This week was very tiring as I pushed my body to the limit! Last Saturday I walked 10 miles because I had to run some errands and I decided not to take the bus so I can get to know the area by foot better. Surprisingly, Dublin feels a lot smaller when you walk on foot. Unfortunately I chose the wrong Saturday to walk so much because the next day we went to Experience Gaelic Games where we learned how to play Irish Football and Hurling! I was placed on defence for both games, and even though I’m a lot older than the other people in the program and have broken glasses, I did a great job stopping their advances. I think I would’ve made an excellent goalie in a different life, and I just enjoy being a defender in general. I didn’t take any pictures of our time at the Gaelic Games, but I got a picture of the sweet treat I rewarded myself with after. And just to show how much of a glutton for punishment I am, I walked back to the dorms with my friend Abbott which was over 7 miles and took 2 and a half hours! Needless to say, my legs have been killing me for the past week!
On Monday, we wen to Kilmainham Gaol which is a famous prison used for several hundred years in Dublin. It was very spooky seeing the writing on the walls of people who were just desperate to leave, and I was really sad to hear that children were often locked up with the other inmates. But after hearing that people deliberately tried to get sent to prison for the food and shelter, I would rather prefer children be housed than to live in otherwise inhospitable conditions. We also learned about the infmaous political prisoner Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell was the person who popularized the boycott and he was a famous leader in nonviolent protesting which I admire.
Another really interesting thing about Kilmainham Gaol is that they built a panopticon! A panopticon is a theoretical prison design where every cell can be viewed from the center of the room, but the prisoners would never know whether they were being watched at any given moment because the center room would be guised in a black mirror. The constant pressure of being watched would make prisoners behave at all times because they don’t want to risk getting caught if they were currently being watched. This thought experiment has created lots of insightful social commentary, such as cameras taking taking on the role of de facto panopticons and camera phones creating decentralized panopticons for the masses. But it’s really interesting to see that there was a prison that actually tried to make it work! But my favorite fact about this prison is that it’s the same prison they used to recreate the prison in Paddington 2. I love the Paddington movies!
Afterwards, we went into the Kilmainham Gaol museum and we saw many exhibits. The saddest one was where a man before his execution gave his wife his wedding ring back along with a note. Overall, I think this was a very interesting prison, but since I’ve visited Alcatraz before, I’m not as impressed. Still, I respect the history that took place here, and I can’t wait to see what else lies ahead on this trip!