Ally Mulvs in Dublin

This week concluded with what I’ve been looking forward to since I applied to Bucknell in Dublin… GALWAY WEEKEND! Although we had to brave some tough weather, Galway was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, and I had an incredible time getting to spend a few days there with the best people.

Internship

I’ve started to do more work with clients for my internship, which has been such a great learning experience. This week the majority of what I did was helping Sinead, one of my coworkers, with some of her other client work while she prepares for the big PLT summer party coming up next week (I can’t believe it’s so soon!). I researched on Instagram to find Ireland-based influencers/micro-influencers to who we could extend invitations, helped find pieces on two clients’ websites for mailers to journalists, and also created a new media coverage report for a hotel they are working for. She even sent me a voice memo after work thanking me for all of my help while she prepared for the party – if there’s one thing I’ve noticed about the work environment at my office, it’s that everyone is so grateful for each other’s support, and it truly is one of the best work environments I’ve ever gotten to experience. 

It’s interesting to look at the marketing strategy for my organization because they do marketing and PR for other companies. The way Burrell advertises itself depends on what group of people it’s trying to advertise to. For example, when we are reaching out to larger influencers or journalists who we want to come to events or write about our clients, it’s a lot about gifting them products, reaching out to them on social media, or even simply what connections they have. However, for smaller influencers, a lot of the time they will DM the Instagram or email our info account asking to be gifted products in exchange for them creating content about it. It’s interesting to watch this dynamic, especially because it can get tricky when content creators promise to post about something but fall through since we essentially gave away a product for free. 

I’ve also gotten to see how Burrell attracts new clients and brands firsthand. I first started my internship right after they had lost one of their clients, which was an Irish whiskey brand. For that reason, one of my first tasks was to research a list of whiskey brands in Ireland that another intern had compiled. I went through over 80 companies, checking their website to find out if they had emails to contact for PR, stalking their LinkedIn page to see if they already had a brand manager or were working with another PR company, and finding names of people who we could approach with an offer to work with them. Although it was a very tedious process, I was able to weed out which brands already had marketing & PR firms, and which ones would be great to reach out to as potential clients, along with all of their contact information that I could gather. There are many different marketing & PR firms across Ireland, especially in Dublin, which I saw at the work event I attended last week. However, what sets Burrell apart is that they have a personal relationship with each client they work with. They also have a very integrated approach to PR, because they are gifting products to influencers, covering the media outreach from what the influencers post, and also tracking any other press that the company receives on any social media or print platforms. 

GALWAY!

Now on to the fun part! We were up bright and early on Friday morning to load onto the bus. For some reason, I was under the impression that our first stop was going to be at a rest stop to get breakfast, so when I was told to get out of the bus in the pouring rain to look at a castle (which was very beautiful), I was a little shocked. That was just the beginning of what would be the most drenched I have ever been. The Cliffs of Moher were beautiful from what I could see, although the torrential downpour combined with the fog did obstruct our view a little. I also walked around some of the exhibits in the visitors’ center beforehand. Just when I wanted to go back inside and try to dry off a little, Christian decided that he was going to drag me down a random path that was hidden from the main part of the cliffs because he insisted the view would be better there. The view was actually worse. But we did see some sheep! After that, I looked like I had gone down a water slide.

Once we got to Galway, we all took a nap and tried our best to dry off a little from the day. For dinner we went to an amazing pizza place called Dough Boys – we realized as we were walking there that so many of us had gotten the recommendation to go there from our coworkers, including me! After some great pizza, we went to a pub called The King’s Head to listen to some live music and meet up with some of our friends from Bucknell who were also in Galway for the weekend, which was a lot of fun as well.

Saturday was my favorite day by far, and it started with my favorite excursion, the sheep farm! We watched a demonstration of a sheepdog named Prince herding all of the sheep across the giant farm, which overlooked the most beautiful view of the water and mountains. Even though it was raining sideways and we couldn’t even hear ourselves talk over the wind, the dog still managed to navigate the sheep all the way around the giant grassy area, which was so impressive. Then all of a sudden, the gate to the enclosure for the lambs opened, and we were handed bottles to feed them! They were absolutely adorable and they were all fighting and jumping on one another to get to the bottle. I even got to hold one of the baby sheep – you can tell by the look on my face in the photos that I was thrilled.

We then traveled to Kylemore Abbey! The mansion was built by Mitchell Henry as a token of his love for his wife, Margaret Vaughan Henry, in 1867. It had many other uses throughout the years, including an all-girls school when girls couldn’t get an education in Ireland, but it is now a Benedictine monastery. After eating a great lunch at the cafe and looking around the gift shop, Kate and I walked around the mansion, and we were both in awe at the beauty and rich history that was shown in the exhibits. Although we didn’t get to see the ponies or the pigs, and we didn’t have time to walk around the gardens, we did get to see the gothic church on the property, which was also built by Mitchell Henry as a memorial after his wife’s sudden passing. The whole time I was there I couldn’t stop thinking about how much my grandma, Mampsey, would love it (I know she reads this, so hi Mamps!). We learned from our awesome tour guide, Edele, that you can actually contact the nuns that live at Kylemore Abbey today and stay in the mansion with them for free if they approve you! I immediately texted Mampsey and told her we have to research that, because she loves to travel as much as I do, and I know she would love the history there.

The day ended on an amazing note because Ivy was kind enough to ask Edele to drop us off near the Claddagh ring stores on the way back to the hostel. She told us the story of the Claddagh ring on our way there, which was so sweet – it’s so cool to me that girls all around Ireland and the world are wearing a ring that has its roots in the place we were staying. After shopping around for a little, I found the ring that I wanted! Even though it was an investment I’m so happy that I bought it, and it feels like the perfect souvenir. We ended our day the same way we did the day before – some girl time in our *sacred woman’s space* (aka the hostel) before we went to Dough Bros and The Kings Head again.

For our last day in Galway, we took a *rocky* ferry over to Inishmore Island! I saw some incredible views on the hike our bus tour took us and made friends with some really cute donkeys. One fact our tour guide shared with us was that there was a nursing home recently built on the island so that people who lived there their whole lives didn’t have to travel to the mainland to get the care they needed. After we got off the bus I was talking about it with Kate S, Kate Ellis, and Reggie. We all found it so fascinating that these people lived on an island only 9 miles long and 3 miles wide their whole lives, and I loved that they were put in the nursing home so they could stay in their home even as they get older. Kate Ellis and I went into one of the sweater shops while we were waiting out some of the rain and started talking to an older woman who was running the shop, and she was telling us about her life on the island as she knit behind the counter. One thing I’m so grateful to have taken away from this program is that I’ve met so many different types of people who come from such different paths in life, which is something I’ll never take for granted.

I definitely noticed a lot of cultural differences between Dublin and Galway. Dublin has so much history and Irish culture attached to it, but a lot of it has been modernized to accommodate the many people living and working there. In Galway, on the other hand, I felt like everywhere I turned had a story behind it. Some places, like the Kylemore Abbey and even some parts of Inishmore, even felt like I was walking into a time capsule, which I loved. As one example, I heard so many people speaking Irish during normal conversation, which is something I don’t know if I’ve ever heard in Dublin. I also noticed that there were significantly fewer chain stores and restaurants, at least in the main town area we were staying in. This was particularly noticeable in the Claddagh ring stores we visited –  in almost every store I went to the rings were made in-house, and the original Claddagh ring store even had a small museum in the back room with framed documents from when they first opened. Galway was also much easier to navigate than Dublin. I feel like it may be hard to say that, since I only experienced a small taste of Galway in a hostel that was so close to the center of town, but everything seemed much more walkable and compact than it can be in Dublin sometimes. Overall, I felt like Galway had a more homey, small-town feel, while Dublin is more of a bigger and busier city. But even saying that seems like a stretch when I’m more used to being in huge cities in the US like NYC!

Class

In class today, we heard from Professor Aura Istrate about nature-based sustainable solutions. We talked about all of the many benefits we derive from nature, in the categories of supporting, regulating, provisioning, and cultural. All of these benefits directly connect to human well-being. This connects to the nested dependencies model, which shows us that without environmental benefits like clean air, fresh water, or good food, we cannot survive. So, before we can work on social or environmental sustainability, we need to focus our energy on finding natural, sustainable solutions for our environment. 

I wasn’t able to go to the National Museum of Ireland today because I had to go to work directly from class. My family is coming to visit this week and I’m taking off on Thursday to spend time with them, so I offered to come in on Monday to make up for it. Although I’m sure my supervisor would have been fine with me taking a day off, I wanted to be there to help out because the PLT party is coming up soon.

I had the BEST time getting to experience Galway this weekend! I’m so excited for this week – my family is coming to visit on Wednesday so I have a busy week planned out for them, and I’m seeing a concert on Thursday! We’re even going back to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway for a day trip on Sunday – hopefully, it will be a little drier this time around 🙂