tradfest

This week's hike took us to Hungry Hill, which was in county Cork, but it still took about 2 hours to get there by bus. The hike itself was pretty easy, and the views were nice, but it didn't compare to the last 2 that I've been on. I really did appreciate, though, how chill the hike was because I don't think I could do two insane hikes back to back. The climb uphill took about 2 hours, and it was pretty tricky. The email that was sent out about it had a disclaimer about how there would be a 'fair bit of scrambling' involved. Apparently, 'scrambling' means climbing with your hands (and feet) uphill on rocks, etc. Once we got up to the top, the fog sort of came out of nowhere and then we were back to not being able to see 5 feet in front of us. It was so cold and windy and rainy up at the top, but we only really stayed long enough to eat lunch, and then we climbed back down. The hike down took about 2 hours as well, but it was pretty much just walking down a boggy hill with more sheep and their poop. Once at the bottom, we ran across this little puppy who I think belonged to a house nearby (seen in picture below). I considered sticking it in my backpack, but our bus driver is pretty hardcore and won't let us wear our muddy boots on the bus, so I figured he'd have a problem with a live animal, so I put it back down and got on the bus sans dog.

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TradFest 2008

6-10 February 2008 was UCC's TradFest, which was the 'highlight of the Irish Traditional Music Society's year' (according to the brochure). Basically every day for a week, there was a whole schedule of events going on. We attended the ones we could, and everything we went to was pretty good. Monday night we went to a student session at a pub called An Spailpín Fánach (left). It was cool to see students my age playing traditional music, because up until then I'd just seen old people playing it. They were good, but it was pretty chill.

Friday at lunch we went to a concert on campus with Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Brendan Begley (also according to the brochure). But they were amazing. The fiddler was good (and surprisingly attractive), but the accordion player was the best. He played a few numbers on his own and sang some as well.

Saturday afternoon we went to another pub called Sláinte and heard another student session. This one was a lot better, partly because there was a wider variety of instruments. We listened to them for about an hour, but then got distracted by the rugby game (Ireland vs. France- Ireland came from behind and almost won in the end but lost by 5 points).

2 video clips below:
1. Friday lunch concert
2. Saturday student trad session