Reed Roams: The Pot-Luck of the Irish

Front Entrance to Mercyhurst Dungarvan

I’m in my last days in Dungarvan for this spring, as I’m only here for the first part of the trip. As the students go to Dublin to head out for Berlin, I’ll be going to Dublin to head home to Erie. They will be pleased to be done with my class; it has made for long days for many of them. Indeed, many of them are in class from 8:30 to 4:00 on Monday , Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday nights, they are not done until after 8:00 in the evening. My class is being taught in just 5 weeks, so the contact hours are high. A good number of students are taking 4 classes in Ireland, so they have been working diligently to keep up. With all that being said, come this afternoon (when they take the final for my class) they will get some relief. I’m sure they will be pleased about that. I do think we have all enjoyed the class though, regardless of the struggle to stay on task on the longer days. Of course I think that even when things got a bit silly, there was good learning happening. In fact, many have said they loved the class, maybe because how comfortable we all seem to be together. Though maybe it’s because reading Irish Literature in Ireland is easy to love. This is a culture that has always celebrated the story, and I think the class was able to get a sense of that in the short time we had.

One of the real benefits of these study abroad trips is the time outside of class that we, as teachers, spend with students. Travelling the country, going to sporting events, having meals together, or meeting for coffee all makes the experience worth it for everyone. The “contact hours” go way beyond the traditional classroom setting. At a churchyard cemetery with headstones and trees covered in moss, students talked about how they could understand why Yeats believed in fairies. Watching schoolboys with their hurlies, they connected to the unnamed narrators in Joyce’s Dubliners. Scaffolding in Youghal made them reflect on Heaney’s poem “Scaffolding,” and of course, the bog bodies in Dublin helped immensely with our reading of the later Heaney poetry. The students could find connections to the readings everywhere. Tom Keith recited lines from “The Stolen Child” by Yeats, and their Irish Culture teacher from WIT, Seamus, recited Heaney’s “Mid-term Break” from memory. A student who was touring the west with her parents understood a reference to “The Fiddler of Dooney” at Bunratty Castle. It’s nice to see the connections made.

This is a talented group of students, and so they easily apply what they learn in the classroom to the outside world. In fact, they are applying what they learn in one class to other classes. That’s what it’s all about my friends. It makes what I do easy and rewarding. Last night, as a way to prepare for the final, and to finish up the memorization exercise I had them do, we all gathered together for a pot-luck supper and recitation. As a way of expanding the Irish theme, I made “Bubble and Squeak” (cabbage, onions, potato, meat, and butter) and “Mushy Peas.” Students brought salad, homemade pizza, grilled cheese, dip, chicken nuggets, cookies, breads, and cake. It was quite a feast. The last few students who needed to recite their poems did so in front of the group. We heard “Scaffolding,” “Dream,” “No Man’s Land,” “Mother of the Groom,” and “Limbo” from Heaney, and “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” “To an Isle in the Water,” and “The Young Man’s Song” from Yeats. Every student in the class of 17 recited a poem, in front of others, and did so professionally. There was a recitation on a bus, in a pub, in the classroom, in small groups, and of course, during the pot-luck gathering. It couldn’t have gone better. While there were a lot of nerves and reservations about doing this assignment, they all finished without fail. I am proud of them.
Well, I wasn’t sure what I was going to write this morning, but it seems I had no problem writing it. I haven’t even finished my brown bread and coffee (boy, I’m gonna miss the Irish bread). So as I finish up this post as well as my breakfast, I look forward to seeing and reading how well the students synthesize the course materials on the final exam. Their work so far makes me confident that they will do quite well. This class has been a pleasure to teach, and all the students on this trip have been a pleasure to get to know better. They represent Mercyhurst well.