Festival of World Cultures - Dun Laoghaire

The Festival of World Cultures 2007:

49 surfers on a single wave!

We were so excited about the Saturday’s race that we nearly missed it! On Saturday, surfers in Lahinch in County Clare once again smashed the world record for the largest number of people to ride the same wave simultaneously.

At about 5.45pm, 49 surfers managed to stay in formation for the required five seconds, thus breaking the previous record of 44, set on the very same beach a year ago. Lahinch will host another attempt to break it’s own record in May next year.

Adidas Frank Duffy 10 miles run

For those training for the Dublin Marathon in October Adidas organised series of races that offer opportunity to test you at short distances ahead of October's race. Last Saturday we took part in Frank Duffy 10 miles run, second race of the series.

10 miles = 16.09344 kilometers. If in the beginning of July someone would have told me that I’ll be able to run 10 miles I would laugh at him (or her). It all started few weeks ago, on 12th July, when we signed (with no training - I know a bit irresponsible) for the 5 mile run and ……… we did it! From then we were preparing to the 10 mile race.

We arrived at the race HQ in Castleknock College at 9am (the race commenced at 10am), the college gym was already completely filled up with people patiently waiting in queues to collect race number and goodie bag. One could see runners of all ages – impatient and eager to run teenagers and full of energy older athletes – it proves that running is a sport for everybody! 20 minute walk to the start line was a perfect opportunity for a warm up. As soon as we left the college, we were carried by the wave of participants, all heading in the same direction.

Race was run in the Phoenix Park - the largest urban enclosed park in Europe. The main entrance is only about 3 km (2 m) from Dublin’s city centre. It contains large areas of grassland, tree-lined avenues and many areas of dense forest. On every sunny weekend park is full of families relaxing after hectic week and tourists admiring parks’s attractions. Park is home, among other things, to Dublin Zoo and Áras an Uachtaráin (Irish White House) occupied for last 10 years by Mary McAleese – current President of Ireland.

We’ve reached Chesterfield Avenue, which was already completely filled with runners, 10 minutes before the start. The attendance was overwhelming; over three thousand runners signed up for the race. Unfortunately organisers didn’t foreseen that many participants and queues to toilets were gigantic – and as we all know you need to hydrate before the exercise – unfortunately not all water want to stay in ;-).

Phoenix Park is home to a herd of wild Fallow deer. We’ve met quite often during training those dignified animals proudly presenting their antlers. Deer were always curiously looking at us, two leg mammals running around park with no purpose. I wonder what they were thinking… The deer have right of way on the roads through the park, however last Saturday they must have been intimidated by the number of uninvited guests and decided not to show themselves, so we didn’t have to let them through ;-)

Finally after one hour and thirty five minutes finish! Now only to collect well earned Adidas T-shirt, an hour long walk back home, and rest of the weekend spent on the couch watching TV ;-).

And from Monday we’re training for the half-marathon, which will take place in September.

Vikings finally arrived

They finally arrived. A full size reconstructed Viking Warship “Havingsten”, known also as Sea Stallion of Glendalough, has arrived to Dublin yesterday around lunch time. Before one could see the boat, one could hear warning sirens of ships docked on the Liffey and bells in local churches – like almost 1000 years ago they were trying to warn citizens against the Viking invasion! There was no panic today, like more there would be in medieval times. Crowd of tourist on both sides of the river, reinforced with curious office workers that have just gone out for lunch, freezed in excitement.

First one could see port authority and fire brigade ships; only then between them there was Havingsten sailing proudly powered only by big orange and yellow sail. The After few minutes the sail was lowered and the sailors, encouraged by the crowds, started to row.

The Sea Stallion is docked on the Liffey close to IFSC and will be moved tomorrow overnight to the National Museum in Collins Barracks. On Friday at 6.30pm the National Museum will officially open the exhibition about the Sea Stallion and the Viking Age. It will run until summer 2008.

A stamp celebrating the arrival of the Viking Warship in Dublin was issued by An Post. The 55c stamp features the Sea Stallion of Glendalough, a reconstruction of the Skuldulev 2 Viking ship built in Dublin in 1042. Researched and illustrated by leading Irish philatelic artist Vincent Killowry, the stamp is available from the main post offices.

Flights from Knock to New York & Boston

From the end of May Ireland West Airport Knock is connected with FK Airport New York and Boston Logan International Airport. It's a first scheduled transatlantic service with a low cost carrier flyglobespan.com from Knock, located midway between Galway and Donegal. The Scottish carrier operates three services a week from Knock to New York, and two services weekly to Boston. Seat fares starts at just €157 plus tax each way.