Adventure #4: Continuing the Brewery and Distillery Tour of Ireland

 

Adventure Summary:

Location: Great Northern Distillery in Dundalk, Ireland

Time Spent: 7 hours

Reason for Travel: Studio Site Visit

Highlights: An empty room on the top floor of the distillery that the worker through would be boring, but it was the highlight of the tour because we are architecture NERDS

Trip Rating: 9/10

Adventure Details:

Hello from Dundalk!

You may be thinking, why this random town just south of the Northern Ireland border? 

Part of the architecture student life includes going on site visits and site surveys - by site surveys, I mean counting bricks on buildings... Do you know how long it takes to count bricks on a building?? Too long. I think we spent three hours taking measurements, counting bricks, running away from the wasps, and taking photos of construction details that normal people wouldn't notice in the first place. 

After counting bricks for a few hours, we were given a tour of the Distillery by one of the workers. We learned about the whiskey distillery process while we were lead through the different distillation areas. As noted in the adventure summary highlight, the tour guide was about to end the tour at the last distillery room on the third floor when our prof asked if we could see the top floor. The tour guide was hesitant, saying it was just an empty, unfinished room, but gave in since the room offered a good vantage point overlooking the rest of the grounds. Talk about kids in a candy store - in this case, architecture students/prof in an empty, unfinished room with beautiful natural lighting and original ceramic tile flooring. I think it's safe to say that everyone's favourite part of the Distillery Tour was the room we were never intended to see 😆

It's really fun going on tours or walking around with other architecture students/an architecture professor because we all do the same nerdy things. For example, my parents often make fun of me for taking pictures of lighting or other construction details in buildings while we're out and about, but with other arch students we're all taking photos of those nerdy details. To make it better, the prof even points out details and talks about the design considerations, encouraging us to take photos of them for later reference or just because it's cool... we truly are super nerds...

All jokes aside, Dundalk was a nice town with rich history and beautiful architecture. It was quaint, but certainly not quiet or boring. If you happen to have spare time, Dundalk is a perfect place for a day trip from Belfast or Dublin. 

Next Adventure: Dublin, again!!