Iveagh House/ Dail

Today we went to see a very fancy Iveagh House and the Irish parliament the Dail. The Iveagh house was such a fancy, beautiful building! It reminded me of Pemberly in Pride and Prejudice. So elegant and the tea we had was amazing, might have had a little too much. The talk we had was really refreshing because it was the first time I have been able to bring up health care and to bring in my Public Health education. I was curious about Irish health care and the awesome Public Health measures they have around Ireland.

Built Environment-Dublin is kept  quite clean, everyday I see the roads and streets being swept. Trash cans and every restroom I’ve been in has been very clean. (Even in the pubs) Parks are nearby and also well managed. Bike lanes, excellent crosswalk systems, accessibility to buildings.

Environmental Health- Ireland is really so very green! Nature surround us and even within the city it’s so gorgeously green and luscious. There is a big conscienceness here for conservation. With all of the building the energy conservation is amazing. You have to use your hotel key rooms inserted in order to access outlets. Also all the outlets have their own individual switches that you have to turn on. Toilets have the green features, toilet paper/ hand towels are used sparingly. There are absolutely no plastic it bags at shopping locations (malls/grocery stores/resteraunts) without a 20 cent fee. I love that! 

Really there are so many examples of interesting public health ideas and I’m happily surprised to be inspired by the conscientiousness/implementation of Ireland.

These were things that I mentioned during the Iveagh house discussion that I really thought about walking from around Dublin today. Additonally while we were able to see the Dail in session. It reminded me a lot of the Navajo Nation Council sessions at home. There were people getting fired up and debating, questioning each other’s motives, and the setup looked similar. We were able to get a tour of the Dail and see the architecture and paintings inside. The same person who designed the building, also desgined the White House, I definitely could see in the carvings and columns within the building. 

Ultimately today was another awesome day. My favorite part was watching a lady, who was a member of the small party here, debate with all of the other officials (who were mostly men). Since the election results were just posted it was interesting to see the community responses and the aftermath. I’m not entirely sure what the results were, but it was interesting to see the different opinions at the Dail.