Cork Public Museum

I promised (long ago) to show the Cork Public Museum. And I figured, since I've been posting bits of it, I may as well show you the whole building (if you go along the right side of the building you can find the sign and door I showed you earlier).

The museum has been here since 1910, but shut down for a while and was reopened in 1945. The buildings, however are a different story -- the white part was built in 1845 as the Beamish family home; the red is much more modern and opened in 2005 (if memory serves me properly).
They have a really good collection -- of both archaeological artefacts and historical -- so multiple visits are always interesting as there's something new that catches your eye.

Want more info? Here's a site or two that can provide it better than I can. :)

Brass and Blue

This lovely and ornate door knob can be found on one of the doors that make up the old entrance to the Cork Public Museum. That door is right next to this sign that I posted earlier. I'm also a huge fan of the bright blue door. :)

Fortifying Side Trip

Bad pun, I know, I know...but I couldn't help it!

Took this at Charles Fort in Kinsale (Co. Cork) and looking out to sea. It takes under an hour to get from Cork to Kinsale by bus, and it's one of the more touristy seaside towns -- but it's still quite worth visiting. Especially on a warm September day when most of the tourists are gone, but nothing is closed for the winter...which is when this photo was taken.

Check out these articles for some more info.

Easter

The golden angel on St Fin Barre's to end a week of posts on the cathedral. I took this picture this morning whilst walking past -- hence why the black fence is creeping into the bottom of the photo (it was too tall & I too short to get it out of the frame).

A very Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it. :)

Gargoyle

One of the Victorian gargoyles on St Fin Barre's.

Peace

A close-up of the statue between the main doors of the cathedral.

Statues

Figures outside the main doors of St Finbarre's. I'm on a bit of a St Finbarre's kick at the moment. :)

Vines

Vines climbing up an old cemetery monument at St Fin Barre's.

Splashes of Colour

Back to the flowers again. :) I found these outside St. Finbarre's Cathedral.

A Mailbox Theme Day

Here's a lovely example of a mailbox in a wall -- and yes, it is an old British mailbox put up during the reign of Edward VII, but painted green instead of red. Most of the old public mailboxes in the Republic are like that -- occasionally you can even see the red underneath the chipping green paint. :)

Loads of others are participating in the 1 April theme "A Public Mailbox." Check 'em out and remember that due to time zone differences and other factors, the theme photo may not be displayed until later if you are viewing early in the day:
1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 -14 -15 -16 -17 -18 -19 -20 -21 -22 -23 -24 -25 -26 -27 -28 -29 -30 -31 -32 -33 -34 -35 -36 -37 -38 -39 -40 -41 -42 -43 -44 -45 -46 -47 -48 -49 -50 -51 -52 -53 -54 -55 -56 -57 -58 -59 -60 -61 -62 -63 -64 -65 -66 -

Musaem Poibli Chorcai

A close-up of the old and weathered sign outside the Cork Public Museum. That's Irish taking up most of the photo, with English below it.

Green Oasis

There's a fountain in Fitzgerald Park that I knew absolutely nothing about until last week. It wasn't actually flowing, but it was still lovely. From this angle it looks very secluded, but it's actually quite central.

Storm!

There was a crazy hail storm today -- and this is how the car park looked in the midst of it. Thirty minutes later, however, all the hail had melted away, the sun was out and the sky was cloudless and blue.

Pink Death

With life comes death. These flowers have beauty even in their last hours. Or, at least I thought it was interesting enough to take a picture of, anyway.

Blooming

Took a walk out to Fitzgerald Park again today for a nice walk yesterday & the flowers were absolutely amazing. I'm sure I'll be posting more photos from the park later in the week.

I'm also unsure what the flowers in this photo are, does anyone out there know?

Such Blarney!

Blarney Castle is located in the town of Blarney, but it's very close to Cork city (8 km is ridiculously close), so I figure it counts to be put up here. :)
This photo is back from Christmas time, but I'm sure there are some lovely flowers blooming on the grounds right now; that and there are more blue skies these days.

Want to know more about Blarney & it's famous stone? Check out the website -- where you can see all the flowers in the garden as well.

Daffodil Day

The Irish Cancer Society had their Daffodil Day today. Which meant that collectors were all over town, asking for donations and giving out little daffodil pins for donors -- the photo is of mine on my bright blue coat. They also had fresh daffodils -- in fact, I wish I had taken my camera with me when I went past the Cancer Society's charity shop because there were these two ladies out there with boxes of pins and flowers -- a nice burst of colour on such a grey day.

From the Website:
The 20th anniversary of Daffodil Day is on Friday 23rd March 2007. With your support we aim to get everyone in Ireland wearing a daffodil - the international symbol of hope - and have the country ablaze with vibrant yellow blooms and other Daffodil Day merchandise. Every daffodil helps the Irish Cancer Society provide quality care and emotional support to cancer patients and their families through our free, nationwide nursing services.

It's Been Awhile...

But now that the internet is working again, and I'm back from my holiday, I figured it was time to post again. And, of course, it's been awhile since St Finbarre's has appeared here, so it's a nice way to start up again.

As a bonus, I took this whilst in York visiting a friend. Since there have been flower photos springing up all over the place, I figured I'd post one of my own. (And yes, I am aware of the very bad pun included in the previous sentence.) Once the clouds stop looking so threatening, I'll be off to find flowers around Cork...unfortunately, that may take awhile.

"Where Finbarr Taught Let Munster Learn"

As promised yesterday, the Quad. :) Taken in the fall...and on a much sunnier day than we had today.

For some history regarding the university, check out the official university site...or wikipedia, which is actually just as good (probably 'cause they used the university's site for most of their info.).

Modern UCC

An eerily quiet day on campus. This is one of the more modern buildings, the O'Rahilly Building. It houses the English dept., modern languages, Classical Studies and some others that I haven't run across yet. It was built to mimic the Quad (which is one of the original buildings on campus and I'll show it very soon), but with a modern twist.

This photo was taken about two years ago, and today there's a lovely wooden construction wall near the right-hand side of this photo, as they are adding an extension to the library, which happens to be right by the O'Rahilly.