CofC Ireland Trip 2009

Last Day!

2009-08-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

We can't believe it's over, but tomorrow morning we begin leaving at 5:30 am; most will leave Trinity at 7. By 10am, everyone will be airborne and leaving Ireland. Twelve of us arrive at 10:20 pm on United--don't forget to pick up your loved one.

We had a cheerful fairwell dinner at an Italian restaurant on Anne Street. Here's a final picture for the blog. See you in Charleston . . .

Book of Kells

2009-08-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

This morning Trish (our resident Medievalist) brought everyone to see the Book of Kells, a 9th-century Gospel codex with some magnificent examples of Celtic illumination. A page from book is depicted here.

In the afternoon, some went to the Hill of Howth with Joe for the dramatic "cliff walk." The final pages of Ulysses are on the Hill, when Molly remembers her husband, Leopold, asking her to marry him.

Those who didn't go on the hike visited museums, etc. here in town.

Tomorrow is our last day--a day for students to choose what they want to do themselves.

2009-08-04T00:32:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry I'm two days behind. The internet is better in Dublin than Sligo, but there are more distractions. Sunday was "free" day, and everyone scattered to their own interests. I've a picture here of Shannon, Peter, Allison, and Logan at Croke Park (capacity 82,000), where we saw Cork demolish Donegal in the All-Ireland Gaelic football quarterfinals.

On Monday we went to Kilmainham, one of the solemnest places in all of Ireland: many of the martyrs of Irish nationalism were imprisoned here or executed, including fourteen of the sixteen men and women commemorated in Yeats's "Easter 1916": And what if excess of love/ Bewildered them till they died?/ I write it out in a verse--/ MacDonagh and MacBride/ And Connolly and Pearse/ Now and in time to be/ Wherever green is worn/ Are changed, changed utterly:/ A terrible beauty is born.

From the sacred to the banal: we could barely get home on the trolley because of the crush of "Dubs" headed to next quarter-final, Kerry v. Dublin. The hometown boys lost, just like last year.

2009-08-01T10:34:00.001-07:00

The literary vein today was a visit to the famous Martello Tower at Sandycove, the site of the opening chapter of Joyce's Ulysses. Below the Tower is the "Forty Foot Hole," where crass Buck Mulligan took his morning swim. Logan got us bragging rites by braving the frigid waters of Dublin bay. He's the seal-like creature in the middle of this picture.

2009-08-01T10:26:00.001-07:00

Today was a great day for weather, and we needed it, because we did a five-mile hike from the resort coastal town of Bray (where we encountered an amusement park) to Greystones. Here's a picture of everyone but Joe (who's taking the picture) and Morgan and Jade (who skipped the hike). In order, we have Peter, Eric, Megan, Trish, Logan, Kristen, Langston, Shannon, Allison, Alexa, Emory, and Ariel. It's an extraordinary group of students, and Trish and I feel privileged to be showing them Ireland.

2009-08-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we visited Glendalough (or Glen of the Two Lakes). You can see one in the background here, the lower lake. Megan, Langston, Jade, Kristen, Alexa, and Ariel hiked quite a ways up towards the Spinc to pose for this picture. It was our first day of really bad weather--rain, cold, wind.

Glendalough is a monastery town first settled in the 6th century by St. Kevin, the St. Francis of Ireland. For centuries, Glendalough was the capital city of Leinster, the eastern province of the island.

You can see part of the monastery behind Emory, Jade (and Shannon): a stone-roofed church called St. Kevin's kitchen.

We said goodbye to Leslie, our coach driver yesterday evening, and then many of us went to Oliver St. John Gogarty's in Temple Bar to hear a couple hours of Irish music.

The East Coast!

2009-07-30T14:54:00.000-07:00

An uneventful day, as we took our bus across the country to Dublin, on the east coast. We stopped at the Lake Isle of Innisfree (which inspired Yeats's most famous poem), took a few pictures, and headed out of Sligo.

We all arrived safe and sound at Trinity College in the heart of the hibernian metropolis. After a brief orientation and a stern word of caution, Trish and I sent everyone on their way for the evening. Tomorrow morning it's breakfast at the "buttery" and then our last day with Leslie, our driver, who'll take us to beautiful Glendolough.

I'll try to get pictures up of Innisfree, but the Trinity server is not that great and keeps collapsing.

2009-07-29T04:11:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures from Glencar and Drumcliffe.

Drumcliffe and Glencar

2009-07-29T03:47:00.000-07:00

Pretty good weather yesterday. It rained hard while we listened to two lectures at the Yeats Summer School, one by the eminent Irish critic, Denis Donoghue, and the other by the American scholar, Helen Vendler (you might have seen Vendler sometime in the New York Times Book Review). Then we were off to Yeats's gravesite at Drumcliffe church, under the massive limestone mountain, Ben Bulben. The epitaph on his grave comes from one of his poems, "Under Ben Bulben."

Glencar waterfall and lake were spectacular--another prominent fairy haunt. And finally we went to the "big house", Lissadel, more or less equivalent to a plantation house in South Carolina except grander by tenfold. It was the home of Constance Gore-Booth, a hero of the "Rising" immortalized in Yeats's "Easter 1916."

Knocknarea and Carrowmore

2009-07-28T09:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had wonderful weather for our tour of Carrowmore cemetary and Knocknarea. Carrowmore is a neo-lithic site predating the Celtic invasion of Ireland. The Irish thought the "passage tombs" or dolmens were doorways to the fairy world, and so many of the sites were preserved through the ages.

Then we climbed Knocknarea, a mountain south of Sligo, from which we had a spectacular panoramic view of the surrounding plains, mountains, and sea. Pictures don't do the slightest justice to it. But we've included a couple here, one of the whole gang and another of Alexa, Megan, Morgan, Emory, and Kristen (from left to right).

2009-07-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

We've made it to Sligo, traveling in the rain yesterday. The Yeats Village is picturesque, about a twenty minute walk from the city centre, but there's no internet, so posts for the next few days will be spotty. These pictures are from Athenry Castle, one of the better-preserved medieval towns in Ireland. We stopped there on the way from Galway to Sligo. In these pictures are Allison and Shannon.

Today we visited two neo-lithic sites--burial grounds from over five thousand years ago. The highlight was the climb of Knocknarea, but I won't have pictures up till tomorrow.

Aran Islands

2009-07-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

Today we took the bus out to Rossaveel, skirting the edges of barren Connemara, where we boarded the ferry for Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands. The crossing was easy, with cold breezes and sunny skies. The weather all day was grand, as the Irish say, and we enjoyed a wonderful tour of the island. Everyone grows up speaking Irish in the Aran Islands, and Owen our driver had to learn English in school. The highlight of the day was Dun Aengus, a bronze age fort (first built around 1100 B. C. E.). The "fort" is protected on one side by high stone walls (you can see them behind me and Morgan). The other side is protected by a 300-foot drop to the Atlantic (Peter is contemplating the drop in the other picture). The photo credits go to Megan today.

2009-07-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

Our first stop today was the Cliffs of Moher, which don't have any literary significance, but they're too spectacular to leave off the itinerary. (Actually, Dr. Ward reports that these are the Cliffs of Insanity in The Princess Bride, so I guess there's some cultural importance.) Pictured here are Jade and Kristen.

In the afternoon, we visited Thoor Ballylee, or the Ballylee Tower, an old Norman "tower house" that W. B. Yeats lived in from 1919 to 1929. The whole gang posed for a photo. Many of Yeats' later poems were written here, and some even feature the tower house itself. We dodged two bus loads of Italian high schoolers, but made it out and on to Coole Park, the estate of Lady Gregory. The "big house" itself was burned in the Irish Civil War, but the grounds are extensive, and we had the traditional reading of Yeats' "The Wild Swans at Coole" on the banks of Lough Coole.

Galway

2009-07-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

We made it to Galway, finally, after a long journey. Five hours at O'Hare was too much, but we touched down in Dublin almost an hour ahead of schedule, collected our bags, found our coach, and set off for Clonmacnoise, the largest assemblage of monastic ruins in Ireland. The high crosses and some of the churches here are a thousand years old. It was at Clonmacnoise that most of the myths we studied this summer were first written down in the 8th Century.

After another short drive we arrived in Galway, around 4pm Irish time, and everyone is on their own till tomorrow morning.

Eve of Trip

2009-07-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to figure out how to start a blog to chart our progress across Ireland. Tell your parents and friends the web address.