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Monday's Explorations


             On the first day at Belvedere College, the first thing I noticed was the similarities it had to BC High. It had all the same messages and quotes from Jesuits, and also the same map that BC High has of all the Jesuit schools in the world. Our 5 graduate at graduation values hung at the top of their stairs. Besides from that, there were some differences. For instance, Belvedere students have to wear shirt and tie every single day and BC High kids think it’s bad when we have to wear them for mass. Another difference between the two schools was the location and also the set up of the school. BC High obviously is very spread out with all the fields and even the big campus, but also it’s outside of Boston. Belvedere, on the other hand, is in the heart of Dublin and for that the school building is a lot different from BC High. It is in the middle of other buildings so there are multiple floors to it but it is not close to as wide as BC High. Because of this, their soccer field, or as the Irish kids call it, a “pitch”, is actually on their roof.



On the roof of Belvedere
Bok Choi, Kale & Swiss Chard in the Aquaponics Garden

             Another unique thing they have at Belvedere is their own greenhouse/garden which is also on the roof. Because there is so little soil in the heart of the city and because fresh food is cheaper and healthier, Belvedere grows food on their roof. Without the soil, it doesn’t seem like the food would grow, but they use a system called aquaponics, which combines fish life with plants. Belvedere uses fish waste as a fertilizer for the plants and have an excess of water and light, which allows them to grow a lot of different foods, but also algae to feed the fish. This was really interesting because the food in the US is processed and there’s not really a clue where it is from, but in Ireland, people can grow it on the roof.
- Liam McDonnell
Seedlings growing in hemp before placed in aquaponics tubes


Fish whose waste fertilizes the water to give the plants nutrients 

           After we finished the tour of the school, we went on a tour of Dublin. The tour guide highlighted several major spots such as the "official Roman Catholic cathedral". This is because it was originally built as an Anglican church and then turned over to the Roman Catholics. It is the only Roman Catholic cathedral in Dublin. This cathedral was built in 1825 and was intended to be temporary in the space it is today. Several years after they wanted to move it on other land, but they quickly found out that the land was not suitable for a building of that size. So, it stays in the same spot to this day.

          Another place we went was to the Garden of Remembrance that has a sculpture with the Children of Lir. This sculpture was inspired by the rebirth of the Ireland and is based on Irish mythology. The swans symbolize the rebirth and the people represent the 900 years of Irish struggles. With three people, each person represents 300 years.

          The guide also talked about the symbol of Ireland - the harp. The guide said that Ireland is the only country to have an instrument as it's symbol. Also an infamous symbol on Guinness, the harp on Guinness is a mirror image from the official Irish one.
- Alex Komarynskyj

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