At the St. Cecilia's College, 22nd March, Tuesday

We started our day with going for a technical visit to St. Cecilia's College in the northern part of Derry.

More than 800 students, only girls go to this catholic school. They can be proud of their new, airy, well-equipped builings. Besides the traditional subjects they are taught Drama, Technology in a really modern and effective way. We could see students working in their Art, Drama, Science, and Cooking lessons. Everybody was working silently in neat, beautiful classrooms, they were organising their work and studies independently. In my opinion they can rather develop their skills than just following their teachers instructions.

In the hall

Drama lesson

Students' projects in Technics

In the school gallery

In the afternoons they can choose from different programmes of Public speaking, Ceramics, Gardening, Choir, Cheerleading, Film club or App building activities and services.

The school expects their students to wear a uniform of bottle green pleated skirt, with a V-necked green jumper with a green white stripe around it. The girls wear white blouses here, a blazer with a school badge, green knee-length socks, plus green and black hair ribbon. High heels are not permitted in the interests of safety.

A student's painting

Computer studies

School Yard - Amphiteatrum

We were guided by Corona MacDaid who answered all of our questions.

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In the afternoon we had a triple lesson about art and had discussions about its definition and purpose, explaining and sharing our opinions with our partner.

Some think that art must have a message, a symbolic meaning or some aesthetic pleasure regardless of time, culture or other circumstances.

In the second block we were given a text (taken from 'TEDTalk) about a North American artist, Janet Echelman who became a sculptor after being a painter.

Learning about TED TALK and BEYOND

https://www.ted.com/talks

https://www.beyondtextbooks.org/

As it was revealed the essence of art for her was something like 'taking imagination seriously'.

She found a unique way to express it: designing and creating amazingly volumetric 'sculptures' in metropolises using fishermen's nets, later steel and water. Meanwhile she was permanently searching for the proper materials and aeronautical engineering techniques for her pieces of art to be durable and resistant to capricious weather conditions, not only to strong wind and salty water but also hurricanes.

In the last part of the section some hints on the traditional Irish music were introduced and ideas about it were shared.

In the Central Library, 21st March, Monday

Today we went to the Central Library, placed in Foyle Street, Derry. We listened to a presentation and an introduction about the library, how you can get membership, how to use the mobile libraries, e-books, e-magazines, etc. The easiest way to learn more at home is to download e-books and audiobooks via OverDrive app. We also learnt how the self-issue works.

Children department

Using the self-issue register

Let’s see some hints and tips: e.g. there are 96 public libraries across Northern Ireland. It is free to become a member. By just one call you can join any of the libraries or register online. Any ID cards can be brought to prove your identification.

Micro-film scanner

Thousands of e-books are to be borrowed and heaps of popular e-magazines are to be downloaded on your tablet or mobile.

In the afternoon we also went to Tower Museum of Derry. The museum has two permanent exhibitions, an interactive Discovery Zone and an Education Room. We learnt about the story of the Spanish Armada, focusing on the discovery of La Trinidad Valencera at Kinnegoe Bay. The exhibition of Derry is about the plantation during the 17th century, the emigration and industrialisation from 1912 to 1922 and the role of the city during the World War II.

At the top of the Tower Museum

At the exhibition of the Grand Armada

Dressed in clothes of those times

The programme gave opportunities of understanding the history of Derry.

The Capital, 20th March

Today we had an extraordinary experience spending a whole day in Belfast.

Luckily, both Adrian and Michael, our tour guides, were really enthusiastic about showing us as many places of interest as they could.

During our journey to Belfast they summarized in nutshell the troublesome centuries as well as the latest decades of Northern Island so as to be able to get a better undersanding of their history.

During a short tour in the city centre we stopped at Ulster Museum to explore the botanic gardens around and some of the exhibitions inside like historic remainings and pieces of contemporary applied arts.

Queen's College

Botanic Gardens

Town Hall

Exhibitions in Ulster Museum

Then we forwarded towards the western part of the city where we were impressed by the murals and the peace messages on the wall that separates the two communities.

Murals

Peace Wall

Titanic Museum was our next stop with its fascinating interactive exhibitions from introducing the shipyard through designing, launching, showing the passangers's quarters... Meanwhile we could virtually experience the luxury of the hugest- and safest-ever-built passenger ship, which had been thought to be unsinkable.

Titanic Museum

It goes without saying how the significance of Her tragic accident has captured thousands of people's imagination all over he world.

Original picture of the bilding of the Titanic

Model of Titanic

Where do the Giants 'cross way'? - at Causeway :) 19th March

Heading for the World Heritage, follow the routes advised by the National Trust. Today we went for a Social Trip and the destination was one of the most exciting places: it is the Giant's Causeway.

Giant's view to the sea

This expressive place lies on the coast of the North Channel. It is made up of some 40,000 massive basalt columns sticking out of the sea. This place was formed by volcanic activities during the Terciary some 50-60 million years ago. Most of the coloums are hexagonal, although there are also some with four, five seven, eight sides. They are just amazing!

Perfect fit of the stones

Legends say it was the giant, Finn McCool, who destroyed the bridge built from stones between Scotland and Ireland to escape from the mighty giant, Benandonner.

We all became great adventures as crossing over the Carrick-a-Redge, on the rope bridge. Now challenge day is completed. It was originally strung by local fishermen to get the best place to catch salmons migrating up the stream.

Rope bridge - and a lot of visitors

We stopped for some 20 minutes on the sandy beach of Portrush and at the haunted castle, Dunluce to take some photos. This castle is thought to be the most romantic and picturesque castle in Ireland.

Members of the 2 Sat Project

Who would (not) want to live here?

Contemporary Art at VOID, 18th March, Friday

'Night Falls, Day Brakes'

An exhibition at VOID Gallery

guided by Sally Murphy

Today we visited many pieces of works of the contemporary ceramic artist, Anne Wenzel.

Born in Germany, living and working in the Netherlands she is well-known all around the world from Moscow to New York.

While studying at an unconventional art academy she developed her working method like this:

' The concept comes first, followed by the tecnique....It's a rather risky endeavour because this uncontrolled process determines the eventual piece.'

All of her exhibited pieces reflect her feelings on wars, destructions, emptiness, global catastrophes, both social and natural with suggestion of hope.

The artist makes visitors decide for themselves how they solve this contradiction among the different themes.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 17th March, Thursday

We had felt ourselves lucky back at home recognizing that we had the opportunity to take part in the St. Patrick Day's feast while being in Derry.

Before the Parade we left for a Holy Place. So in the morning we did the very same as the Irish - when you are in Derry do like the Irish do. We attended the St. Patrick's service in the St. Columb's Cathedral.

St. Columb's Cathedral
http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/trace-ancestors.html

It was interesting to see people arriving with real shamrock bunches in their buttonholes.

We were amazed and touched by the ceremony, the beautiful sound of the organ and the priest's nice and clear pronunciation. Luckily we could follow the lithurgy, the speeches and the hymns as well. The priest and his members of assemblage were really friendly and wanted to know where we are from, what we do in our hometown.

After we could see the people gathering in groups of dancers, musicians wearing kilts, hudge puppets, little fairies, elves and leprechauns and they all were in green. Each guy wore something green, youngsters had their national Irish tricolour on them. They were strolling through the streets, enjoying the beautiful sunshine, the delicious grilled food of sausages, burgers and pints of Guiness in their companies.

With Elves

Children in green

Giant puppets 

Everything is green

In The Bentley