Day 6: Iveagh House and the Dail

What a wonderful day the we had today in Dublin we as a group started the morning off with a breakfast at Bewley’s Cafe, what a beautiful building from 1927.  But the fun was about to start, we walked up Grafton Street and around the park to the Iveagh House. Iveagh House is the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Dublin.  This was a real treat to sit at the table with Cyril member of the department and discuss Ireland and where they are heading.  This was such an amazing part of the trip and to do something that was unique.  To sit in this room most people would have to be pretty high up in government.

This is the team after the meeting

Next we went to the Dail which is Ireland's Parliament once we entered the building we sat in on a session in the House.  They were questioning the Minister of Finance about the state of the government. We were not permitted to take pictures but I was amazing to see their government in action.  It is very similar to ours in the US.  We were given a tour of parliament and was able to see some heated debates from some of the representative.  The tour culminated for me with an American Civil War flag from the Fighting 69, Irishmen that fought out of New York.  This flag was on the field in Gettysburg.  This is the same flag that my cab driver was telling me about on my first day here as he gave me a ride from the airport.

Borrowed from Jan Rutherford's blog  http://selfreliantleadership.com/blog/

Visiting the Art of the Brick exhibit here in Dublin by Nathan Sawaya was brought me back to my childhood of playing with Legos.  The artist was a Cooperate lawyer that loved Legos and would use them as a stress reliever at the end of a work day.  Leaving his job to pursue his passion he started creating and works of art.  I remembered all of those Legos that fill my room and my imagination, and even the pain of stepping barefoot on that perfect piece that you were looking for ever.

http://brickartist.com/

This is a life size statue made from Legos, this was my favorite piece, the pain of the man holding his lifeless boy.  It was inspired by a book I believe. 

I had to use this picture because mine did not come out

His wife is his muse

I feel really lucky to have seen Ireland in a such a unique way