Some Side Notes About Ireland

Spanish:
Me gusto mucho Ireland. Ireland es moy interesante. Ahmee y Poppy miran para la casa en Ireland. Ellos prefiero Ireland porque es moy bonita(or o-not sure).

I suppose I should say that these side-notes are more about the Irish people.

The first thing I'd like to mention is that most of the front yards are courtyards, that is, they either have a large fence or a hedge that keeps outsiders from looking in. This makes it difficult for me, a gardener, to see what most Irish front yards look like. The most I can make out a lot of the time is a fleeting glimpse of the topmost tree branches, the overgrown hydrangeas (which are a gorgeous shade of blue in many cases), and/or the tops of more shrubs. Sometimes I'll catch sight of the full garden and when I do I often end up “ohhing” or “ahhing” at it, sometimes I'll even shriek and point. You'd think that I'd seen someone streaking! This hidden beauty seems to lull me even closer, which I think is a very good strategy in gardening. Momma and I like to have curves “because it's good on the eyes”, personally I think it's nice to hide part of the garden so that it makes the viewer want to come in and see more, it makes them thirst for exploration.

Normally I would be against large objects obstructing the view of the garden. I've frowned down upon it many times before simply because the garden without a cover is there for the whole neighborhood to profit from. Gardens that are pleasing to the eye can help make people happy or they can help calm people down, that is, if the people take the time to slow down long enough to notice.

I must say that the front-yard courtyards surprised me. So far I've thought that they were mostly a Spanish thing. When we went down to New Mexico most people had large walls fencing in their yards. Here, the walls aren't so tall, but most are tall enough to keep people who are sitting in the car from seeing them. Whenever I first saw this I started wondering why such a Spanish thing would occur in Ireland. Since I'm studying AP US History I immediately leapt on the fact that southern Ireland is mostly Roman Catholic, and Spain is as well. History started zooming through my head at a very fast rate.

It all got started with King Henry the 8th whenever he decided that he wanted to leave Princess Catherine of Arragon (Sp?) of Spain for Anne. When he did this he left the Roman Catholic Faith and started the Protestant church. The Irish decided they didn't want to change their religion to that of the unfaithful king. Of course, the king sent in British forces to “deal” with the Roman Catholics. Northern Ireland had a few people converted to the Protestant faith, while most southern Irishmen stuck with the Roman Catholic. The fighting between the Protestants and Catholics still occurs to this day in Ireland. In fact, Ahmee even asked me if I was serious about wearing an orange shirt out today (it's a protestant color), I did but it was no big deal because it was covered up (and it's just a color-add a protestant cross we'd be in trouble).

Is there a possibility that the Irish and Spaniards have similar gardens because of similar faiths? Maybe... Or maybe I'm just stuck on history at the moment.


Something else I've noticed about Irish gardens is that yuccas (native to deserts of Mexico and NM) and palm trees are just as common as the hydrangeas here (which in Indiana would be... a boxwood almost). Ahmee didn't believe me at first on either of these, but then I pointed them out and she and I started seeing tons of gardens that had these plants in them. This morning whenever we were eating breakfast we had the pleasure of sitting next to a very open Irishman (I think he'd make a great writer-he told great stories). We asked him then why the palm tree was so popular here. He told us, “I suppose we all go for the exotic. Plus they remind us of the sun!”


Like I've said in an earlier post, they've gotten a lot of rain recently, and everyone seems to enjoy commenting on it. We asked him (the same man) what the weather report was. He said that they really never needed it, it was going to be rain, rain, or more rain. I really enjoyed listening to that man.