The East Coast!

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.

Here are the pictures from Glencar and Drumcliffe.

Drumcliffe and Glencar

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

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).

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

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.

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

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

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.