Kyle O'Brien

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Ireland: Day 3

We made the weekly news this morning in the Downpatrick Down Recorder, a newspaper that's over 200 years old and has been in one family for the entire time. Below you can see the picture on pg. 23 of the newspaper. Our 15 minutes of fame! Click on the picture to get a closer look!



Today we began our day by visiting the Silent Valley in the Moutains at Mourne. These mountains are just south of Newcastle and are visible from miles around. The view outside our apartment faces the northern side of the mountains.

During our visit we worked with the Mourne Heritage Trust, an organization that works to educate and revitalize the areas around the Mountains at Mourne. We worked with a ranger named David, who studied at the Queen's University in Belfast graduating with a degree in geology, and his dog Fran.

During our short time there, we removed an invasive vine plant that is growing in the river valley of this area. Apparently the vine is foreign to the ecosystem and is inhibiting the growth of the river system. Talking with David, he said there is tremendous potential to reviatlize the fish and bird population once this plant is taken from the river valley. As you can see, the picture on the top is what the forest looked like before...and the one on the bottom is what it looked like after.



After working on the forest, Dave took us to go see the damn within the Silent Valley which was built in the early 1900's to supply Belfast with freshwater. The pictures don't even begin to show how tremendously beautiful this area is as well as the size of the mountains.



All the pictures above are pictures of the water system developed by the Irish to supply Belfast with water, but these utilities are solely for any overflow. The top two pictures shows the tunnel that overflow water would come through from the damn to fill the river system. The bottom picture shows the "sinkhole" that is built right into the water so that any water that went above the appropriate water level would fall into the "sinkhole" and exit out through a tunnel into the combined Kilkeel and Annalog rivers.

The picture below is a picture of me sitting on the wall that is the final block of the damn. Behind you can see the mountains as well as the backlogged water from the Kilkeel and Annalog rivers. I'm facing the Belfast Water Service Mourne water facility as well as the backside of the damn. The backside of the damn is all grass and the grass needs to stay cut so that they can see if the damn is leaking...unbelieveable! If I had to guess... I would say that the wall that I'm sitting on is about 5/8 - 3/4 of a mile long. That's a tremendous area for potentnial failure!

Lastly, talking to some locals we found that in the 1990's many tourists weren't allowed to see the damn. They were told that it was for maitenance but everyone knew it was because Northern Ireland was protecting itself from potential IRA bombings of the damn. They realized that if the IRA were to bomb the damn, it would be tremendously detrimental to all the people in Belfast as well as the rest of Northern Ireland.



Leaving the damn and Mourne Heritage Trust, we decided to stop along the road and take pictures of the countryside. We saw the traditional and stereotypical stonefences built throughout all of the Irish countryside. These fences are freestanding and are not joined together with any type of binder or adhesive. There are holes between the rocks and actually the holes are necessary for the fence because it allows wind to pass throw the stone fences. These fences are literally everywhere along the eastern side of the Mourne Mountains and very few people still hold the skill of building stone fences. These fences are extremely dependable and can hold up for hundreds of years.




We then went to Castleward where we had a luncheon with the Down Volunteers, a volunteer center in Downpatrick. I talked with several individuals at the Volunteer Center about volunteerism in Northern Ireland as well as about corporate sponsorshinp for volunteerism. We then took a walk around the old castle, as well as around the Stragford Yacht Club. We found that Stragford was named from the Vikings whom called the area "strong fjord" because they couldn't row against the strong current in the inlet from the Irish Sea. Today, the government has actually put in wind turbines underneath the water in the Strangford Lough to provide electric power to the country.



While walking along the bay area, we saw several boats as well as the slips used by the Stragford Yacht Club. The first thing I noticed was a long concrete boat ramp called a "slipway". The reason that the slipway is so long is because of the effects that the tides have on the water. The picture below shows the Strangford Lough area at the lowest water level. The tide comes all the way back up to the grass and changes twice a day.





We then left the Castleward as well as Stragford Lough to go home. We stopped to Buch Head Inn in Dundrum and Dr. Cambell took us out for dinner. It was a great place and then we stopped again at The Dundrum Inn for a pint before heading home for the night.

It certainly was a long day and it's great to be home. I commented on the way down to one of the guys from Marquette, "It's weird how we see Dundrum as home right now."

It's so cliche to say that everyone is so nice to us and helping us, but we truly feel that the people here have been extremely accomodating. We are so gracious for the Irish people and cutlure. It's amazing how much more respect people have of others when they begin to live in a slightly slower pace society.

Tomorrow is the European Union election day. Work starts at 10:30 AM for me...really early right ;-)

For now...cheerio!

- Kyle


P.S. This scene made me ask Dave, our park ranger, about the hunting and fishing in Northern Ireland. He says that as far as big game, there is no hunting, but there are some private upland game bird farms. Also, there are some rainbow trout in the streams around the island.

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