The first thing that I noticed today was that the city is completely empty on Sunday morning. I am sure that this is due to mass being in session. I find this very different from America where a higher percentage of the population is less prone to attend a religious service on Sunday due to cultural diversity. This made the walk this morning very relaxing, but also a bit eerie.
Once everything was open, I was able to experience a shopping trip and interact with a lot more of the locals. It was very fun and interesting to to have conversations with them and learn about their culture (the significance of the claddagh ring and the history of Galway).
The trip to Letterfrack was filled with amazing scenery and it was very interesting to see how the Irish landscape differs from ours. It is a very abrupt change from flat land to rocky hills. The absence of trees is extremely apparent, especially when the trees that are present are on plantations and simply don't match the landscape. We learned about this at the hostel (The Bard's Den) from our Irish host professor.
Ireland was almost completely forested in ancient times all the way up until the 1300's. At that point, forests were heavily cleared to make farmland and pasture. The forests were also greatly impacted by the Potato Famine. This led to Ireland being only 0.5% forested. Action was taken to reforest 10% of Ireland's land, but it is currently between 3%-10%, based on what is considered "forested".
I can see this having a great impact on our partners at GMIT. They must have to import wood, which not only costs time, but money as well. Therefore, I can expect that they may not have very many prototypes and the prototypes are very material-efficient, which ties into one of the goals for their designs. I am interested to see how this has affected them when we are introduced tomorrow.
We also learned about peat and its affect on the Irish lifestyle. Due to the sparse forests, peat is used for fuel / fire "wood" because it is so plentiful and burns efficiently. Peat is formed from grass the grows in bogs. When the grass dies, it doesn't decay like normal organic matter because of the acidity in the bog. Instead, it undergoes a sort of accelerated fossilization where it forms into something with similar properties to fossil fuels / oil. Therefore, peat burns very well after it has been dried and is a good alternative to wood and oil.
The lack of wood has also (probably) resulted in stone houses and walls. Stone is also in abundance here and is not very deep underground, often jutting out in the fields. This accounts for not only the hundreds of miles of stone wall we have seen, but also the preservation of ancient sites. In other societies, such as Greece, where stone is scarce or difficult to quarry and transport, sites may be disassembled to build other foundations. I was amazed when we saw buildings that have been present for hundreds of years as well as the many walls. It is amazing to see structures that old still standing after ups and downs through history and generations.
Another thing that is in abundance, but not in a positive way, is a yellow-flowered thorny brush called Gorse. In earlier times, it was used as a natural fence because it is so dense and thorny. This was effective up until the point of stone fences. It has now grown wild as an extremely invasive species and is taking up land where trees could be grown. I find is interesting that it has been allowed to grow so much, especially since it is quite woody and could probably be used as fire fuel when dry.
Overall, I learned a lot about the natural resources of Ireland and have observed major differences between here and the U.S. as far as landscape. This in turn most likely leads to the differences in architecture, agriculture, and industry. I really am interested to see how this has affected the GMIT projects when we visit tomorrow.
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