Red FM and Blarney

Today we first visited Red FM. It is located in Cork and it is the number one radio station between the ages of 15 to 35- year-olds. It won best breakfast show in Ireland two years in a row. Grainne Murnae is the advertising sales manager who spoke with us. She actually went to school for English and philosophy. She said that there is no government subsidy. They get revenue from advertising which then pays for wages and keeps the show going. Their license is specifically for the ages from 15 to 35 because they have the most disposable income. If someone requests to play oldies, they can’t because that is not targeting their demographic market. The age group slightly differs from the U.S. In the U.S we start at 18. There are pros and cons to either side as to why Red FM is specific. Eilsh Barry is Red FM scriptwriter. She prepares scripts in English and Irish. There are no Irish commercials because that would cause too narrow of a demographic and some people may not understand. They also can’t talk about drinking in a glamorous manner. Public service announcements must be in Irish and English language. Collin O’Sullivan was the last to speak to us. He is program director who basically makes sure everyone is doing their job. After the lectures we saw a room where they have production.

Our next stop was Blarney Castle where I kissed the famous stone for good luck. Though it is a touristy thing to do, I am glad I did it for the experience. Waiting and walking up the narrow staircases I felt like I was at an amusement park such as Hershey Park. But this time I didn’t get to the top and ride a three minutes roller coaster, I bent over backwards for a two second kiss. I believe I took some great photos from the experience to remember always. It was fun and memorable. Then I went shopping at the Woolen Mills located right next to the Blarney Castle!

Now that everything is done on the agenda. I have free time which will be most likely spent editing photos and chilling!! I love this hotel and I will be sad to leave tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. There is a church a few blocks away that keeps ringing at least every half hour. I don’t mind it but I think others are annoyed. In fact while writing this song I recognized a hymn. :-)

And it just gets better and BETTER!

Today we visited Wicklow Mountain National Park and St. Kevin’s monastery. I’ve never seen so many Celtic crosses at one time. At St. Kevin’s monastery there are a ton of tombstones that are compacted in a small area. There was also a round tower, a cathedral, a priests’ house, St. Kevin’s cross, and St. Kevin’s church. Overall the area was simply beautiful. I loved listening to stories of St. Kevin especially about the one where he had a girl stalker that he pushed her into a lake which caused her to drown!

The drive from the mountains to Cobh was very long. I think it took us four hours. Almost everyone slept on the bus. The road itself looked just like roads in the U.S but it was the signs that threw me off. When we got to Cobh we stopped at our hotel. The Bella Vista Hotel is so much better than the Saint Augustine apartments that we last stayed at previously. I already love it because there is wireless. I mean just imagine four media students with only one Ethernet connection. That is how it was for us last week. Patience was definitely a virtue. I’ll let you know later if there is hot water here later. As for the look of the room itself, there are two rooms that hold 3 people in each. There is a kitchen and a porch-like room that has a big screen TV.

After we dropped out stuff off we went on a guided titanic walking tour. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable. We told him we were media students and he even took the extra time to add tidbits of information related to the media such Fr. Frank Browne who was a photographer that photographed the Titanic as well as many other things. Our guide also showed us the building where they prepared to load the boats that would take them to get on the Titanic. The weather was great. The sun was setting during the tour, a breeze was in the air and I felt like I was in a totally different world.

We just ate dinner in the restaurant at the hotel. I ate chicken lo mien. It was so filling I couldn’t finish it. I think I’m just going to hang out in the room tonight.

Free day in Dublin

Even though today was called a free day…it was not a free day. I worked a lot on my photos for my web project. I went to St. Rita’s for photos. What made this visit to St. Rita’s different than the first visit was that I was able to get images of people within the church. I was able to take a picture of a 93-year-old worker in the church and a lady who has worked there for 15 years. I also made a quick visit to St. James and the Anglican. It being Saturday the main street was filled with local vendors which made it a sight to see.
In the afternoon I was able to edit some of the photos from the morning and the Belfast trip. Angelica and I went to the Guinness factory. It reminded me so much of Chocolate world in Hershey, Pa. The factory had seven floors of interesting information. But if you ask me how to make Guinness I could not tell you. I learned that the first export of Guinness beer to the United States was a shipment to South Carolina in 1817. The seventh floor had a beautiful view of cityscape of Dublin where you could enjoy your free pint of Guinness.

Immediately after that tour, I went to an Irish music and dance show at the Arlington Hotel with Ryan and Erin where we were served a three course meal. At first it was nerve racking because even though we had a printout confirmation ticket we were not on their list and may I remind you it was only us… no tour guide- Rachael. What were we going to do? None of us had a phone. But within 20 minutes they were able to get us a seat. For an entrée I had an orange and carrot soup, for the main course I had some kind of chicken, potatoes and carrots, and for dessert I had a berry cheese dessert that was delicious.

To Belfast in heals.

Today we woke up and walked to the train station at 6:30 a.m. We were told to dress up because we were going to a speaker later that day and I made the mistake of not hearing the professor say bring a pair of comfortable shoes to switch out of. I wore a nice cream colored sweater with a red silky shirt underneath and grey pants. My shoes of choice of course were my black pumps. Rachael said it would only be a few block to walk to the station…it was more like eight or ten.

It was so nice to get out of cityscape of Dublin to seeing beautiful green landscapes on the train ride up to Belfast. As we arrived we were greeted by our Belfast tour guide, Michael. The first thing I noticed was his accent. Northern Ireland people tend to have an accent that is harder to understand. He said the phrase “super duper” a lot which made me laugh. Northern Ireland isn’t Ireland. It is a part of the United Kingdom and I think it is hard for people to understand that because technically it is a part of the island. Our first stop was called the peace corner. Northern Ireland has such a monumental history that you can still see signs from its history today. Because of the Catholic/Protestant conflict this prompted many to paint large murals on the side of stores, homes etc. I felt very moved when I saw the high walls that were in place to divide the Protestant/Catholic communities. For a second I felt like I was looking that the Israeli conflict. It was amazing to see high walls at the jails that were used for protection during the times of riots. It is important to note that what I described is not continuous throughout the entire country in fact Center city seemed to be modernized.

After the peace corner, the next stop was the Northern Ireland assembly and the Belfast castle. The Belfast castle has a beautiful view that overlooked Belfast. I can understand why couples go there to have their wedding pictures taken or to go for a stroll on the grounds. I also recall there being many cat statues.

My absolute favorite part of the day was going to the shipyard which was the location where the Titanic was built. Even though there was not much to see it was what was there many years ago that left me with a sense of awe. The group ate lunch in the pump-house. After lunch we met Gerry Patterson, a creative designer from The Belfast Telegraph. He has worked there for 17 years, fourteen of which has been specifically working online. The newspaper’s circulation is 70,000. In Northern Ireland, 40 percent of people have home delivery which the complete opposite from the Republic of Ireland. Also there everyone has access to broadband. He said that 90 percent of high schools have broadband. I found it interesting that they sometimes rewrite headlines of stories that go online. He termed the phrase “Google friendly.” An impressive statistic was that 40 percent of traffic was looking at photos from the photo galleries on their website. The next big step he looks forward is to adding video.

After that we ate dinner at the Morning Star restaurant where I ate fish and chips (fish and French fries). Then we caught the 8:10 p.m. train back to Dublin. It was an eventful day that cause me to only obtain one blister.

One productive day

Today was a productive day. I was free in the morning so I went out and took photos of churches for my web project. I really like some photos of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I would like to on Saturday to talk to anyone that works at the churches to get valuable quotes and information. After that we had another lecture by Dr. Flynn on digital media. He said a few interesting statements about Irish cinema such as 90 percent of tickets sold are for American picture and Europeans don’t go to the cinema as much as Americans. What shocked me the most was a list with the top four reasons why people go online in Ireland. I thought social networking (Twitter, Facebook etc.) would be number one like it is here in America; however, it was number four at 28 percent. Travel information was the first with 51 percent, news and current affairs is second with 38 percent, and online banking is third with 31 percent. Irish websites layout is also a little different than American websites. In Ireland they do not have links that link you to other websites. The links they have only go to other pages on their website. They do this because they are afraid if you go to other websites you wouldn’t come back. The Irish Times is the only website that has a comment section.

After the lecture, we went to an agency called “Photo call.” They started as war photographers that covered the Northern Ireland Conflict. Three years ago they moved to PR. He showed us slide shows of their work in Ireland called “Peace Conflict, “Abortion/divorce,” “Special Conditions in the 80s, and “Poverty and Drugs.” Basically this agency encompassed their history of a boom to now a bust economy. They are very active with talking to clients and selling packages. Overall it was nice to listen to current photographers and how the agency came to be.

Afterwards, the photographers had a special opportunity to meet Paul Kelly, an amazing photographer. I suggest you all Google him. He met with us in a back room of a pub and showed us a lot of his work that he has done from all over the world. I really liked some of his portraits from Guatemala.

I just have to add the picture below to my blog. I meant to add it yesterday when I took them but I forgot. Professor Fabilli saw this candy bar in a vending machine at Dublin City University. He and the rest of the gang thought it was funny.