Ireland, September 2007
DAY 1: LIMERICK
I couldn’t decide whether a trip to Ireland merited a ‘travel blog’ entry, but my mind was made up when I accidentally stowed my book and needed something to do on the coach! I’m writing this as I travel from Limerick to Galway. James and I had a demo paper accepted for P2P’07, which is being held at the University of Ireland. This is the first paper which we’ve submitted under the banner of our P2P consultancy firm ‘Isis Forensics’, which must be some sort of mile-stone. As happens all too often, I ended up working straight-through the night before I left and just managed to finish the various demonstration widgets.
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A good friend of mine, Rob Lowe had recently moved to Limerick, so I decided to nip and see him before the conference. One advantage of staying up all night was that I left my hotel booking stupidly late and ended up snagging a bargain on Expedia. I stayed at the 4 star “Patrick Punch’s” for £35 including free WiFi. The hotel was lovely, though a bit of a walk from the town center. Regardless, I’d recommend it if you’re staying in Limerick.
I’d heard that Limerick was the stabbing capital of Europe, but I wasn’t going let that stop me from going out drinking. I started with the hotel bar, followed by dinner at ‘The Bank’ which was very nice. Then I met up with Rob and his house-mate Cliff before hitting three or four other bars. It was Guinness all the way for me and maybe it was a good thing, as this morning I am remarkably hang-over free.
This is my first trip to Ireland and I’m finding it a little strange. It’s at once very similar to England, yet at the same time somehow intangibly different. Beyond the obvious stuff (signs in Gallic, using the Euro and so on). The architecture is quite different, with lots of little pastel colored houses and magnificent churches that seem to almost tend towards the Gothic. I’ll have to see if I can fit taking some photos into my drinking schedule ;-) |
Guinness (makes you strong) |
DAY 2: GALWAY
I arrived in Galway around 4PM and found my way to the Holiday Inn at Joyce’s roundabout, which is about half a mile out of the city-center. The hotel was serviceable, if not as nice as Patrick Punch’s. Galway is a nice little historic city, which reminded me of a more picturesque version of Lancaster. Arriving at the train station, it’s a short walk to Eyre square which is surrounded by nice hotels and shops, including the conference hotel, the Merrick.
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Eyre Square |
Cathedral Door |
Cathedral Statues |
Heading north east from Eyre square, the area around the Cathedral is also worth a look. The sun was shining and the river Galway was teeming with fish, though the cathedral always managed to look a little austere, as I’m starting to find all Irish churches.
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The River Galway |
A River-side Church |
The Cathedral |
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Finally, heading west towards the docks, you pass some more nice scenery including what little remains of the walls of the city and the ‘Spanish arch’.
Standing at the shore, it’s funny it to think that there’s nothing standing between you and America.
Anyway, enough exploring for one day! I should return to the hotel and prepare for the conference. |
The Shore |
A Weir |
DAY 3/4: P2P’07
I write this from the main conference room of P2P’07. Day three of my trip marked the start of the conference, which has been quite good so far. I won’t bore you with the details, but I’ve seen several presentations, which support some of the basic assertions made in my PhD thesis, which is always good, along with some good work on privacy in structured P2P systems, which has direct applications for our Isis Forensics work.
The keynote talks have also been excellent, although in general, I can’t help but feel that the event has moved so far towards a formal and mathematical approach that it’s starting to become a little too far removed from real-world P2P issues, but then I would say that as I’m not very mathematically-inclined :-). Speaking of which, I should get our (very real-world) demonstration ready.
[…some time later…] Well the demonstration went pretty well. The video on viral media was pretty well received and the other visualization widgets (see above) worked appropriately. I couldn’t help but feel a little strange presenting what is essentially our business work to an academic audience though. Ah well! Its time for me to head off back to Limerick where Rob and Cliff have been kind enough to put me up for the night before my flight back to Liverpool.