I have been wanting to visit Glasnevin since arriving in Ireland and it had, until yesterday, eluded my grasp. The cemetery as you can read from the linked wikipedia article is the largest nondenominational cemetery on the island and it contains the last resting spots of some of the most notable public figures of the last two centuries. In fact, the article claims it contains the remains of over 1.5M souls. That seems a rather heady claim, but bears consideration. Existing during famine times the cemetery existed during a period when roman catholics were not permitted to maintain their own cemeteries and had to conduct what rites they could in protestant graveyards. Certainly Glasnevin is on par with a place like Pére LaChaise in Paris as the national cemetery. However, the cemetery in Paris is rather lush and you have a feeling of creeping organic decomposition and a sense that you are at the portal to the underworld. At Glasnevin, there is a sense of reaching out towards heaven. The vast collection of monuments soar upwards and you feel surrounded and amongst the concrete remembrances, but clearly on a worldly plain.

The cemetery is hard to miss. As you approach you can see the magnificent round tower erected over the crypt of Daniel O’Connor for a great distance and on closer approach the towering walls and guard towers at the corners make the site unmistakable. Even on a dreary day one is in awe on approach. This feeling of great appreciation that one is in a special place is all the more heightened as you walk amongst the markers of figures that you may only be familiar with from the pages of history books or spoken in reverence. Casement, Boland, Devoy, Brugha, Collins, Maud Gonne Macbride, to but name a few. And only a few as the weather was filthy and I now look forward to heading out on a sunnier occasion to pay proper respect to the memory of the many more that are buried here.

The President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, gave a very thoughtful and extremely poignant speech (in the driving rain) paying tribute to O’Connell as one of the first human right activists and connected his legacy directly to the ideals of the Irish people today. The visit was brief, but we did manage to get down to the crypt and actually touch O’Connell’s sarcophagus. The vault itself is decorated with motif’s rooted in the nineteenth century, fine celtic knot work and bold statements of the accomplishments of the great man. I hope that the pictures that I share can do this justice.

On another note there is a huge shiny new visitors centre nearing completion which promises to ‘tell the story’ of the souls buried at Glasnevin…I look forward to seeing the interpretation.

If you choose to visit Glasnevin, Bus 40 leaves from Parnell Square quite frequently and drops you right at the gates to the cemetery. Bus 140 is even better as it comes right from UCD down the dual carriage way, Leeson Street, Stephen’s Green and across the river right past the cemetery as well, so it is very easy to reach. For myself, I hope that I can find a nice dry day to revisit and experience the cemetery.

When I started here last year I just missed the No vote. I did witness the multitude of signs on all the street posts (resoundingly no) and I have a collection somewhere. This time around the Yes side is determined not to be caught napping. Tomorrow will tell the tale.

On the absolutely esoteric side, I wanted to share a couple posters. This first No poster, I simply don’t get, but then maybe I am missing all the subtle hints. There are actually two versions. One is dated 1945-2009 – the other 1916 -2009 and the tag line – European/Irish Democracy? What the hell do they mean? They both feature the same little girl’s face with the eyes changed in colour…a lovely green tint for the nod towards the Easter Rising. I just have no clue. Is a poster like this supposed to make me want to vote no? Am I defending the poor waif’s shattered dreams? The poor wee thing.

Just to be somewhat even handed though, here’s another crap poster (there are good ones out there too) by the yes side entitled ‘Yes in the City.’ Almost enough to vote No. Not sure what this one is trying to convey either, but all it says to me is that Yes means materialism and whiny navel gazing. I feel compelled to protected my country of residence from that sort of thing.

All the signage does make for the most colourful street scenes, so to make up for the fine autumnal colours that I expect that I am missing in Canada, I am finding my enjoyment on street lamp foliage rather than maple trees this season.

The talk explored tag clouds of a couple varieties, tree maps, timelines, and introduced OpenCalais as a machine driven means to apply context to data. We had a very fruitful discussion afterward as attendees raised some very intriguing questions ranging from issues of visual misrepresentation, the role of the consumer of the visualisation in the making judgements, as well as privacy and the crucial importance of not losing sight of traditional research fundamentals in the glitz of technological toys. I attempted to convey the use of data visualisation for both analytical process and as a means of presenting research findings. Technology forced me to present using PDF as the presentation driver and thankfully the last minute change came off without a hitch. Hopefully, if technology cooperated, the talk will be available for public consumption through iTunes U very shortly.

It was my pleasure to be invited to give the talk and I thank Jason McElligott and Jennifer Edmonds fo the opportunity. I was enormously pleased by the interest in data visualisation in the humanities and certainly this looks like a very ripe area for the DHO to focus some efforts as part of our mandate.

The talk was delivered in the Trinity Irish Art Research Centre which is housed in the renovated Provost’s House Stables. A very unique location and a rather cool architectural reuse.

Belfast has a strange gateway railway station. The central statin doesn’t quite seem that central, and yet I gather is more central than it once was…so it’s all rather relative I suppose. What sort of image does Belfast conjure up for you? Recent times of course remind us of the troubles, of sectarian violence, of division, and of extremes. yet, when I was through in April on my way up the north Antrim coast, it was clear that Belfast is a city of resurgent affluence, new construction, investment and certainly different circumstances than the view from outside might portend. You may also remember the Harland and Wolf shipyards that produced the Titanic and of a working-class urban centre. Belfast is not the place of memory. The first impression as you walk into town, even on a Sunday is that its a bit of a shopping town. They have some quite large city centre malls – the Tesco is even situated in a restored neo-classical masterpiece. There are pedestrian friendly streets, a wealth of high-end boutiques, cafe’s and … as of last week a bright spanking new Apple store. The scale of the city is a pleasant surprise. Very walkable and very densely rich. The architecture has the feel of fin-de-siecle turrets, arches and fine craftsmanship. A lot of red, sandstone mason’s pride.

I had a superb and filling late lunch at ‘Made in Belfast’ – a wonderfully eclectic eatery. A pint of Guinness along with some Belfast crab on brown bread (with olive oil, pesto, cherry tomatoes). I was warned that the burgers were not available (some incomprehensible explanation) and that the special of the day as a substitute was roast beef. Well, when in belfast, go for the special. It was delicious and was served with a wonderful au jus, carmellized onions, broccolli and green beans. I was able to charge my mobile at a plug alongside my table, pop onto the internet on a dwindling laptop battery and satiate my noontime needs.

After some wandering about to get feel for the city, I did feel obliged to pop into the Crown pub for another pint. Don’t be counting…I may have had more than one with lunch. But, the Crown is renowned. The only disappointment was the unavailability of fresh oysters…my heart had leapt at the possibility. All the more so as it would have been a sense of connectedness with the west on Sunday. The stores close at a very generous 6pm on Sundays, so this worked well for me catching a 7pm train back to Dublin. The trains were all on time, comfortable and quite reasonable in cost. The trip home was a packed crew…presumably returnees from a full weekend in the north.

The currency situation is rather odd I find. Having gotten used to Euros, all is well…you just don’t do the conversion and life seems alright. In point of fact in Dublin, you are paying in euros, directly what you would pay in dollars, so life is more expensive here. There has been a lot of press lately about how many of the chains are gouging customers in the republic. However, despite this, I found that I was actually paying in sterling what I am paying in Euros. That’s a wee bit more again. This was not the case in all venues, as the pints cost me £2 as opposed to being as high as €5 in some Dublin pubs at certain times…curiosity…liquor costs vary by time of day in Ireland. Novel.

All in all, though, a fine place for a visit and I’ll look forward to tripping up again to get further afield.

The National War Memorial gardens were the polar opposite. Its also a substantial park, but it’s somber and respectful (as it should be) the hilly grounds very much a manicured space festooned with ruiney-looking monuments. Respect and reverance. On the downside I swam back in the pouring rain. Well, at least the larger portion of the day was dry. Quite the change from yesterday, the sunburn effects of which I can still feel