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Day 8 - Return to Dublin

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Today's entry is by Austin Phipps, a freshman at Forman. Once back in Dublin, we went to the Book of Kells exhibit at Trinity College and visited the Long Room that was built between 1712 and 1732. The Long Room is almost 65 meters and is filled with over 200,000 really old books. The long room also does not have a book section starting with J or U because of the Roman alphabet being used. The distinct barrel vaulted ceiling was built in the 1860s so more books could be stored. After exploring this we went to the National Museum of Ireland, and I went over to the Viking exhibit where I learned that by 1014 Vikings had been in Ireland for over two centuries and had a ton of integration with the Irish society. The Battle of Clontarf, fought on good friday 23rd April 1014, which is the most well known battle in Irish history but also the most misunderstood. In the Annals it indicates that the fight was more about Dublin than Clontarf. I learned about Brian Boru’s regalia - because of
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Day 7 - Limerick

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Hi, my name is Eva Powell and I’m a student at the Forman school. I decided to go on the Ireland trip because I love studying Vikings and wanted to get an up close look into their world, and also because I’ve never been to Ireland and wanted to go. I really want to learn about the Vikings travel patterns cause I think the way they traveled is interesting and different.  Today, our Winterim group took a insightful walking tour around the rich historical town of Limerick. We learned about this rich and ancient city, finding out about Limerick's rulers, conquerors, and it’s marvelous past. One of the stories we learned was about St. Mary’s Cathedral in Limerick. We learned that the cathedral was built by Donal Mor O’Brien on the site of a viking shrine. Construction of the cathedral started around the 1100’s. After learning about this awe-inspiring city, we then ventured to Escape Limerick. There we were split into groups and had to escape a dooming dungeon or a sinking pi
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Day 6 - Kilmallock

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Hi, I'm Max, and I am a junior. I am very excited about this trip mainly because I have never left North America. Also as a side benefit I get to learn about the Vikings. Nothing about the Vikings particularly interests me but I just like learning things. Especially related to history. I have just always felt that learning about history is like listening to a story. Today we took a tour of Kilmallock, a small town near Limerick. "Kil" means "church" and "Mallock" was a cleric who was given the title of saint. This of course being where the town name comes from. Kilmallock had a lot of history some of which involved the Vikings. For example a lot of fighting took place between the Vikings from Limerick and the Vikings from Waterford in this town. There was a lot of violence like that here. For example, a man named Humphrey Gilbert, an English knight, once had 50 enemy soldiers who were defending the town decapitated in the street. He then hung 20
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Mid-trip Photo Collection

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 The group in front of Molly Malone, Dublin.  The Phipps brothers in front of Christchurch, Dublin.  At the Ruins, Glendalough Mining Village.  Glendalough Church Ruins.  Prehistoric Irish village recreation, Irish National Heritage Center.  VR experience "King of Vikings," Waterford.  Vatnafjord reconstruction, Waterford.  Cahir Castle interior, Tipperary.  "Candid" shot, the Old Stand Pub, Kilmallock.  King's Castle, Kilmallock.  Kilmallock Priory. Kilmallock Priory.
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Day 5 - Cahir Castle and the Rock of Cashel

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My name is Landon Phipps. I am a freshman i wanted to go to Ireland because I want to travel around the world. I have only left the country once before and am excited to do it again. I am interested to learn about the trade and cooperation between the Vikings and the people of Ireland. Today we visited our first castle called Cahir Castle (below left). It had arrow loops windows and also had stumble steps with low door frames also gates. Castles were a symbol of wealth and power. Cahir is one of the most intact castles in Ireland and one of the most violent. It’s nickname was “the stone fort beside the fishery”. Cahir has 4 towers and was mainly a private residence except in war times, during which it would be very busy. Plus the size of the tower was normally equal to the lord power. One of the down sides of Cahir is that during the night was very dark. We also learned that crossbows kill people 350m away and in 1599 Cahir was attacked and many people's first time hearing a
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Day 4 - Cork

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Hello I’m Holden Phipps, a first year junior. This will be the second time I will have visited Europe. I decided to attend this trip because I have often been curious of what the Vikings were truly like. We often have a skewed perception of them in general so I thought this would be a good place to learn the truth. I believe it will also be interesting to see what was build to defend against them and by them. So today we drove from Waterford to Cork. We got turned around so we were unable to visit the monastery if we hoped to be on time for the walking tour. The drive was long and it was raining for most of the day (who would have guessed?). The walking tour was good but didn't talk about the Vikings so it's not super relevant. He then led us to the Cork Public Museum. The museum had a lot of information about the city and it has a section on the Vikings in relation to it. While excavating parts of the city, archaeologists found evidence of their clothing, food sources and
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Day 3 - Waterford and Vikings!

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I'm Jeremiah, and I'm a junior from Massachusetts. I'm interested in Ireland because both sides of my family are partly from there. I'm very interested in the culture of the local residents. The history is very interesting to me as well. I'm excited to learn about Vikings and early settlers of Ireland. I hope to get to see some real Viking artifacts while in Ireland. We drove an hour to the Irish National Heritage Center, a recreation of prehistoric and Viking era castles and huts. We walked up and down the road looking at the different houses and the long boat. We learned about how the early Irish lived and interacted with their environment. In the afternoon, we visited “The King of the Vikings," a virtual reality presentation explaining how the Vikings came to Ireland raiding monasteries in the late 700’s. After that we toured the nearby “Viking Triangle,” the original Waterford settlement. We learned how the Vikings came over in 914, setting up the
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