The Kohawks Have Landed

Dublin's General Post Office (GPO), the focal point of the 1916 Easter Rising.

The River Liffey from outside our hostel.

Our hostel on Bachelors Walk.

The students in the International Bar at the beginning of our walking tour of central Dublin.

Sixteen sleepy-eyed Coe students and Dr. Sara Farrell arrived in a drizzly Dublin early Friday morning and made their way to the Abbey Court Hostel on Bachelors Walk, which is centrally located just off of O’Connell Street along the River Liffey.

After briefly settling into the hostel, our group took a walking tour of central Dublin focusing on the events of the 1916 Easter Rising, Irish independence, and the partition of Northern Ireland. Our tour guide, Lorcan Collins, provided a mix of humor and history and pointed out that James Connolley, one of the leaders of the Rising, spoke in Cedar Rapids in the early 1900s. By the end of the tour, the skies over Dublin were sunny.

Following a short lunch break, we walked through the grounds of Trinity College and viewed the “bog people” at the National Museum of Archeology and History. After a filling pasta dinner prepared by four students in the hostel kitchen, the evening was free, with some venturing out to explore Dublin’s nightlife and others heading off to bed.