So I'm back! From a great weekend in England!
Here's the deal. Before going into the detail of my trip to the UK, I'm going to post about this past week at work, because it was a pretty good one! I want to do that because it is already fuzzy in my mind, just because it was right before my trip to England, which I was really excited for. So I think if I were to talk about this week (Wednesday more than anything) then I'll be able to give a good detailed account of London and this past work week. And, expect lots of pictures on these next posts!
This week was actually more interesting than usual...we did the normal filing and organizing of files on Monday and Tuesday, and then on Wednesday our boss scheduled a tour of the Leinster house for myself and the other intern. I was so excited for that all week and I kind of looked at information about it before we went because I wanted to be educated on it. And actually doing the tour was SO MUCH COOLER than I was expecting! It was really really awesome, and I'm so glad we were able to do it!
This is a picture of the Leinster House from the main entrance on Kildare Street. I wasn't able to take pictures at all of the inside so the only pictures I have are of the outside :(
The Leinster House used to be the home of the Duke of Leinster, but was converted to hold both houses of the Irish government (called the Oireachtas) in 1922. The Oireachtas is comprised of the Dail Eireann and the Seanad Eireann. The Dail is the lower house/House of Representatives whose are directly elected, while the Seanad is the upper house/Senate and are members are chosen by various methods (some Senators are chosen by the Taoiseach [Prime Minister], some others are elected graduates of either University of Dublin or National University of Ireland, etc). The Dail has the most power of the two houses; the only thing that the Seanad can do is delay a bill by 80 days at the maximum.
The tour started out in the Dail chambers, which was BEAUTIFUL. The carpet was a pretty royal blue with gold trimming and all the seats in it were deep brown, it looked amazing. It was really breathtaking to actually sit in the gallery and look at everything. It was pretty much a "normal" senate chamber kind of thing, with stadium seating for the members while there was a big chair in the middle of the room for the Ceann Comhairle - the speaker of the house. I especially liked seeing the chambers because I'm part of the government at my university, so it was really interesting to see another country's government chambers and to imagine what all happened there. Really great.
After the Dail we went through some of the halls with different portraits of Taoiseach and other important people over the years. We were also able to sit in on a Seanad meeting for a little bit. There were only a couple of guys in the Seanad chamber and it wasn't nearly as breathtaking as the Dail chambers, but it was still beautiful. The room that led up to the Seanad chambers was huge with a bunch of staircases going different ways and the actual Seanad chamber ceiling was really ornately decorated. It was really gorgeous.
After that we went into a room just off the main entrance which held a couple of pictures of important people who had visited the Oireachtas. This was really great for me because I was able to learn a lot of good information pertaining to my paper! One of the pictures in this room was of JFK speaking to the Oireachtas on June 28th 1963, which is the speech that I am analyzing for my paper while I'm out here. Apparently he brought over a flag used by the Irish Brigade in various battles (including Gettysburg) and gave it to the Leinster house. That flag that he brought over was in the room with the stairs leading to the Seanad chambers, hanging on a wall in glass frame. Obviously I was really excited to see that because I was able to look at the picture of JFK speaking in the Dail chambers and to actually see the flag that he brought back and gave to the Leinster house. It also helped me get an idea of what his speech might have been like as he was delivering it in the Dail chambers.
So, overall, the tour of the Oireachtas was great, and really beneficial for me (and my paper). After the tour, our boss gave us the rest of the day off, which was really perfect. Me and the other intern that I am working with both have to complete a research paper while we are over here and we are both struggling with finding a library to use. Luckily, the National Library is in the same square as the Leinster house so we went there for a little bit and figured out the library.
This is the entrance of the National Library right next to the Leinster house. The outside of the building is actually under construction, so this is the best picture that I was able to get without getting a lot of the construction in it.
After some poking and prodding and jumping through hoops, I was able to get a Reader's Ticket! For two months! Which is fabulous, because now I'll really be able to work on getting some serious research done on my paper! Yay! I'm so excited that it actually worked! WOO HOO!
So the plan for the next three weeks to get my paper done is to head to the library every night after work and until they close at 9. It is only open until 9 from Monday to Wednesday, so those days are my designated days that I need to go and do research. And luckily they don't have internet in the Reading Room so I won't get distracted and spend all of my time NOT doing research.
So....I am losing focus on this post. I'm pretty sure that's about everything that happened on Wednesday (it feels like so long ago!). Buuuuuuuuuut. I'll fill you all in on London with every detail for tomorrow's post, and I'm going to have a bunch of pictures.
But before that happens, I gotta go to work tomorrow and then spend some time down at the National Library doing some research! Hopefully I'll be able to get a lot done!
Wish me luck.
