The Emerald Life

Experiencing Ireland and the Irish

[germanlander]

Had a lovely day benchmark hunting in Inistioge yesterday. I took the Kilbride coach, walked up the hill beyond Woodstock Gardens and down again. I found four of them, not too bad at all. Arrived back in the village an hour before the bus back arrived, but no pub was open, so I had to sit in St. Columcille's Church to work on my radio piece about benchmarks. It was quite cool outside and okay for walking, but not sitting. Thomastown will be next.

[germanlander]

Eine Ode an OpenStreetMap

Nach langer Zeit mal wieder ein Post auf Deutsch, vor allem, weil ich meiner Familie erklären will, was ich in letzter Zeit so getrieben habe, und vielleicht interessiert es auch andere. Seit Ende November 2019 habe ich sehr intensiv in Irland bei OpenStreetMap (ehrenamtlich) mitgearbeitet. So sehr, dass ich die meisten Bearbeitungen im ganzen Land habe. (Mit Abstand.) Aber was ist das und warum sollte man seine Zeit damit “verschwenden”?

Also, OpenStreetMap ist ein Kartenanbieter (online natürlich), der OpenSource ist. “Sprich deutsch mit uns, Kind!” - Okay. Wie bei Wikipedia kann jeder mitmachen und es ist nicht kommerziell, anders als zum Beispiel GoogleMaps, wo ja auch jede Suche gespeichtert wird, so dass die wissen, nach welchen Restaurants oder Ärzten man gesucht hat. Ist jedem selbst überlassen.

OpenStreetMap ist aber inzwischen sehr viel mehr als ein normales Navigationshilfsmittel. Je nachdem, wie viel Leute beigetragen haben, kann man nach sehr speziellen Sachen suchen, nach denen man bei GoogleMaps m.E. nicht suchen kann. Zum Beispiel nach Defibrillatoren in Leipzig. Das scheinen nicht allzu viele zu sein, wahrscheinlich sind nicht alle eingetragen. Oder nach Fahrradläden in Leipzig. Schon viel besser. Oder nach Recycling in Weimar (zur Abwechslung mal). Die Möglichkeiten sind schier unendlich, vorausgesetzt, jemand hat sich die Mühe gemacht und hat das alles eingetragen. Eine auf dieserlei Dinge spezialisierte App könnte die Daten dann auslesen und praktisch dem Endnutzer anzeigen.

Zum Glück sind wir ja nicht alle gleich und haben unterschiedliche Interessen. Ich habe zum Beispiel die letzten drei Monate nach “benchmarks” gesucht und die gefundenen dann eingetragen. Was ist das nun wieder? - Das sind Markierungen, die zwischen 1839 und 1871 irgendwann (so genau habe ich das noch nicht herausgefunden), in Irland von den Landvermessern in Mauern eingemeißelt wurden, damit man später die Stelle wieder finden konnte. An dieser Stelle haben die Vermesser die Höhe über dem Meeresspiegel gemessen und berechnet und das dann in einer Karte eingetragen. Manche dieser alten Karten sind online verfügbar, so finde ich die. Wir haben eins am Rothe House und insgesamt habe ich in Co. Kilkenny bisher 64 gefunden. Ich habe eine Karte gebastelt:

Vollbildanzeige

(bringt sicher eher was am Laptop als auf dem Smartphone), worauf die grauen Punkte die benchmarks sind. Die ersten ungefähr 30 habe ich ohne Karte gefunden, aber jetzt prüfe ich halt, welche noch da sind. Sie sind nicht geschützt, sondern gehören der Person, der das Haus gehört. Einige sind ganz verschwunden, weil die Mauer eingerissen wurde, manche sind überputzt. Ich trage nur die ein, die ich tatsächlich gesehen habe oder von denen ich Fotos bekommen habe (denn ich habe schon ein paar Leute angesteckt). Sehr wenige Leute wissen, was es ist und ich gebe daher am 11.1. eine Führung in Kilkenny. Ich habe meistens noch die Maße der Markierungen eingetragen und in welchen Karten man sie findet. Eine Dame vom Denkmalamt (Heritage Council, das ist so ungefähr das Äquivalent) hatte mich gebeten, ihr eine Datenbank zu erstellen, aber es klang nicht so, als ob sie mich dafür bezahlen würde und da wollte ich denen nicht exklusiven Zugriff erlauben, sondern habe lieber alles gleich für alle sichtbar in OpenStreetMap eingetragen.

Die blauen Punkte auf der Karte sind Schwengelpumpen, die ich auch angefangen habe einzutragen. Wenn man das spaßenshalber mal mit Berlin vergleichen will, wo es offenbar große Fans von den Pumpen gibt.

[germanlander]

Russian-Irish connection

This coffee maker allegedly was used to make coffee for Lenin and today for me.

The story is that my friend and host of a Swiss lunch today had a Swiss husband (not sure if divorced by law or by natural causes) whose grandfather was a supporter of Lenin and worked for the Swiss railway. Lenin came to Switzerland to look at their railway an during the course of this visit, he was served coffee from this contraption.

The electric lead looks old alright, but I don't know about the plastic parts; they look rather modern. Maybe she meant it was a model like this. Surely they had different plastic or even only Bakelite back then. Anyway, her grandfather-in-law met Lenin.

[germanlander]

Trip to Booterstown

I had to go to Dublin to apply for a new passport at the German embassy (btw got an invitation from the ambassador to her Christmas concert at her residence. Had to decline unfortunately, because I'm previously engaged. Tough being popular. :D). This was basically the view when I stepped off the bus. It's amazing to have such wildlife just 25 mins bus ride from O'Connell Bridge.

[germanlander]

Lovely organic carrots from Rothe House Garden. They’re quite bright orange, almost orange yellow. But I read somewhere that carrots didn’t actually use to be orange. So that makes sense. There also wasn’t a word for orange in the English language until the Renaissance, the first record being a will in 1512, according to this website about the history of carrots.

I’ll add the name of the variety as soon as the gardener has gotten back to me. She told me, but I forgot. Lindberg or Lindsomething. "Limburg Yellow" actually.

[germanlander]

Visit Original Link

Early Music & Dance in the city of JS Bach

I’m in Germanland for a few days, on of the stops was Leipzig. My former flatmate from uni days who plays the cello had invited me to this early music and dance evening in a parish Hall (which was more a parish palace, huuuge place). I don’t dance on principle, but I had a violin with me so I asked if I could join in. They did let me join, even though I hadn’t been at any rehearsal, so we had two violins, two recorders, a cello, a double base, a Venetian mandolin, a baroque guitar and a drummer. Most of them in some sort of period costume. On the dancefloor, about 60 people mostly in period costume (covering about 8 centuries). There were three sets of dances, each about an hour long, so it lasted from 7pm to 11pm. We played those French an English dances (one was the Chaconne from the Fairy Queen by Henry Purcell) and the dance masters explained how to dance them. It all sounded like knitting patterns to me, but it looked lovely. I won’t post pictures because I didn’t ask for permission, but I’ll add a recording of our playing.

The society or club or whatever is called Freydanz which is an oldie timey spelling of “free dance” in German. Most of the arrangements were written bei Jörg Sander, the guitar player whom I know from my time in the orchestra in Leipzig, where he plays the cello.

It was just so enjoyable and so my thing, I’m dying to do something like this in Kilkenny!!! They could actually dance in places where people danced back in the day! And it could be a new tourist thing or an alternative to getting drunk during a stag/ hen party.

[germanlander]

Music History

Last Friday, I went to a lecture by Frank Lawrence about Medieval music in St. Canice’s Cathedral. It was really about church music in Ireland in the Middle Ages, because there are no actual sources for St. Canice’s apart from Bishop Ledrede’s poems/ songs, but they were supposed to be sung in taverns and such. Anyway, Dr. Lawrence was talking about how early polyphonic music started by a set of skilled singers, one singing the melody known to all the singers, and then the other one to three singers improvising. And I thought, sure, that’s pretty much what happens in a session in a pub nowadays, ideally. And rest assured, I went to a session in the Home Rule Club, where Brendan Mulvihill (Wikipedia about his dad) was playing. And he started off Planxty Irwin (which most players will know, even if he played it in D instead of G), and he started improvising and I thought “I can do that” and I did, still following the melody, but filling in little decorative faster notes here and there. That was great intellectually and all.

Three years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to at all. But now I do it all the time. Even when I don’t know songs, I manage to play along mostly (especially when it’s country western, which is just too predictable).

[germanlander]

Carrigeen Graveyard

I was out again benchmark hunting. I’ve almost finished Kilkenny City, so I’m venturing out to extend my map (http://u.osmfr.org/m/382704/). Today I did the Johnswell Road and New Orchard Road. I did not find one single one, but that’s telling a story as well. There might be still some around on little bridges, but they are so overgrown that I couldn’t tell. A lot of old walls seem to have been replaced by fences, and the benchmarks are gone with the walls.

Carrigeen graveyard was on the side of the road, so I just went in and had a look around. There is very little left of the church, as you can see.

It was quite cold on the bike, but it is fun to explore the countryside.

PS: I forgot to mention that I’m using the old maps available on geohive.ie (25′’ map and Cassini map) to locate the benchmarks first.

[germanlander]

20655

81 years ago today, my great-grandfather was arrested and brought to Buchenwald concentration camp, because he was Jewish. Lucky for him, he was in a "mixed marriage" and let go after a couple of days and only arrested again in February of 1945 and brought to the concentration camp in Theresienstadt. He also survived this. Wouldn't it be great if things like that did the happen any longer? But they do, with Muslims in China, with Mexicans in the United States and I'm sure elsewhere. So much for learning from history.

20655 was the number he was given in Buchenwald.

[germanlander]

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been out hunting these things. They are benchmarks from the Ordnance Survey indicating different heights. In the UK, they often have "OS” and “BM” written next to it, apparently. Unfortunately, I do not know (1) when they were done, if (2) they were all done in the one go and (3) why there aren’t any in certain places where there definitely should be some. They are usually on pretty old buildings that were deemed to be there for some time after.

ad 1) I couldn’t find any on any buildings established by Lady Desart. For example, I expected one on the Carnegie Library on John’s Quay, but the actual one is about 10 meters to the left of the library on a almost free standing wall. Very random. I found a file online with the UK ones and the earliest date there is 1887.

ad 2) I’m pretty sure they differ in size and execution. The rotated ones (Rothe House and New Building Lane) were probably not done that way (unless the stone mason had a few pints beforehand), but rather the stones were recycled.

ad 3) I couldn’t find any in Maudlin Street (completely redone in the 1960s or thereabouts), James’ Street, Dean Street (completely redone in the 1960s or thereabouts as well), the Town Hall (might be rendered over or the one on St. Mary’s church covers that area already), none of the graveyards I checked have any (St. Maul’s, St. Rioch’s, St. Patrick’s). The only churches with benchmarks in the vicinity were St. Canice’s Cathedral, St. Mary’s Church (Medieval Mile Museum) and St. Mary’s Cathedral. I couldn’t find one on the train station either, so either it is not accessible or gone or the survey was done after.

Anyway, here’s a map with all the ones I’ve found so far (to be extended in future).

Enter Full Screen

[germanlander]

Ballybur Castle

My friend Jim visited me for the day and we went on a little castle hunt through Kilkenny. The weather was mostly good and gave us some good light. I had been to Ballybur Castle before, but it’s rented out as an Airbnb or something and I hadn’t walked passed the gate, but this time, there were people we could ask.

Jim had given me a Nikon D50 just a few weeks ago, but I still have to figure out how to use it (door and doorknob picture are photoshopped). The cat was an absolute lucky shot. It was broad daylight, but the camera must have done something I wasn’t aware of.

We also went to Burnchurch, Newtown and Kells, but I have posted photos of those places before.

[germanlander]

Update on Ancestry DNA results

Got an email from ancestry.com today that my “Ethnicity estimate” had been updated. So I logged in and low and behold, suddenly there’s 1% Irish/ Scottish. I’m pretty sure that is not possible. Also, the Swedish percentage is up to 10% now. I do know that I have ancestors in Northern Germany and there could well be some overlap with Sweden genetically, but Ireland - no way.

Germanic Europe - obviously, yes. England is in my family tree as is Eastern Europe and possibly Jewish.

It gave me a good chuckle anyway.

My housemate said jokingly that they have updated it, because I’m in Ireland for almost three years. We’ll see how much more it will be in future. :D

[germanlander]

Lady Lavery aka The Red Book

This beautiful lady is a portrait painted by her husband, John Lavery, hanging in Rothe House in Kilkenny. In her time, she was considered the most beautiful Irish woman in Ireland - I’m not gonna argue with that. She had been on loan to the Hunt Museum in Limerick the last couple of weeks, but she returned last week. When I was working yesterday, actually only covering for a sick colleague, the boss asked me to help her put her back on the wall again. So there I was, carrying her bubble-wrapped self, balancing her on my foot in the lift. I was a bit nervous, but I didn’t drop her or anything, she’s fine. She’s back on the wall, all connected to the alarm system. Apparently, she’s worth 1.5 million. I hope I’ll never have anything as expensive as that on my foot again. I think I’m gonna wink at her every time I open up the museum from now on.

[germanlander]

Someone showed me this today. Hilarious.

[germanlander]

Back from a weekend in Holland. Abbeyfolk played at the Music Festival in Hoogeveen and I was part of it, woohooo! I don’t have any pictures taking on stage, because the stage smoke was too dense and it didn’t work out. But that had this nice installation in the foyer (I wonder if they meant to say “Failte”). The second photograph was of a different gig, obviously not us. We also got to meet Sharon Shannon and Susan O’Neill.

It was quite an experience.

EDIT: I forgot to say that I loved the lack of taxis and abundance of bicycles!

[germanlander]

Just for fun i checked how long it would take me to get there. Four times faster walking than taking public transport. Ah, Ireland.

[germanlander]

I finally finished my medieval shoes today. That was an enjoyable (and for my finger tips painful) experience. A local upholsterer (it’s his head to the right in the picture with “The Guild of Master Craftsmen”) had given me the leather for free and a local shoemaker put a rubber sole on them. The Viking toggles are not quite 12th century Hiberno-Norman, I guess, but I was trying to avoid ordering online and after all, the Normans are still descendants of the Vikings, so it’s not completely wrong. So they’re not 100% historic, but I’m sure medieval shoemakers took some liberties.