Galway

First, my sincere apologies for not having posted for so long. When I was in Sligo for two weeks, I had very limited internet access, and couldn't really post. I had a great two weeks at the Yeats Summer School, but more on that in the next post. First, my trip to Galway.

Galway is a very quaint city- almost a big town. It's artsy and is very much a college town. I was there during the Galway Arts Festival, which is the largest arts festival in Ireland, so the city was bustling with activity- students, tourists, lots of street performers, etc.

Kennedy Park, located in Eyre Square, is one of the main gathering spaces in the city.

Galway is also very much a medieval city, and at one point there were fourteen tribes or families that dominated the social and economic life of the city. Each had their own coat of arms, and their flags still fly in Eyre Square...

A sculpture of the "Galway Hooker"- no, not a woman of the night, but a traditional sailing boat built to withstand the rough Irish seas.

I went on a free walking tour of the city, which is where I learned these tidbits about hookers and tribes. Along the way, we ran into this sculpture of Oscar Wilde.

A medievaly street, although most of the streets were windier...

Nora Barnacle, wife of James Joyce, was from Galway. The Nora Barnacle House, according to my tour guide, is the smallest museum in Ireland.

A nice walk along the river, with one of the festival tents in the background.

The bridge to Galway Cathedral.

The townhouses along Galway Bay.

I saw several shows at the festival. The most memorable was 'Penelope,' a new play by Irish playwright Enda Walsh at Druid Theatre Company. Druid is perhaps Ireland's most well-known theatre company, and the first to produce several of McDonagh's plays, so to finally see a performance at the Druid Lane Theatre was particularly exciting for me and fit in well with my research.

I also saw this intense dance piece called 'Political Mother,' choreographed by Hofesh Schechter, an Israeli choreographer based in the U.K. It began with a spotlight on a guy dressed in full samurai garb committing seppuku. The ushers gave out ear plugs as we entered, since the piece was extremely loud and percussion heavy. The lighting was very dynamic, allowing the space to morph in interesting ways as the dancers performed in many differently shaped areas on multiple levels of the stage. I snapped a picture of the final look after the performance:

During my stay in Galway, I also met with Louis de Paor, an Irish-language poet, to talk about his poetry and issues of translation, as well as with Patrick Lonergan, an Irish drama scholar and critic. Both are professors at NUI Galway and both were very friendly and gracious in talking to me. Patrick directed the Synge Summer School, and my meeting with him was incredibly valuable, since he is writing a book on McDonagh. He pointed me in several good directions, and I left our conversation, and Galway, with lots to think about.

A Spar on Inishmore

I arrived in Galway, and took the ferry over to the Aran Islands. It was on the islands that Synge found inspiration for his dramatic works, most notably The Playboy of the Western World. Synge's trip to the Islands was encouraged by Yeats, who famously said, "Go to the Aran Islands. Live there as one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression." At the time, Yeats and many of his contemporaries shared a romantic vision of the islands as a place where one could find 'authentic Irishness,' where an isolated Irish-speaking rural society still held traces of a pre-Christian, Pagan, ancient Celtic culture.

The notion that there are traces of an ancient culture on the Aran Islands exists to this day, and is the basis for the tremendous amount of tourism on the Islands. In the Aran Bike Tours pamphlet that was handed to me on the dock, it reads:

"The population of the island is about 800. The islanders use the language of Irish every day, the island being one of the last places in Ireland where the ancient Celtic language is preserved."

This was really interesting to me-- coming from a week in Donegal where a thriving Gaeltacht community is using Irish as an everyday language in the contemporary world--to see the Islands marketed in this way. Yes, there are some fantastic ruins from the ancient Aran Island culture, and yes Irish is spoken, but the traditional way of life has quickly been lost and replaced by the tourism industry. The odds of finding an old fisherman who only speaks Irish? Slim to none. Which is kind of ironic, because that's what people come to see-- the 'authentic,' traditional culture and way of life.

Instead, there's a Spar- Ireland's most popular supermarket chain- on Inishmore. But don't worry, you can get in touch with traditional Aran culture-- you can buy an authentic Aran sweater at the Aran Sweater market, and it even comes with a certificate of authenticity.

All cynicism aside, the Islands truly have some amazing sites. Additionally, McDonagh, riffing on Synge, wrote his Aran Islands trilogy, which includes The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Cripple of Inishmaan, so seeing everything the Islands had to offer (natural, ancient, and commercial) was an incredibly valuable part of my research.

The boardwalk on Inishmore.

I rented a bike on Inishmore, so that I could travel around and see the whole island. A paved road cut through fields that were divided up by rock walls, demarcating who owned the land.

I stopped to see these horses, and they were very friendly and came right up to me. Even the horses are friendly in Ireland!

All this field needs is Mel Gibson in facepaint, riding his horse into battle, with bagpipes playing in the background...

I stopped off at Dun Aonghasa (pronounced 'dune angus'), coveted as 'the most spectacular semi Circular Celtic Stone fort in Europe. Dun Aonghasa is believed to have been built in the Iron Age, and offered some fantastic views of the island.

The cliffs from the top of Dun Aonghasa.

Me at the cliffs, perhaps a little sweaty/tired from my bike ride.

At Dun Aonghasa, I met some guys around my age who work there and live on Inishmore. They invited me to their friend Bartley's birthday barbeque. The party was at Bartley's family's house, which is one of the few traditional cottages that still exists on the island today (and by few I mean like, one of three). We had a lot of fun, and when it started raining (of course) we went down to the pub to listen to some music.

The next day I rode my bike all the way to the northern most point of the island. There was a nice view of a lighthouse from the beach.

I also stopped by Na Seacht d'Teampheall (The Seven Churches).

On the way back, I caught this view of the island. You can see Dun Aonghasa in the distance- that ancient culture so far, far away...

In the Sunshine of the Glen

I spent the past week in beautiful Glencolmcille, in an Irish immersion program. Glencolmcille is located in the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) region of Donegal, in the northwest of Ireland. I arranged to do a home-stay with an Irish family. The first night I arrived, it was raining (of course), but there was a fire in the fireplace, and I was greeted by Kathleen, my 'ban-na-tee' ('woman of the house' in Irish), and her Irish sheepdog, Missy. It could not have been a more perfect image.

But first, a brief background about the Irish language:

In 1800, if you had drawn a line down the middle of Ireland from north to south, the western half would be Irish-speaking, and the eastern half English-speaking. During the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s, millions of Irish speakers perished. The spread of English continued due to the effects of British colonization, and Irish was pushed further westward. Today, there are only a few regions on the west coast of Ireland, called the Gaeltacht, where Irish is spoken as the everyday language. Out of the over 4 million people who live in Ireland today, under 100,000 live in the Gaeltacht.

Glencolmcille is in one of these regions. The school I attended was called Oideas Gael (pronounced 'ed-jus gail'). Everyone at the school was very passionate about speaking and teaching Irish, about keeping it alive. The first day, we were told that Oideas Gael means "Gaelic education," but during one of the last days of class we were doing vocabulary and we learned the word for a prescription you would get from a doctor- oideas. So Oideas Gael isn't just a Gaelic education, it's a prescription, a recipe, a remedy for the current state of the Irish language.

The view from my host family's house:



In the center of the glen, there's an old church. Paddy, an older gentlemen who had many great stories to tell, was my roommate at the house. Paddy said there was a fairy bush by the church, but he wouldn't tell me where it was.



The mountain overlooking the glen.



After the first morning of class, we walked down to the beach.



Some perspective for those mountains...



Class focused on conversational Irish, on learning phrases that we can use right away. This was a good approach, because the spelling of words in Irish is FREAKY. Example: the Irish word for thank you is pronounced 'go-ro-my-heh-git,' but it's spelled: go raibh maith agat. Notice how many consonants get dropped... weird. Irish is a notoriously difficult language, and I was only able to learn some basic conversation in a week, but here are a few phrases, spelled phonetically:

Hello: 'Gia-ditch,' literally 'God be with you'

Hello in response: 'gia-es-more-ra-ditch,' 'God and Mary be with you'

How are you: 'cad-jay-mar-ata-too?'

Are you going to the pub tonight?: 'an-will-too-a-yannu-go-jee-an-choch-tar-warn-ya-a-nacht?'

One of my personal favorites is the word for whiskey: uisce beatha ('ish-ke ba-ha), which literally means 'water of life.' We learned lots of relevant vocabulary.

On the night of the World Cup final, everyone went to the pub to watch the game. Afterwards, I walked outside to find a lovely sunset:



Classes were held 10-1 and 3-5. We had two tea breaks a day, as well as a long lunch break from 1-3, so that we had time to rest our brains. Given the intensity of learning how to hold a conversation in such a difficult language in under a week, the frequent tea and biscuits were quite welcome. On one of our lunch breaks, we drove down to a place called Silver Strand, where there was a nice beach. One of my classmates lent me his wet suit, so although the water was freezing, I was nice and toasty!



Each night, we had a social activity. These included Irish music, Irish dancing, and a reading of Irish poetry (my personal favorite). On the last night, each level (there were six levels of classes- I was in the first one, naturally) had to do a brief performance. Level one ('level a-dole') decided to do an original rap in Irish, a performance which, embarrassingly enough, can be found on my Facebook profile.

Everyone became very bonded. Paddy and I became good friends. He would tell me stories about Irish myths and the meanings behind different place names. At the end of the week, he told me that I was an honorary Irishman, and that if anyone questioned that, I should tell them that the Fairy Queen herself declared it so.

A picture of Paddy and me on the last day. Although I'm smiling in this picture, it was a very sad goodbye.



Me, Paddy, and some of our classmates and friends.



The last meal I had in Glencolmcille was at the cafe at the Folk Village Museum. There were many examples of traditional Irish cottages. It was a nice way to end a week of learning about the beauty of traditional Irish language and culture.

Belfast (continued)

This post is a continuation of the one before it:

After the memorial, we crossed through a gate onto the Protestant side of the wall, which was built to separate the two communities and stands to this day. Many people stop to write messages of peace on the wall.

A mural of King William of Orange, revered as a Protestant hero.

The red hand of Ulster is found in the center of the Ulster flag, and is an important symbol in the Loyalist Protestant community. This mural depicts one of the many legends for the red hand. The story goes that the king of Ulster had no rightful heir, so he decided to have a boat race, and the winner of the race would be declared king. The king said that whoever put their hand on the shore first would win. One man, in seeing that he was losing the race, remembered the king's words- he cut off his hand and threw it on to the shore, thus winning the kingship.

Cuchulainn, a mythical Ulster warrior hero, is another important symbol.

We ended the tour at The Crown, a very historic pub in centre of Belfast. Amazingly, the pub still has gas lighting.

When I arrived in Belfast the day before, the first thing I had to do was change my Euros for British pounds, which was very strange. I felt like I was still in Ireland but I also was definitely in a different country. Belfast has that unique sense of being in-between- some people hang British flags outside their doors and consider themselves British, and some are die-hard Republican Nationalists who think Ireland should be united under one republic. Whatever the case, it seems that despite the current peace, the situation is still, after so many years, unresolved.

Belfast

I spent my second day in Northern Ireland exploring the city of Belfast. Belfast felt smaller and quainter than Dublin, which is interesting considering that it was the epicenter of so much violence during The Troubles.

Belfast City Hall.

In the morning, I walked through the campus of the Queens University of Belfast...

... and the botanical gardens near campus. To the right is a statue of Baron Kelvin, who invented the Kelvin scale and was born in Belfast.

Later in the day, I went on a Black Cab Tour. The tour was a history of The Troubles, taking you through the city to look at the important places in the conflict and the many political murals. Bobby, our tour guide, was from Belfast and lived through The Troubles. He said it was very scary being a taxi driver then, because Catholic taxi drivers would often be killed by Protestants because they were easy targets.

We drove around to see the many murals that were painted in response to the conflict.

In the Catholic area, a copy of Guernica- perhaps the most famous artistic response to the horrors of war.

I didn't know that Frederick Douglass traveled to Ireland during the Potato Famine and had a strong Irish connection.

The murals are also strongly engaged with American foreign policy.

And with the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. The Catholic community tends to be very pro-Palestinian, whereas the Protestant community tends to be more pro-Israeli. There were, interestingly enough, two Israeli men on the tour, and they were very curious about The Troubles and wanted to know more about the current situation. They would ask things like, "Are the two communities reconciled today?" and so forth. Bobby's assessment wasn't the most encouraging: despite the de-facto peace, the two communities are still very separate, and although the violence has essentially stopped, tensions do get high around July 12th, the day the Orangemen march.

Bobby said this mural is the most photographed mural in the world.

We stopped by a memorial dedicated to Catholics who were killed at the start of The Troubles. In the late 60s, many in the Catholic community cried out for the IRA to return to protect them, like "a phoenix from the flames," which is why there is a phoenix on the gate of the memorial.

(see Belfast (continued))

Walking in the Steps of Giants

I arrived in Belfast in the evening. The next morning, I went on a bus tour to Giants Causeway. The bus drove along the North coast, passing through many small coastal villages. There were lots of sheep. We noticed that some of the sheep were spray painted green, orange, red, and blue. Our tour guide explained that "the green and orange sheep are Catholic sheep, and the red and blue sheep are Protestant sheep." This would prove an interesting beginning to my experiences in Northern Ireland.

Giants Causeway is Ireland's only World Heritage Site. It's a massive formation of basalt columns. As our tour guide pointed out, scientists "claim" it was formed by cooling lava from an ancient volcanic eruption, but the true story is that it was built by Finn Mac Cool, an ancient Irish warrior who was himself a giant. There are many wonderful legends about how Giants Causeway was built.

So many rocks! They are a lot of fun to climb around on...

The beautiful Irish coast.

I tried to replicate the famous pictures of the columns, but it was very difficult to get a picture without people in it. It also would have been great to have a sunset, and maybe some fog...

A precarious situation- those rocks aren't wet for nothing. In this picture I'm thinking, "gee, I hope the waves don't come up and soak me..."

Some really tall columns.

Those are some intense waves!

Along the way, we stopped at several small towns. We also made a quick stop at Bushmill's Distillery, where I sampled my first Irish whiskey. The last stop was a cliffside where they had a rope bridge which led to a small island. From the island, there were some incredible views of the coastline and the cliffs. The island was the most peaceful place I've been in Ireland-- we were there right before it began to rain, and everything was just silent, except for the sound of the waves rolling in.

Ah, yes...

In terms of thinking about how landscape can inspire, how it can capture a literary imagination, there was no better place to be than Giants Causeway.