Ireland:
2016
June took us to Ireland with a group of alumnae and friends of Bryn Mawr College.
The weather was mild, but wet, and often grey. Of course. It's Ireland. There's a reason it's so green! Although I am not aware of any Irish relatives, Ireland felt strangely like home. The people, the culture, even the landscapes had a quality of familiarity about them. And there's the language, with an accept softer than English, easy on the ears. Perhaps this feeling of familiarity derives from there being so many Irish in America, and so many Scotch-Irish in Ohio, the result of wave after wave of immigration. Or maybe it's derived from my long love for the literature of Ireland -- you know, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Swift, Heaney, GB Shaw, Synge, Trevor . . . the list is very, very long.
In a way, traveling through Ireland is like traveling through stories--old familiar ones as well as ones new to me. Everywhere we looked in Ireland, there was another story--mythic, weird, melancholy, occasionally even glad. But it's difficult to capture stories in photographs--perhaps that's why I found this slideshow a bit frustrating to create: images and their captions can only allude to the richness of story on this small island. For example, I was told tales of the white-haired giant, Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool he was named then), who built the Giant's Causeway across the sea to Scotland so he wouldn't get his feet wet. And there are stories, both true and false, of Saint Patrick's arrival and his conversion--or perhaps wise absorption--of the old religions and gods to the new one, Christianity. New to me stories from this trip include the one about Lynch's Castle in Galway and the one about the Door of Reconciliation, now residing in Saint Patrick's Cathedral Dublin. (This is the door through which the Butlers and the Fitzgeralds ever so carefully resolved their differences.)
We rode our big white bus happily all over Ireland. Starting in Dublin, then almost straight west to Conmacnoise (where there's another good story or two) situated on the River Shannon in the very heart of Ireland near Athlone. From here we went into Galway, using our hotel there as a base for forays north into Connaught and County Mayo where the landscape was filled with family stories of our academic leaders Jim and Jane McDonnell, professors emeritus from Carlton College in Minnesota. After this we turned south towards Killarney, which would be our base for day trips into County Kerry including the so-called Ring of Kerry. After that came Cork, and Kilkenny, and Wicklow, and finally back to Dublin. Call it a grand circle with many deviations. Most of our group returned to the U.S. at this point, but four of us opted for making a second loop from Dublin up to the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland via Belfast--afterall, I had to see the Giants Causeway.
In Belfast the stories we heard were mostly about the "Troubles." Although the last round of Troubles are technically over, things are still resolving, one hopes, into reasonably peaceable state, substituting sporting competitions for bombings and riots. The lessons and stories of centuries of civil war abound--most of what one sees today focus on the reality that both sides suffer and both sides crave peace. In Belfast these many of the stories are preserved via murals, and flags, and marches, and drums, for the most part centered in the Fall Road and Shankill Road neighborhoods of Belfast where violence was most (ahem) troubling. We spoke much about the "Brexit" vote while there, as that vote was due the week after we ended our trip. We wondered particularly how a "no" vote would affect current good relations between Ulster (i.e. Northern Ireland) and the Republic, as great progress has been made towards a peaceful, integrated culture and economy and society over the past twenty years. The border between North and South stood wide open for us and others, no signs of the major checkpoints that used to be. Meanwhile the effects of money pouring into Irish infrastructure thanks to EU support is quite obvious--good roads, decreased poverty, a busy, more diverse population, successful tourism attracting an array of Europeans (as well as Americans), and so on. The Irish seem to like the easy immigration too, as they have had more jobs than workers as their economies improved. And, in fact Northern Ireland, like Scotland, did vote strongly against leaving the EU. Now it remains to be seen what they'll do about England's Brexit. I wonder whether Northern Ireland might not respond, like Scotland apparently might, and consider leaving Great Britain in order to maintain the growth and development achieved by membership in the EU? And then what? Would Ulster finally join the Republic? That would make good sense. Stay tuned.
Finally, a note on the prehistory of Ireland. I'm no expert here, so my comments represent rather superficial gleanings from the reading I have done. It appears that archeologists have found no evidence that humans settled in Ireland much before about 9000 BC, certainly this is more recent than human settlements in other parts of the globe. Why? Well, as in North America, it's all about the ice. Ireland spent 100,000 years or so covered by glaciers thousands of feet thick. It was only when this ice began to melt that small groups of hunter gatherers began to explore the newly opened territory, probably they crossed the fifteen miles that separate Ireland from southwest Scotland via land bridge (as nearly many feet of ocean had been "locked up" in glaciers) or possibly by boat. They arrived first along the Antrim Coast. Think of this when you look at the pictures of the Giant's Causeway, and consider how myth and reality sometimes come together. Archeologists have also been busily debunking the idea of a Celtic invasion, an idea that arose only at the end of the Nineteenth Century encouraged by the likes of W.B. Yeats who were seeking a National Myth to support independence from Great Britain--the notion that the many ancient stone rings and circles and burial chambers were Celtic in origin was cooked up by amateur antiquaries in the Eighteenth Century--another non-starter. Modern scholars place the Celts in center Europe, contemporary with Rome--say around 500 BC. Those stone constructions are much much older. Anyway, that said, the wandering Celts did make their way, slowly, in small numbers, over hundreds if not thousands of years, from Europe to Ireland, probably landing in the southern part of the island. So, if one wants to know who the earliest peoples in Ireland actually were, they're probably brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles of those who first inhabited Great Britain-- the Angles, the Jutes, the Norsemen. Like most of Europe, it's a mix, and a bit unclear. There was however at least one big thing that strongly differentiates Ireland from the rest of Europe, including England, and that is Ireland was never occupied and ruled by the Romans. A few soldiers came and looked around, but that is all. And as a result, Ireland happily never saw the kind of "Dark Ages" decline that was prompted throughout the rest of Europe by the collapse of Roman institutions after the so-called Fall of Rome. Which explains at least in part why Ireland remained an outpost of wealth and culture during this period--think the Book of Kells, libraries, and wandering Irish monks carrying their culture to Europe, and all that beautiful gold that has been dug up from the bogs. . . And that is another curious story. See what I mean? Enjoy my pictures, and feel free to send me a comment.
An excellent, very readable book about early Ireland is In Search of Ancient Ireland: The Origins of the Irish from Neolithic Times to the Coming of the English by Carmel McCaffrey and Leo Eaton, Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, c/o Ivan R. Dee Publisher 2002. Published in conjunction with a PBS show.
2016
June took us to Ireland with a group of alumnae and friends of Bryn Mawr College.
The weather was mild, but wet, and often grey. Of course. It's Ireland. There's a reason it's so green! Although I am not aware of any Irish relatives, Ireland felt strangely like home. The people, the culture, even the landscapes had a quality of familiarity about them. And there's the language, with an accept softer than English, easy on the ears. Perhaps this feeling of familiarity derives from there being so many Irish in America, and so many Scotch-Irish in Ohio, the result of wave after wave of immigration. Or maybe it's derived from my long love for the literature of Ireland -- you know, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Swift, Heaney, GB Shaw, Synge, Trevor . . . the list is very, very long.
In a way, traveling through Ireland is like traveling through stories--old familiar ones as well as ones new to me. Everywhere we looked in Ireland, there was another story--mythic, weird, melancholy, occasionally even glad. But it's difficult to capture stories in photographs--perhaps that's why I found this slideshow a bit frustrating to create: images and their captions can only allude to the richness of story on this small island. For example, I was told tales of the white-haired giant, Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool he was named then), who built the Giant's Causeway across the sea to Scotland so he wouldn't get his feet wet. And there are stories, both true and false, of Saint Patrick's arrival and his conversion--or perhaps wise absorption--of the old religions and gods to the new one, Christianity. New to me stories from this trip include the one about Lynch's Castle in Galway and the one about the Door of Reconciliation, now residing in Saint Patrick's Cathedral Dublin. (This is the door through which the Butlers and the Fitzgeralds ever so carefully resolved their differences.)
We rode our big white bus happily all over Ireland. Starting in Dublin, then almost straight west to Conmacnoise (where there's another good story or two) situated on the River Shannon in the very heart of Ireland near Athlone. From here we went into Galway, using our hotel there as a base for forays north into Connaught and County Mayo where the landscape was filled with family stories of our academic leaders Jim and Jane McDonnell, professors emeritus from Carlton College in Minnesota. After this we turned south towards Killarney, which would be our base for day trips into County Kerry including the so-called Ring of Kerry. After that came Cork, and Kilkenny, and Wicklow, and finally back to Dublin. Call it a grand circle with many deviations. Most of our group returned to the U.S. at this point, but four of us opted for making a second loop from Dublin up to the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland via Belfast--afterall, I had to see the Giants Causeway.
In Belfast the stories we heard were mostly about the "Troubles." Although the last round of Troubles are technically over, things are still resolving, one hopes, into reasonably peaceable state, substituting sporting competitions for bombings and riots. The lessons and stories of centuries of civil war abound--most of what one sees today focus on the reality that both sides suffer and both sides crave peace. In Belfast these many of the stories are preserved via murals, and flags, and marches, and drums, for the most part centered in the Fall Road and Shankill Road neighborhoods of Belfast where violence was most (ahem) troubling. We spoke much about the "Brexit" vote while there, as that vote was due the week after we ended our trip. We wondered particularly how a "no" vote would affect current good relations between Ulster (i.e. Northern Ireland) and the Republic, as great progress has been made towards a peaceful, integrated culture and economy and society over the past twenty years. The border between North and South stood wide open for us and others, no signs of the major checkpoints that used to be. Meanwhile the effects of money pouring into Irish infrastructure thanks to EU support is quite obvious--good roads, decreased poverty, a busy, more diverse population, successful tourism attracting an array of Europeans (as well as Americans), and so on. The Irish seem to like the easy immigration too, as they have had more jobs than workers as their economies improved. And, in fact Northern Ireland, like Scotland, did vote strongly against leaving the EU. Now it remains to be seen what they'll do about England's Brexit. I wonder whether Northern Ireland might not respond, like Scotland apparently might, and consider leaving Great Britain in order to maintain the growth and development achieved by membership in the EU? And then what? Would Ulster finally join the Republic? That would make good sense. Stay tuned.
Finally, a note on the prehistory of Ireland. I'm no expert here, so my comments represent rather superficial gleanings from the reading I have done. It appears that archeologists have found no evidence that humans settled in Ireland much before about 9000 BC, certainly this is more recent than human settlements in other parts of the globe. Why? Well, as in North America, it's all about the ice. Ireland spent 100,000 years or so covered by glaciers thousands of feet thick. It was only when this ice began to melt that small groups of hunter gatherers began to explore the newly opened territory, probably they crossed the fifteen miles that separate Ireland from southwest Scotland via land bridge (as nearly many feet of ocean had been "locked up" in glaciers) or possibly by boat. They arrived first along the Antrim Coast. Think of this when you look at the pictures of the Giant's Causeway, and consider how myth and reality sometimes come together. Archeologists have also been busily debunking the idea of a Celtic invasion, an idea that arose only at the end of the Nineteenth Century encouraged by the likes of W.B. Yeats who were seeking a National Myth to support independence from Great Britain--the notion that the many ancient stone rings and circles and burial chambers were Celtic in origin was cooked up by amateur antiquaries in the Eighteenth Century--another non-starter. Modern scholars place the Celts in center Europe, contemporary with Rome--say around 500 BC. Those stone constructions are much much older. Anyway, that said, the wandering Celts did make their way, slowly, in small numbers, over hundreds if not thousands of years, from Europe to Ireland, probably landing in the southern part of the island. So, if one wants to know who the earliest peoples in Ireland actually were, they're probably brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles of those who first inhabited Great Britain-- the Angles, the Jutes, the Norsemen. Like most of Europe, it's a mix, and a bit unclear. There was however at least one big thing that strongly differentiates Ireland from the rest of Europe, including England, and that is Ireland was never occupied and ruled by the Romans. A few soldiers came and looked around, but that is all. And as a result, Ireland happily never saw the kind of "Dark Ages" decline that was prompted throughout the rest of Europe by the collapse of Roman institutions after the so-called Fall of Rome. Which explains at least in part why Ireland remained an outpost of wealth and culture during this period--think the Book of Kells, libraries, and wandering Irish monks carrying their culture to Europe, and all that beautiful gold that has been dug up from the bogs. . . And that is another curious story. See what I mean? Enjoy my pictures, and feel free to send me a comment.
An excellent, very readable book about early Ireland is In Search of Ancient Ireland: The Origins of the Irish from Neolithic Times to the Coming of the English by Carmel McCaffrey and Leo Eaton, Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, c/o Ivan R. Dee Publisher 2002. Published in conjunction with a PBS show.
Please enjoy Seamus Heaney reading his poem about St. Kevin, a real man who as we know lived at Glendalough. It's one of those Irish stories I love so much. Heaney has said, by the way, that the name of the river in the last line of the poem is Love. As you may be aware, Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995; he is one of Ireland's greatest poets.