the huge campus. I’ll leave you with some pictures of what I saw.

Got back today from a trip to Cork–more on that in another post. I do need to update everyone still reading this blog about my trip last weekend to Paris.

I took the picture you see above from the top of Montmartre, and it’s my favorite picture of the weekend. It’s a beautiful view of Paris at sunset from the highest point in the city.

We visited the City of Lights from Friday to Sunday, with lots of traveling in between. On Friday, I got up and walked to the bus station to get a ride down to Shannon International Airport. From Shannon, we flew to Paris Beauvais Airport, a little runway so far from Paris that it doesn’t belong in the name. We took an hour and a half bus to the actual city (I swear, we did spend time in Paris!).

Our accomodations were at the St. Christopher’s Inn, an American-centric hostel company in Europe. They weren’t bad at all, in a pretty convenient part of Paris with comfortable beds, clean facilities, and free breakfast in the morning. For getting around Paris, we used the Metro system, which is one of the oldest in the world and pretty much covers the city. I felt like we saw just about everything, although I didn’t go into the Louvre. I think it’s big enough that I would have wanted a full day to see the whole thing, so I’m glad I didn’t cheat myself by trying to fit it in.

Saturday morning, we took a train out to Versailles and spent a few hours out there; I’ll devote a whole post to that trip, with pictures. I figure I’d post some more of my favorite pictures here, with some explanation. Thanks for reading, check out the pictures after the jump.

The Eiffel Tower is the symbol for Paris, but it’s only been around for 120 years–and the city is much older than that. I think what most impressed me about the tower was its size. I always knew it towered (no pun intended) over the Parisian skyline, but you don’t get a sense of the size until you get right under it. I took the first picture here right before walking underneath it. This area around the tower is rife with con artists and scammers (usually Rome, or gypsies), and one woman tried to stop us by asking us if we spoke English. We had been warned and quickly moved away, but you can’t be too careful in Paris. I took the second picture here from across the Seine. I can’t believe the tower was originally supposed to be temporary!

I really loved the Arc de Triomphe. Again, it was much bigger than I originally thought, as you can see from these first two pictures. There’s lots of detail up close that you don’t normally see in pictures. It was built as a monument to Napoleon’s victories, and it became famous after French and German soldiers alike have centered victory marches through Paris around it. From the Arc I took the picture below of the Avenue de Champs-Élysées, the famous avenue whose image was always ingrained in my mind from this photo of Charles de Gaulle after the Allied liberation of Paris.

On more than one recommendation, we headed Saturday afternoon to Montmartre and the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur–or the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. It’s the highest point in Paris and it gives you a great view of the city. It was from here that I realized how BIG Paris really is (are you noticing a trend here in my size perceptions with this city?) because I couldn’t get a shot of the entire city in one frame. The Basilica itself is beautiful inside, and the little neighborhood of Montmartre is pretty cool and bohemian. You have to climb the hill to reach the Basilica, and con artists meet you on the way up, where they try to put their handmade bracelets on your wrists and then force you to buy them. It was at this place that I took my favorite picture, the first one on this post.

After a night of partaking in the customary French wine and cheese, I woke up, checked out, and headed to the Île de la Cité (one of the islands in the middle of the Seine) to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. Notre Dame means “Our Lady” and it is an impressive sight, both inside and out. Not too long after we walked in, mass began, which was an interesting experience. As we and many other tourists walked around the cathedral, the priests said mass as if no one was there. The interior was just beautiful, and I was glad to find a shrine to St. Michael there as well. It’s amazing this cathedral still stands after all the turbulent history Paris has endured.

Speaking of: this monument was erected as a memorial to the Bastille, the hated prison stormed by Parisians on July 14, 1789 at the beginning of the French Revolution.

I stopped at the Louvre, and got some great pictures of the outside, but I didn’t have time to buy a ticket, stand in line, and see what I wanted to see if I wanted to catch the bus back to the airport. That will have to wait until my next trip to Paris. Still, the building is beautiful, and I even like the pyramids outside, even if lots of Parisians and art enthusiasts don’t.

Inside the main pyramid, there was the coolest elevator for strollers and wheelchairs. It reminds me of something out of Star Wars.

These little scooters are all over Paris, and they kind of make an annoying sound. Definitely not as cool as my idealized image of French motorcyclists from the ’50s or whenever.

This scary thing was one of several sculptures at a park just west of the Louvre that runs to the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.

The Obelisk at the Place de la Concorde looks a bit like a mini-Washington Monument, except there are Egyptian hieroglyphics and drawings on its faces.

I liked getting multiple icons of Paris in the same picture.

So the last two weeks have been a bit hectic for me. Lots of assignments at school (yes, I do go to class now and then) plus a trip to Paris last weekend are my excuses for my lack of blogging. But fear not, more blogging here on the American Rover will commence.

To start, I’ll show you some pictures of my trip to County Roscommon two weeks ago to find my Irish family. The story is here, published in the November issue of the Torch. Check it out and then the pictures after the jump:

The name I was hunting was Naughton, the Irish part of my mother’s family. I only had two other pieces of relevant information: a village called Grange near Ballinlough, and the mental image of the old Naughton house, forever lodged in my brain after studying family photos taken 16 years ago.

My simple mission was to snap a few new photos of the house (if I could find it) and find out if there were any Naughtons still living in Grange Ballinlough. I figured we would roll into town, pop into the nearest pub to ask the barman for directions, and take a nice stroll down a country road. We’d be back in town in no time for a few drinks at the pub before hopping on the bus home in the afternoon.

Church at Knock where the Virgin Mary appeared:

The big church in Knock. Biggest church I’ve ever been inside:

The town of Ballinlough in County Roscommon. My ancestor, great-great grandfather John Thomas Naughton, was born not far from here:

Patrick Naughton (Jr.), my cousin three times removed:

James Naughton, my great-great-great grandfather and Patrick Naughton (Sr.), my great-great-great uncle. James’ son John immigrated to America in 1904 and was my great-great grandfather. This Patrick was the last Patrick’s father and John’s brother:

This is Grange Ballinlough, the village where the Naughtons originated:

This is the old house, where James was born. It’s used for storage now:

This is the “new house” built by John’s brother Michael, who also went to America, and inhabited by Patrick and Patrick. Mike and Tommy, Patrick Jr.’s sons, live here now, and I got to meet them:

Here’s me after meeting Mike and Tommy:

This old ruin of a church is nearby. St. Patrick supposedly spent many days of meditation here:

In my Catholic Identity in Early Modern Europe class today, my lecturer began by telling us we would be talking about the Spanish Inquisition. I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition, but I did expect this to happen:

Sadly, nothing of the sort occured…