Lazy days of summer

I was being lazy in Ireland last week, which would cover August 10th, National Lazy Day in the USA.  However, even though I say it myself, I was being quite active climbing the Hill of Howth, just north of Dublin.

The card is one I bought while there but I sent it to myself in the end. Céad Míle Fáilte means "welcome", or literally "a hundred thousand welcomes".  It's a good many years since I was there, not since I left school in Dublin, but I must say I found everyone very welcoming.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday, hosted by Beth at The Best Hearts are Crunchy. You can visit her to see if she was lazy or not.

County Clare in Ireland

It's a map so it must be Monday!

As you can see on the card, County Clare is on the west coast of Ireland.  Clare is probably best known for the Cliffs of Moher, also pictured on the card.

Wetlands and amphibians

I had to turn to amphibians because I've shown snakes from Taiwan, and with the Petit Prince, dinosaurs from the Jurassic Coast, all sorts on the Origin of Species.  And could find no more reptiles.

I was quite pleased that the amphibian stamps arrived on cards from places I think of as, well, damp.  Finland is often called the Land of 1000 Lakes; Ireland has rivers and lakes galore, and in my mind Denmark comes somewhere between them.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

A Killarney motor

If the writing at the bottom left is indecipherable, it says "A Killarney Motor.  Mostly propelled by good humour".  It is signed by the artist L. Anthony who produced a number of humorous cards set in Ireland. This one is unused but dates from some time before 1907.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday hosted on Beth Niquette's blog, The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

The Giant's Causeway on stamps

In 1981 the Post Office issues a set of stamps to illustrate various areas protected by the National Trust and one of them showed the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. Above is the PHQ stamp card issued at the same time.

While I was looking for the card, I came across a National Trust book of stamps issued in 1995 and wondered if the Giant's Causeway had figured again.  It hadn't but while I was on that line of thought I came across a Northern Ireland book of stamps.

Inside I was really surprised to find that inside the front and back covers were two postcards and the first had a stamp almost exactly the same as the 1981 design, only now it's 35p.  Inflation!

The stamp is printed directly on to the postcard so I'm not at all sure whether it was a valid stamp.  It looks as though it has phosphor lines on it, so maybe.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

Green Ireland

Ireland is where I was born and to some extent it was where I was brought up too.  I almost went back for my university days but decided on somewhere else in the end.  It didn't stop me visiting family as often as I could in the meantime.  As a result I consider Ireland to be "my" country and so I find the cosy cottage image of Ireland shown on so many postcards quite irritating, especially when they come with stamps like the one shown above marking UNESCO's World Year of Physics which allows a more modern Ireland.  The contrast is fun though.

This stamp was sent in 1981, the 50 year anniversary of the Youth Hostel Association in Ireland.  An Óige means "youth" in the Irish language.  I'm pleased, even amazed, to find I haven't forgotten it all.

The final stamp is my favourite one and comes from a set shown in its entirety today by Bob.  I really wish they would re-issue them.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

Trinity College Library

As you can see from the title on the card, this is a picture taken by a German photographer but it shows the library in Trinity College Dublin in Ireland which dates back to 1592 when the College was founded. It's the largest library in Ireland with 5 million volumes.

One of the most famous books it owns, if "book" is the right word, is the Book of Kells something I'd dearly love to see.  It was written approximately around the year 800 and is beautifully illuminated.  It was presented to Trinity in 1661 but until that time had been kept in the abbey church in Kells.

The postcard itself, which was sent from Germany, appears to have been part of a calendar.  I deduced that from "Sehnsuchts Kalender" printed on the back.

St Patrick's Day

Life at a different pace

Although this is a card sent in 1988, I feel sure you could find the same scene today. Some peace could be a good preparation for St Patrick's Day, but I would like to bet many of the noisier celebrations won't be in Ireland at all.

I think the sender was in training for something similar (though not St Patrick's Day unless he started 5 months early) because he lists the things he's been doing, including the Guinness brewery and the Irish Whiskey Corner in Dublin.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday hosted on Beth Niquette's blog The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

Little Skellig and Skellig Michael

Off the south west tip of Ireland are two islands known as The Skelligs: Little Skellig which is an uninhabited bird sanctuary, and Great Skellig, or Skellig Michael, which has the remains of a very early monastery.  This view is taken from Skellig Michael looking towards Little Skellig.

This monastery was built something like 600 years ago on the island 8 miles or 12 km off the coast.  Its remoteness has helped keep it amazingly well preserved so even today a visitor can see the beehive shaped dwellings, the oratories, and St Michael's Church.  Boat trips are strictly controlled to limit the number of visitors and allowed only during good weather because of the fairly steep and hazardous climb from the landing points.  It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996.

"But for the magic that takes you out, far out of this time and this world, there is Skellig Michael, ten miles off the Kerry Coast, shooting straight up 700 feet out of the Atlantic. Whoever has not stood in the graveyards at the summit of that cliff, among the beehive dwellings and their beehive oratory, does not know Ireland through and through.  It is the beauty of Ireland that has made us what we are." ~  George Bernard Shaw, 1910.

Click on the button to visit Jocelyn's cuckootree to take part in Our Wonderful World Tuesday.

Miss Aileen Mac Carthy

I've chosen this card for this week's Sepia Saturday entry on the basis of the picture of a young woman/girl and an animal.

As you may be able to see, there is a quote from the song "Phil the Fluter's Ball": Miss Aileen Mac Carthy and her private ass and cart.  In fact it isn't a direct quote because the song makes reference to the beautiful Miss Bradys in a private ass and cart so I've no idea where Miss Aileen Mac Carthy came from.  I wonder if she's the model.

The card appears to date from somewhere between 1902 and 1907.  It allowed a message to be written on the back "except to the United States, Japan and Spain".  The regulations to allow it changed for British cards in 1902 and for US cards in 1907.

The writer of the song was Percy French (1954-1920) who was a successful entertainer in Ireland and elsewhere.  I remember many of his songs from my youth in Ireland:  "The Mountains of Mourne", "Come Back Paddy Reilly, to Ballyjamesduff", and my father's constant favourite used on many occasions, "Are ye right there, Michael, are ye right?".

But I'll leave you with the chorus from "Phil the Fluter's Ball"

With the toot of the flute, and the twiddle of the fiddle-O!
Hopping in the middle, like a herrin' on the griddle-O!
Up! down, hands around, crossing to the wall!
Hadn't we the gaiety at Phil the Fluter's Ball.

And I'll be singing it for the rest of today.

Updated to add some links to the song:
Ronnie Drew (most authentic to my ear)
The Bachelors (with words)
The High Kings (modern arrangement)

A map of central Dublin

I have postcards of several of the places shown on this map of Dublin in Ireland:

2. O'Connell Monument
3. Old Parliament House and College Green
7. Christ Church Cathedral
10. St Stephen's Green
14. Trinity College

It's the city where I was born and where I did at least some of my growing up.

Horse drawn trams in Belfast

The Sepia Saturday prompt this week is an omnibus, a passenger carrying road vehicle.  The first ones, dating from 1820, were horse drawn.

Horse drawn trams were later adopted because the wheels rolled more easily along the rails, so horses could pull heavier loads (= more passengers) and could get to their destinations slightly more quickly.  the ones in these cards used to run on the streets of Belfast in Northern Ireland.

Royal Avenue, Belfast

Castle Place, Belfast

The Belfast Street Tramways Company first operated horse drawn trams in 1870 until they were bought out by Belfast Corportation in 1905.  During that year they were electrified so the pictures must date from before then.

The cards themselves probably date from about 1902, I would say.  They do have divided backs but there is space on the front left for messages and it looks as though the "Write Here for Inland Postage only" has been added later.

Cobh

Cobh was the embarkation point for America during the famine years (1844-1848).  From Cobh, hundreds of thousands of hungry Irish men and women left to build a new life for themselves.  Many went on to do well but others died on the long and arduous journey.  today Cobh is a bright and vibrant town with much to offer the visitor.

In 1964 we spread our wings

The first card above was one bought by my father and unused. Although there is a scribbled 1964 on it, it must date from at least two or three years earlier because St Andrews church on Freeman Street had been demolished by 1962.

Here was the common ground for all of us - going to school in this town, Grimsby in Lincolnshire, during our teenage years as we were finding our feet as we strived for adulthood. Some of us had lived here from birth, others were just passing through. Now we we've scattered throughout the country.  In 1964 all these cards were sent to me by friends as we took our first steps taking summer holidays without parents.

Wendy and Rosie went to Rosslare, in Ireland.  The weather wasn't too good but they seemed to have fun recovering from hard work at school.

Jennifer and Susan went to Scotland, a "grand tour" of Largs, Arran, Inverary, Loch Lomond and Edinburgh.  The card itself has a story.  I found it as I moved a small desk that used to be my mother's.  It dropped out of a narrow slot which can't be seen unless the desk is on its side.  The card arrived for me while I was living at home and it must have fallen behind the drawer soon afterwards.  The desk has moved house at least six times and yet the card didn't fall out until last month.

Muriel and Esther went to Chichester.  Muriel has since returned to that area and teaches nearby.

My sister went on an exchange to France.  She went with strict instructions to write home frequently and, goody-two-shoes that she is, she did.  I think she bought all the cards at the beginning of the trip, probably even wrote them all at the same time, and then posted them every other day.

The card shows the cross channel ferry, the Lord Warden, the first drive-on, drive-off car ferry for British Railway's cross channel service.  She was launched in 1951.  In October 1964 she was repainted in the new colours for British rail: blue hull, red funnel.  At the end of 1979 she went to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, but just a year later was sent to Pakistan for scrapping.

And I, what was I doing?  I was staying with my grandmother in Dublin, and apparently not sending any postcards home.

You can find some other flights of fancy at Sepia Saturday.

The Rock of Cashel

For years I thought the Rock of Cashel was just that, a rock.  Maybe a large one.  In fact for several hundred years it was the traditional seat of the kings of the south west province of Ireland, Munster.  The medieval buildings are an exceptional example of Celtic art and the architecture of the period.  Queen Elizabeth ended her historic trip to Ireland in May with a visit here.

Dublin's fair city

Four lovely pictures of the capital city of Ireland, Dublin:

Top left, Christchurch Cathedral
Top right, Trinity College
Bottom right, the river Liffey
Bottom left, colourful Georgian doors.

It's not often that you see a cathedral with attached bridge but here you have one in Christchurch Cathedral.  the bridge leads to the Synod Hall which was built on the site of an earlier church.  The Hall is now the home for an exhibition of medieval Dublin, Dublina.

The emerald isle

Unmistakably Ireland, I think: green fields, sheep, low cottages in the distance, a rugged coastline.  I must go back soon.  According to the reverse of the card, it's the Beara Peninsula, west Cork.

The many faces of Ireland

Over the years I have accumulated a large number of cards from Ireland, mostly from family.  The older ones sometimes show a romanticised version of a traditional Ireland.

The more modern ones usually show beautiful scenery or modern city life.

The one I want to show today, because of the stamps, dates from 1964 but doesn't really fit into either category.

The view is of what was at the time University College Dublin but now is the National Concert Hall.  It was originally built for the Dublin International Exhibition of 1865.

The stamps on it were first issued in the 1920s but I like them better than most of the more recent definitive issues but maybe I'm just old-fashioned.  I think the green map is probably the most apt, but the Celtic cross is my all time favourite.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"