I was also really excited about visiting Kilmainham Gaol today, especially after learning more about it and seeing it in films that I’m familiar with. I am a huge fan of The Italian Job (the original version, not the Mark Wahlberg version), so it was incredible to see where parts of it were filmed. The part of the prison with the stairs was beautiful, and I took a lot of great pictures there.

After the tour of Killmainham Gaol and a bus ride back, Alex and I went to the candlelit vigil that the University College Dublin LGBT Society was having by the lake for the victims and families of the Orlando shooting that happened yesterday. Most of the people in attendance were Irish, and several of them spoke about tolerance and how important it is for allies to stand with the LGBT community, particularly American LGBT members, right now and always. Then, a young man from America who had just gotten his Irish citizenship spoke. He got emotional and felt shameful about the situation, and it really struck me when he said, “I am mostly upset because I know that we will be having this same conversation again.”

It made me think about political and social progress. We’ve mentioned several times in class how history isn’t really that far in the past, mostly in terms of the uprising and events like Bloody Sunday. The Obergefell v. Hodges ruling wasn’t that long ago. Stonewall wasn’t that long ago. People like to talk about these things as if they are so far removed from relevance today — as if people aren’t dying every day from heinous hate crimes like the one that happened in Orlando. It is hard not to think about progress as an illusion sometimes.

I was just amazed, but not really surprised, how passionate the students all were about what happened, and what they could do to help change it. I was glad I got to be a part of it, but so deeply unhappy about the horrific circumstances it was under.