Cross-Cultural Program: Ireland and Northern Ireland -
Journal

[Orientation 8/26] [Galway 9/2] [Limerick 9/25] [Dublin 10/2] [Ballycastle 10/16] [Scotland 10/19]
[Belfast 10/25] [Derry 11/8] [Free 11/23] [Corrymeela 12/1] [Debriefing 12/4] [Maps]

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Limerick (west coast) [itinerary] [top] [maps]

Friday September 25 - We met in Galway just a few blocks from the hostel, at the bus depot. Time to move to Limerick! Many have already mailed packages home, rather than carrying all the accumulated stuff around. We got going a few minutes after 11:00, and the usual games of Euchre and Rook were quickly underway. Some of the students have also been learning Klaberjass, an addictive two-player European card game more than a century old. Others chatted, slept, or listened to portable stereos. We've had a lot of bus time so far this term. Because there was nothing else planned for the day other than settling into the hostel in Limerick, we all took an afternoon detour to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. The 13th century castle was in ruins until 45 years ago, when it was bought by a medievalist and restored. Now it and the area around it are a tourist attraction, with a small village set up as it might have been hundreds of years ago in the shadow of the castle. It is one of the most popular sites in this area for nightly medieval banquets. We explored the castle via its tight spiral staircases, and many references were made to lines or music quoted from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.... Early in the evening we arrived in Limerick and the students moved into Finnegans Hostel. This week our "lads and girls" (to use the local terminology) will be in large shared rooms: 8 and 8 for the girls, 6 and 6 for the lads. The faculty are in a B&B a few blocks downtown. We'll all catch the buses near here next week to commute to our classes out at the university, about four miles from town.
Saturday 26 - This morning we met at the hostel for a bus tour to the southwest, the farthest south we'll get this term. We're with a private tour company: the husband drives, the wife narrates. Our first brief stop (snacks or toilets) was in the town of Tralee, at the base of the Dingle Peninsula. We continued out toward the westernmost point of Ireland, and had a few hours for lunch and sightseeing in the seafaring town of Dingle. From what we saw of it, it's very much yet another prime tourism spot, with souvenir shops everywhere. On our way out of town the weather suddenly turned from a glum sprinkly gray to a clearer blue, and as we wound through the steep hills we found some gorgeous views. Taking the coastal road back, we found the very smooth sandy beach at Inch, saw a few other people walking far out there (low tide), and had to stop. It was a terrific spot to go for beach walks or just to watch the water, and we spent more than an hour there. The next planned destination was Muckross House south of Killarney, but when we got into Killarney we all decided to stay there instead. Muckross is an estate similar to the one we saw last weekend, and we will see another one later; Killarney looked like a fun place to spend a few hours getting dinner and shopping. We drove back, arriving in Limerick at 8:30 after a casual day.
Sunday 27 - Another coach tour day...this time to Blarney Castle and Cork. Because we haven't had an organized worship session together for a while, we sang together on the bus for more than half an hour. We'll also try to get to a church service as a group, possible two weeks from now. We arrived at Blarney in the late morning, and had a beautiful day to see it. It is about 85 feet high, but on top of a hill that gives it another 50 feet or so. There is a semi-wooded area around it, with walking paths: a nice setting. Like Bunratty Castle, it has spiral staircases leading everywhere, but in this case the floors and roof are missing, so Blarney Castle is just a perimeter of stone with a large open area in the middle. Tourists are herded to the top to stand in line around the parapet, awaiting a turn to kiss the Blarney Stone. To do so, one has to lean out backwards over a hole that has more than an 80-foot drop to the ground (there is an assistant holding your legs, and a few metal bars going across the hole). Most of us kissed the stone anyway. After lunch either at the grounds or in the nearby town, we drove to Cork city. It was late Sunday afternoon, and almost nothing was open anywhere. We went to the cathedral, which was also closed, but some who stayed there persistently (rather than wandering off to explore) got inside for a few minutes when a choir arrived for a rehearsal. We were all pretty tired, so chose to return to Limerick rather than to wait another hour to get in again to hear the choir's programme. The church was undergoing massive renovation, so much of the inside was blocked off anyway. We had a brief rest stop in Charleville on the way home.
Monday 28 - Free day to see Limerick or catch up on work.
Tuesday 29 - This morning we had classes at the University, but had trouble finding the bus to get there...the published terminal point is a landmark (a hardware store) that no longer exists with the same name. When we eventually found the bus and arrived on campus about half an hour late, we found that the university is remarkably modern, most of it built within the past ten years. Our lectures were in the Foundation building, which also houses the concert hall, art galleries, numerous offices, and a large suspended model of Leonardo da Vinci's flying machine. Our class at 10:30 (11:00) was on conflict resolution theory as it applies to the situation in Northern Ireland. The presenter was Dominick Murray. After lunch on campus, we had a 2:00 lecture on Gender, Women, and Protestants by Jan O'Sullivan, who has been a parliamentary representative for the Labour Party. The rest of the afternoon was free to explore the campus or simply to return to town. Several of us looked at the exhibits of self-portraits and watercolours by national artists.
Wednesday 30 - Today was a day for culture and local history. We met at the north end of the downtown area, and had a few hours exploring the Hunt Museum, a collection of art works and artifacts assembled by a wealthy family named Hunt. The items were of course put together for their individual quality and personal interest to the collectors...a little bit of everything. Students each chose an item to study more in depth for a later report. The group met again at 2:00 at the museum, and took a historical walking tour of the city. This was led by Michael O'Donnell, who had plenty of interesting stories about the areas we saw. Limerick's downtown area is becoming modernised, with the past preserved less aggressively than the much more tourist-oriented Galway. That is, Limerick has a long and interesting history as well, but it is not nearly so much a romanticised spot to bring in tourism--Limerick simply goes about its business improving itself rather than attempting to restore a past quaintness. It has wide streets, most of the original city wall is gone, and it looks like a typical mid-sized city that could be anywhere in Europe. It certainly doesn't give an impression of affluence as Galway does.
Thursday October 1 - There wasn't time yesterday to go through King John's Castle during the tour, so there was opportunity this morning to do so. The students could also go back to see the churches more thoroughly, could do other exploring, or simply take free time. Limerick has had a long history of relative poverty, and we tried to simulate this today for ourselves, as an artificial exercise: each of us is allowed to use only "a fiver" for the entire day to cover all food and other expenses. This is still quite a lot of money (about $7.50), but much less than one would typically spend per day in a comfortable tourist lifestyle for hot food (averaging about #5.00 per meal), snacks, souvenirs, and transportation (70p per bus; much more for cabs). We further restricted this #5.00 allowance for the day: there is a penalty of 25p per minute for use of any modern conveniences such as heat, electricity, hot water, telephone, and battery power. So, for example, if one chooses to take a four-minute hot shower and heat a curling iron for two minutes, that uses up #1.50 already and there is only #3.50 left for the day. Or if one wants to heat water for soup or tea, or to cook something, it is much better to get many people each to chip in a minute's worth of energy than to do it all oneself. Listening to a song on personal stereo equipment would use up about 75p. This exercise causes us to think about our unnoticed consumerism, think about our comfortable individualism, and plan ahead to make the money stretch. We will do this "poverty day" exercise again later this term, but for two consecutive days rather than one, and there might also be an energy penalty of 5p or 10p for toilet flushing...it's amazing how much water goes by.
Back to the day...we met at 2:00 near the hostel to do an Angela's Ashes walking tour, again with Mr. O'Donnell. This poignant autobiography by Frank McCourt has been one of the required texts for this term, a way of getting inside the extreme poverty, prejudices, and other hardships endured by typical working-class residents 50-60 years ago. The walking tour was to many of the sites in the book, and a telling of anecdotes at each place. One surprise was that the hostel where the students have been living is directly across from one of the McCourt family's apartments, and just down the street from the school and the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which provided some financial assistance to the family. The tour gave us a good sense of distances, lifestyle, and positions...our guide had a very similar childhood here only a few years later. After the tour we met for a brief class session: processing any issues, and reviewing the arts study projects from yesterday. By this time of day, everybody was rather tired, and a bit hungry. Tonight we pack for another move.

Dublin (east coast) [itinerary] [top] [maps]

Friday October 2 - The tour bus picked us all up at 10:00, and we were soon on the way east, having completed another section of our trip. The distance between Limerick and Dublin would be only about a 90-minute drive in the US, but with the roads here it is nearly a three-hour trip. At lunchtime we stopped for a few hours at St. Patrick's Rock, Cashel. This was a place of Munster kings for many centuries (including Patrick's visit in the fifth century), before becoming an established church site in 1101, thereby a significant transfer of power base from secular politics into the Church. It is a large craggy rock hill with a walled community of stone buildings on top: a round tower, a cathedral, an abbey, other chapels, and of course a graveyard. The town of Cashel is to one side, and vast green fields to the other side. We continued to Dublin, and arrived downtown at Kinlay House (our hostel) at 4:00. The students will be there for a week, then move to another hostel on the north side of the river for the second week. Kinlay House is in the bustling downtown area on Lord Edward Street, just a block from Dublin Castle. This time the students are in five rooms of four, one room of six, and one room of two.
Saturday 3 - The only thing on the schedule today was a two-hour morning walking tour of some of the city. Starting at the hostel, we saw Christ Church and the nearby St. Patrick's Church. We moved on to the Georgian (18th century) section, seeing the area where Shaw, Wilde, Yeats, and other writers lived while in Dublin. We visited the parks where they often walked: St. Stephen's Green and Merrion Square. We also saw where the Duke of Wellington was born. Next was Trinity College, which is the most elite college in Ireland; it also houses the Book of Kells and other valuable things in its library. Near Trinity is the old Parliament building, which is now a bank. The River Liffey runs through town west to east, and our tour was only of the south side of the river, though we walked halfway across the Ha'penny Bridge just for the view. There is plenty of time for us to explore the city on our own in the next two weeks.
Sunday 4 - We met at the hostel at 9:00 for a bus to County Wicklow. The downtown area is very much quieter this early on a Sunday morning! Only half an hour's drive out of the city we were already in mountains, and soon passed through Roundwood, the highest-elevated town in Ireland. We arrived at Glendalough at 10:30. This is a monastery founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century, and its ruins are now a very dense graveyard and a popular idyllic site for tourists. It includes a 100-foot tall round tower and the remains of several stone churches. "Glendalough" means "valley of two lakes," and this place is gorgeous at the side of an 1800-foot mountain (Derrybawn). It was a chilly, gray day, but the views with woods, running water, and lakes were still spectacular...definitely one of the most beautiful spots we've seen so far in our trip. Almost half the students went off on their own to climb the mountain's lower crest, and reported that it was amazing up there. About half of us took the guided tour with a very fast-talking guide, then walked on the paths to the lakes. We met back at the bus a bit after 12:30, and came back toward Dublin to visit Powerscourt Gardens at Enniskerry. We had lunch at the cafeteria (excellent soup, bread, and desserts!), then explored the huge gardens. They were designed in the 1730's, and have been in the estates of two families. It rained about half the time that we were there. The manor house had a disastrous fire in 1974, and is not yet restored to any former condition. Some of our guys were tempted by the golf course just outside the gardens, and talked about perhaps going back sometime. We all got back to the hostel at 5:00. We had hoped to visit a dairy farm sometime today also, but that plan fell through; we will try to get to one later.
Monday 5 - free day. Everyone has a Dublin culture allowance for these two weeks here, covering admission and transportation to whatever the students individually want to see.
Tuesday 6 - Today was a class day. We met at 10:00 at a Methodist mission which rents out its rooms during the week. We had morning and afternoon history lectures by Stephen Harrison, a research scholar at Trinity College here in Dublin. Along the way he brought in some more information about the places we had already visited, explaining how they fit into Ireland's long history. After the second class we continued to meet for some details pertaining to the other course work. Then in the evening we all had dinner together as a group at The Shack, a restaurant near the hostel. That was a nice time to be together as a group, just for fun. We also had a birthday cake for Matt Thomas. Most of our meals have been on our own, each person using a meal allowance at his or her own discretion. This has been the first time in quite a while that the entire group ate together.
Wednesday 7 - In the morning we found the city bus to take us west along the River Liffey to Kilmainham Gaol (jail), which is no longer in use but was one of the most important places where political prisoners used to be held. Our tour there included a film about the gaol's history and some of the people who have been interned there, and then we walked through the cell blocks and saw the execution yards. This visit was a startling look at reality. This gaol's central area was also where some of the film "Michael Collins" was made a few years ago. Then in the afternoon we took a different bus out toward some southern suburbs...it took us quite a while to get where we were going, because our first choice of bus didn't have a run at the time we needed, and our second choice could get us no closer than a half-hour walk after we got off. But at about 4:20 (only slightly late) we arrived at the Church of Ireland Theological College and were rewarded with a welcoming tea and biscuits. Rev. Tom Gordon gave us a presentation about the Church of Ireland, and talked about the role of Protestants in the Republic (the south). We also had some discussion time with him, examining our own faith traditions. The evening was free for exploring Dublin.
Thursday 8 - This morning was free for cultural activities. At 2:00 we met at Leinster House, formerly a residence and now the meeting place for parliament. We had a brief tour of the building and observed part of a parliamentary session. Today we were also joined by Mervyn Love's group from Bluffton College and Anderson University, plus our lecturer from Tuesday (Stephen Harrison). At 3:00 we crossed the street to a hall inside a Masonic lodge, where we heard a presentation by a member of parliament, Monica Barnes. She gave us a good background on the Troubles and on the general political situation of the past 30 years. She stressed the importance of young people in peace processes, and pointed out the significance of Clinton's administration for Ireland and Northern Ireland. After this presentation we had a brief time to review this week's requirements and to plan tomorrow's move across town. Then the evening was free.
Friday 9 - Well, we beat the rain! At 10 a.m. we hired two van taxis, and most of the students helped to load all our bags from Kinlay House; a few others walked ahead to the Charles Stewart House to be ready to unload when the vans arrived. Just after all the students arrived to choose beds and unpack, the rain began and lasted most of the afternoon. The Charles Stewart is a nicely decorated place on one of the major streets of the city, just a few blocks north of the River Liffey. It is named after Charles Stewart Parnell, one of the most important political figures early in this century. We have two big rooms full of bunk beds and closets: one room for our 16 girls, the other for our 12 lads. The rest of the day was free. In the evening most of the group gathered at the dining room for a spaghetti supper together.
Saturday 10 - Early this morning we boarded a tour bus and went out to the Boyne Valley. Our first stop was Newgrange, a large burial mound on top of a hill. First we saw a video presentation, then took the tourist centre's minibuses out to see the site itself. It was constructed about 5000 years ago with some remarkable engineering: the interior of the mound is built entirely of carefully stacked rocks with no mortar, and surrounded by large kerb stones, some decorated, then the whole is covered over with dirt and grass. There is no recorded instance where water has ever leaked into the inner part of the tomb. This is a passage tomb, set up carefully (long before Stonehenge!) so that on five days at the winter solstice each year, early morning sunlight goes down the passage into the chamber for 17 minutes...the rest of the year it is dark inside. (These sunlight occasions are already booked ahead for all the years through 2008...the 25 people who have reserved a particular day to see it will wait inside and hope it's not cloudy!)
After we had lunch back at the tourist centre, we took our own bus out to the Hill of Slane and its Abbey: ruins of a church and classroom. This is one of the famous sites visited by St. Patrick, and our own familiar hymn tune for "Be Thou my Vision" is named after this place. Our visit lasted about 45 minutes, and after we climbed up there through a muddy cow pasture, most of the students spent the time climbing everywhere on the ruins, walking on top of the walls, and looking at the spectacular view all around. Some also threw a football up to and down from the top of the 75-foot bell tower. It was a nice day for this visit, with the sun out and a partly cloudy sky...all green and blue and white. Then back on the bus we continued to the Hill of Tara, where we spent another hour. This is a large hill and pasture with built-up circular indentations and mounds, a place to walk or run around. Nobody knows yet for sure what this shaping of the land means or was used for. But historically this area was the place where the highest-ranking kings of Ireland had their base and perhaps also burials: whoever was highest in the political hierarchy needed to control this territory. When we got back to Dublin at the end of the afternoon, many of us watched part of a parade that was happening on O'Connell street near the hostel--a bicentenary commemoration of the 1798 rebellions.
Sunday 11 - We cancelled the bus tour that had been planned for today, and went together to the 11:00 worship service at Christ Church cathedral (Church of Ireland, similar to Anglican or Episcopalian in style). The cathedral was built beginning in the 11th century. The service lasted about an hour and 20 minutes, including singing of the liturgy by a very good mixed choir. Some of the students had also heard the choir in evensong a few days ago. The settings used for the service today were a mass and motets from 16th/17th century Portugal, performed a cappella. (The choir also sings in other styles at other services.) The organist played appropriately chosen Portuguese or Spanish works, and accompanied the several hymns we sang. It was all very well done. The sermon was about giving thanks. After the service we went downstairs to the crypt for coffee and biscuits with the other attenders. The rest of our day was free.
Monday 12 - Today was a free day until a session of group processing in the evening, meeting in the hostel's TV lounge. Many of "the girls" reported tension among themselves as a group, trying to get along with everyone and help each other feel satisfactorily included. (This is of course to be expected on any extended trip with a diverse group travelling together, living closely, and making new relationships.) "The guys," on the other hand, had all spent an afternoon bonding by playing football together...other than some minor injuries and soreness, they felt that they have been doing well as a group and personally, and didn't have any "issues" among themselves or with the girls. We also did a few minutes preparing for tomorrow's village studies, and previewing the events of the coming week. The term is almost half over already!
This morning Gloria worked on some of the academic planning and grading. I took a break and got out to another bridge game, this time to the Clontarf rugby and cricket club near our B&B. The players here weren't quite as old as in the Galway club where I played, though still mostly retirees, and there were almost fifty players this morning. This club turned out to be mostly a group of near-beginners without much playing experience yet, other than their weekly lessons together and this regular local game...they were still reviewing some fundamentals of bidding and play as we went along. (They have the mechanics of the game down fairly well now, but not the strategy yet.) Bridge seems especially popular in the Dublin area, with many players such as these picking it up in some free time, and some said that young people are now learning it in some of the schools. During a fifteen-minute break when my partner and I had a sit-out round, we had a nice discussion about Irish topics in general, as she asked about our student group and what we're doing here and what we've been learning. She told me that her grandfather's older siblings had left Ireland during the 1840's famine--that's how direct a connection can still be felt among current citizens, although the event seems so distant in the past.
Back at the B&B in the afternoon, Gloria and I worked on academic things and ran the usual weekly errands. Something I've especially appreciated where we're staying is that the family who owns the place has been feeding three stray kittens who have been living in the back yard. Missing our own cats, I've gone out to play with these kittens frequently. I've named the friendly one Pete, because he's completely black like peat. The other two are striped grey tabbies, but have never come near enough to me (or any other humans) that anyone living here has come up with names for them. They huddle up against the house when it's cold, but run away whenever anyone goes near them.
Tuesday 13 - Today was another Village Study day--students went in groups of four to Drogheda, Kildare, Celbridge, Kells, Trim, Maynooth, and Enniskerry. This project is like the one we did in Galway: reports due later about interviews, history, layout, etc. Today was also a good day for the leaders to catch up on record-keeping tasks, see a bit more of Dublin, and draft the history exam for Thursday.
Wednesday 14 - We began in the morning with classes from our earlier lecturer, Stephen Harrison. Today he gave us an Irish language and pronunciation lesson, and then two hours on the history of the rebellions and the establishment of the Irish government in this century. The political situation was certainly very complicated, and continues to be so. Some of this lecture fit in very well with our recent visit to Kilmainham gaol, where we had seen a film and toured the cell blocks where many of the political figures had been held at various times. Our meeting this morning was in the Methodist mission's Alcoholics Anonymous attic room, where we had had a class last week. This building is also used as a place for drama rehearsals, a traffic court, a place for community groups to meet, and of course a church on Sundays. Last week we had the large meeting room for one session, then the attic. We had a short break for lunch today, then almost all of us took a bus (and some walked) to a theatre on the east side to see the musical Phantom of the Opera. This lavish production has a steady run this fall, having opened recently. After the show let out soon after 5:00, we tried four different bus stops but never had any luck getting one of the few buses that serve that area of town at that time of day--the published schedules are not at all reliable, and everyone you ask for help has a different opinion about which place or time or number is correct...all opinions turning out to be mistaken. We eventually gave up after an hour of this, and all walked back through industrial and shipping districts. Many of us will be glad to get out of the city's noise, grime, air pollution, and confusion. The cultural attractions of the city are nice, but so would a quiet small town be good for a change of pace. That is, we're eagerly anticipating our retreat to Corrymeela this coming weekend.
Thursday 15 - First exam! The group gathered at 9:30 for the midterm history exam. It was an open-notes test, and we hear that many of the students spent the evening before working together on their notes. This morning the mission had rented out so many of its rooms that they gave us their main sanctuary for the morning. After the exam we had a lecture by Joe Liechty, a Mennonite who has been here 19 years, partly sponsored by Mennonite Board of Missions. His field is history, and he has been working on a project about sectarianism, which he described to us. We also had time with him answering our other questions about social and economic issues, from his perspective as an American observer who has become an Irish citizen.
We cancelled the afternoon class time (Joyce's Dubliners and some other things) to give us all more time for packing and a last visit of Dublin. Also, the leaders did the second and third personal interviews with students (the first was yesterday evening)--each student has a meal with the leaders to discuss anything they want to, or just to get to know one another better. This will continue through the rest of the term, several students per week. This evening we all went to a newly-opened play, Amazing Grace by Michael Harding. Our history cramming this week has been the perfect background to seeing this play, as it is about sectarianism, family ties, history, secret collaborations, violence throughout all parts of Ireland, The Troubles, the English military force, and roles of Christianity in all this. It was a strongly worded, graphically startling show, with complex relationships among the characters. Three women try to assemble an ecumenical choir to do the bit of community good they can against sectarian violence and hatred; the young brother of one of these women is in the hospital from injuries, and teetering on the brink of madness (including hallucinations of the 1798 rebellion); and they are all associatied in some way with an older English military policeman from the force in Northern Ireland, himself on the edge of despair. Who is the enemy in a conflict? Who should apologise to whom? How can impossibly complicated situations be reconciled? Can amends be made, either on personal or institutional levels? These questions will be in our minds as we move to the north.

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Cross-Cultural Program: Ireland and Northern Ireland - Journal

Limerick (west coast) [itinerary] [top] [maps]

Dublin (east coast) [itinerary] [top] [maps]

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Cross-Cultural Program: Ireland and Northern Ireland -
Journal