Places and Connections

Between the Facebook sites, the blogs, and the emails I’ve been getting, I’m feeling pretty connected to the students and faculty in Dungarvan, (even though I’m still in Erie). For St. Patrick’s Day I made grilled corned beef sandwiches on a really nice rye bread and my lovely wife made cooked cabbage and carrots while we listened to The Pogues. We all ate Irish at least. Good enough, but nothing in comparison the events I’ve been seeing online in Dungarvan. To begin with, in Erie we had classes…….

On another note, I’ve been reading in preparation for Irish classes (and making adjustments to the syllabi) so that when I get there I’ll be ready to rock. The reading is awesome. (What clever fellow designed the reading list?) In particular, Seamus Heaney has been hard for me to put down. He is a poet of place that makes me want to go back to places I’ve been with poem in hand. This one really gets me:

In Gallarus Oratory

You can still feel the community pack
This place: it’s like going into a turfstack,
A core of old dark walled up with stone
A yard thick. When you’re in it alone,
You might have dropped, a reduced creature,
To the heart of the globe. No worshipper
Would leap up to his God off this floor.

Founded there like heroes in a barrow,
They sought themselves in the eye of their King
Under the black weight of their own breathing.
And how he smiled on them as out they came,
The sea a censer and the grass a flame.
　
---(c) Seamus Heaney. All rights reserved.

I’ll make a stab at going back to Dingle to look at Gallarus Oratory again, just to walk out of the “walled up stone / A yard thick” and feel the sublime rush of movement from dark to lightness. Maybe it was built for just this type of moment.

Old Dude Babbles On About Joyce

I am trying something new here, and it is a bit weird really. I do want to see how it works though, so I'm posting. Maybe in the future I'll be a bit more polished...... Anyway, if you want to see me ramble in my usual style about my love for Joyce, watch the attached clip.

Dear Dirty Dublin

In Joyce’s “A Little Cloud,” Ignatius Gallaher (who has left Ireland to make his name in London) calls the capital city “dear dirty Dublin” (47). Joyce may have felt similarly about the place. Dublin was often painful for him, but the nostalgia and fondness he has for his home is always present in his works.

There is much to do and see in Dublin for literary enthusiasts. It is a walking city full of sites of scholarly interest. Those in my class….take note. Your time in Dublin can help you a good deal in my class. There are places that will resonate easily with those of you who are O’Casey fans, like the General Post Office, Dublin’s Georgian Townhouses, and of course the city pubs. (I swear I’ve been in the pub from the Plough and the Stars.) The Book of Kells and Trinity College will be on any top 10 Dublin list, but there are other sites you should check out as well. Ulysses fans can find Davy Byrne’s, The Ormond Hotel, and a short train ride away, the Martello Tower made famous in the opening chapters of his seminal work. The locations of the Dubliners stories are all here as well. Be sure to note the place in front of Trinity College where Johnny the horse circles “King Billy’s statue” in "The Dead." (The statue is now gone, but the site is there.) Also check out the astounding “bog bodies” at the National Museum of Ireland-Archaeology & History on Kildare Street to get a visual for “The Grauballe Man” by Heaney: “As if he had been poured / in tar, he lies / on a pillow of turf / and seems to weep / the black river of himself” (1-5). Sounds disgusting, I know, but I assure you, you don’t want to miss them. The famous Abbey Theater is here too, where Synge, O’Casey, and Yeats first saw their plays performed. And speaking of Yeats, your time in Dublin will also enrich your reading of his “Easter 1916” no doubt. There are a wealth of free museums, great shopping, great libraries and bookshops. The wonderful parks and easy access to things close to the city on the Dart lines will give you the opportunity for a wide diversity of experiences. I’ll be expecting lots of blogging after you return and many stories when I arrive. I'm confident that you will love "dear dirty Dublin." Now go read your Joyce........

Carpe Deasy

Faculty and administrators with interests in the spring term in Dungarvan gathered last night with John Deasy, member of the Dáil, and Irish Deputy Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, with Special Responsibility for Overseas Development Aid (and Mercyhurst alumni) to talk about schedules and expectations for our sojourn to the southern shores of the Emerald Isle. John's warmth, humor, and passion for Mercyhurst and the project in Dungarvan were apparent all evening. Clearly there has been a good deal of time and effort spent on making this tip a success, on both sides of the pond. The opportunity that this term abroad gives to our students and to the college, well by gosh, it must be seized! Yeats says "Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking." Strike on John Deasy; strike on Heidi Hosey; Dave Livingston, strike on! We will fashion hot metal into......well, something awesome.
Cheers to all the folks who have worked to provide us this opportunity.