Hi everybody! We’ve left Ireland and ended up in Spain, through rolling seas but lovely weather. Cary and Morgan and I had never spent much time in Dublin; not more than a day or two, so we thought we’d enjoy getting to know the city a little better.
The strange thing about visiting Ireland this time was how short the visit was. We were only there for four days! This was my eighth trip to Ireland, and I’m accustomed to coming and staying! For the first two days that we were there, I kept thinking that I was in England. The Dublin accent is very much influenced by English (and I quickly learned why so many people dislike the Dublin accent), and the Dublin education system comes in large part from English models. On our first day we spontaneously decided to jump onto one of the city orientation tours, because we thought we’d probably learn new things about Dublin and see sights we hadn’t seen before. It was true! I was delighted to see the Georgian district of Dublin, where lovely homes from the 19th century are still in place and largely being maintained. I was also very pleased with the visit out to Farmleigh, the estate of the Guinness family (now owned by the State). The estate was beautifully managed, had a fine conservatory with tropical plants (!), and grounds that seemed to go on and on. It’s located out in Phoenix Park where Mary McAleese, the president, lives. There was an organic farmers’ market out there on the day we visited, and we had some of the best blueberries, seed bread, and cheese that we’ve had in ages!

While I learned a great deal on the tour, the tour guide was driving me nuts: everything she said was prefaced by “of course,” as in “Of course, the English gave us our language, our legal system, and these lovely buildings.” Grrr. Almost nothing about the devastation that the English wrought on the Irish. I struggled with that. As if the Irish are easily going to put all that behind them! Worse, when we passed the sad and impressive famine memorial on the Liffey River (seven gaunt figures, seven feet high, walking along the river), she mentioned nothing about England’s role in the famine. I had to tell myself to keep breathing.
Happily, we left the tour and had a nice lunch of the aforementioned bread, cheese, and large blueberries. We also visited the grand old library in Trinity College, which houses the Book of Kells (a magnificent illuminated manuscript of the Four Gospels) as well as the oldest harp in Ireland. In the past few years (unbeknownst to me, since I hadn’t been there since 1982) they carefully photographed every page of the Book of Kells and have made huge backlit illuminations available to visitors, so you can see the incredible level of meticulous detail. In the preparation for the visit to the library, you spend time learning about the symbolism of the animals (the snake, for example, is an important Christian symbol because it is “reborn” every time it sheds its skin; the otter is another one because of its love of fish). You also learn about the process of calligraphy, the language used, and other aspects of the ancient book-making process. THEN you climb the stairs to the old library. I’m telling you, it made my little scholarly heart go all-aflutter to see these ancient manuscripts in Greek and Latin and Old English – the Venerable Bede! A first printing of Darwin’s Origin of the Species! A book about natural history from 1618! What a joy. And I love the old harp there. I’m pretty sure that the first time I visited, it was listed as “Brian Boru’s Harp,” but now it’s been proved to be not quite so old (15th century, not 12th century). But I’m attached to the harp because it’s one of only two that survived the 1603 proclamation of Queen Elizabeth the 1st: “Hang all harpers where found and burn the instruments.” And her armies did the job; only two harps were left. The fact that any bards were left at all is a miracle.

After our visit to Trinity, we had tea and a scone at Bewley’s Oriental Café (still there on Grafton Street), watched the people, and then bought a large collection of books for Morgan, who has burned through almost all twenty of the books we brought for her to read! And we will still have ten days on the open ocean between Spain and Florida! Morgan needed books. We rushed home and Cary and Morgan stayed while I got ready to go out with a group of 150 students (and a couple of other faculty) to the “Irish Cabaret.” Words cannot describe how little I was looking forward to this event. I mean, what does Irish Cabaret mean to you? Danny Boy? “No, nay, never”? The most cringe-worthy clowning and buffoonery and stage Irish event imaginable? Bad jokes? Riverdance-style stage dances without the excellent choreography or live music of Riverdance? Cheesy imitations of Bing Crosby? All of the above? No, let me go about this differently.

The four buses came to pick us all up at 6 pm, and we sat there at the port for half an hour because the hotel [which I won’t disgrace by mentioning] wasn’t going to be ready for us until 6:45. I tried to calm the restless bus residents by handing out the admittedly delicious looking menu for the event, but it only seemed to make them hungrier. We finally went to the ballroom (seats about 600) and sat down, and a large glass of red or white wine was placed in front of everyone, then a bowl of “seafood chowder” that, as far as I could tell, had no actual seafood in it. In a few minutes we had a roll and a piece of butter, then our choice of beef or salmon. The beef was tough and the salmon fishy. The dessert, a mousse pie-type thing, tasted like refrigeration. Then we each got some Irish coffee: “coffee” with harsh sweetened whiskey covered with a layer of cream. I ate the cream and had a couple of sips, but I didn’t want to stay up all night from the coffee. In the meantime the opening band had come out: electric bass, electric guitar, mandolin, and low tin whistle. These four men pranced around, sneering and sweating and mocking the audience, shouting their songs out (The Wild Rover, Whiskey in the Jar and other drinking songs). It was searingly loud. I was despairing of hearing anything worth listening to, when they announced that the actual cabaret would start in fifteen minutes.

When the actual cabaret began, a group of about a dozen dancers came flying out to recorded music and did some genuine Irish dancing. I was very pleased! And relieved! There was a piano player onstage for the entire evening, playing along with the recordings, and a fiddler who came out periodically, who was quite good. The MC was about three and a half feet tall (literally), making jokes about leprechauns and what made him so short (cringe). There were musical numbers, various dancing numbers, and an Irish comedian telling unsophisticated jokes that anyone would get (and I hate to say it, but I was laughing too). A man who sang with Riverdance for several years was the “crooner” of the evening. He’s really much better as a singer than he was for this event, and he walked around the stage winking at the older ladies in the audience (cringe). Some of the “Irish” dancing included hip-swinging moments that would have curled the hair of any priest in the audience. A number of the students loved it, and some of them hated it. I suffered mightily all evening because I had asked for something so very different from what I got for my students! And it cost them $118 each! It was free for me, which made me feel even worse. I cringed and cringed all evening, then cringed some more when I got home. Cary asked how it was, and all I had to say was “No, nay, never” and he understood it all!

The next day found us jumping on the morning shuttle into town (we were berthed so far in the port and cargo area that we weren’t allowed to walk to a place to catch a regular bus) and visiting the National Gallery, where they keep the gold that has been dug up from bogs over the last couple of centuries. It’s certainly one of my favorite things to see in Dublin; I never tire of it. We saw St. Patrick’s bell and a number of religious artifacts, and a whole room of memorabilia from the 1916 Uprising, including newsreel footage that I had never seen! It was fascinating. They also had a lively and interesting Viking exhibit that we kind of rushed through this time, including the famous “Cross of Cong,” which is reputed to have a small sliver from the “true cross” of Jesus. The nice thing about visiting Ireland is that we’ll be back many times. The bad thing about visiting Ireland is that it is changing so rapidly and becoming so cosmopolitan. Many Irish people are now working in the pharmaceutical and high tech sectors, because they are so highly educated and (obviously) speak English, while it’s the new immigrants (Poles, Latvians, and others) who are now doing the serving in restaurants and the construction work all over Dublin. Our tour guide called the crane the “national bird,” and indeed there are cranes towering over many areas within Dublin. We are shuddering to imagine how it will all change.

We took the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) north to Howth, a small peninsula that juts out from the north of town. It was very pleasant to sit there and look out over the water in a quiet place, eating our picnic lunch and watching local dogs angling for sticks (and rocks!) to be fetched. We visited the pub named after Oliver St. John Gogarty, a playwright and major Dublin figure, because it has live music during the day (we wanted Morgan to hear some music, and of course we can’t exactly go out on the town at night and leave Morgan on the ship). So while we were sitting there enjoying the music (pennywhistle, flute, guitar, bodhrán) Morgan drew a picture of Cary’s pint of Guinness. It simply wouldn’t do for us to be in Ireland without having some Guinness! We tried to sign ourselves up for the “Musical Pub Crawl” (comparable to the Literary Pub Crawl – you go to half a dozen pubs and the hosts regale you with music or, in the case of the literary version, readings from famous Dublin writers like James Joyce), but unfortunately no children are allowed. We’ll have to do that in about eight years. The music at the pub was very good, and I was surprised to recognize only one or two of the tunes. Considering how long I’ve been studying Irish music, it seems that I’d know more than just the Galway/Clare repertoire of tunes (and a few from Donegal), but no.

On our third day in Ireland we took a bus sponsored by the tourist office to visit Glendalough, a gorgeous monastic site in the Wicklow Mountains about an hour south of Dublin. The drive there was wonderful; it took us awhile to get out of Dublin because we drove through the district where all the ambassadors live and saw a number of embassies, then went south through the village where a number of famous people live (Daniel Day Lewis, for example, and members of U2 and the Chieftains). We stopped for tea and a scone at the Glencree Center for Peace and Reconciliation, a wonderful place where 20,000 children from Northern Ireland have been brought and taught principles of non-violent dialogue. I was amazed to have the chance to stop there and see it myself! We have sent students there as interns from Evergreen! One of the things that the center facilitates is the presence of unarmed bodyguards to activists (in human rights, women’s rights, freedom of speech, etc.) around the world. There were photographs from Guatemala, Aceh (Indonesia), and other places. We next went through the stunning Sally Gap (where Braveheart was filmed), a classic post-Ice Age landscape with sweeping views and not a tree in sight. We looked way down from above to the first Guinness estate with many wild deer grazing near the shores of a lake (the same lake where Paul McCartney wrote “Yesterday” while visiting the Guinness family in the 1960s). The weather was changeable; cloudy one minute with a few spatters of rain, and sunny the next. Glendalough is beautifully preserved in terms of its architecture, which is great. However, it is also a profoundly calming and spiritual place, and we had the chance to stroll slowly along the path to the upper lake and enjoy the deep forest. And for the first time since our arrival in Ireland, I actually felt as if I was IN Ireland and not in England. I never thought of Dublin as being so very English until this time around.

After leaving Glendalough we drove further south to Avoca, the village where the BBC series “Ballykissangel” was filmed. What a fine little village! They have a hand-weaving business there that was on the verge of going under in the 1970s, and it was rescued at the last minute and is now a thriving industry. We had the chance to enjoy a delicious lunch there at the mill, and to tour the weaving facilities to see both the hand-weaving process and the machine-weaving process. It was a real pleasure to see the beautiful colors of the cloth and to see the old way of doing things still thriving. The person leading us through the weaving area explained the difference between the looser weave of the hand-woven pieces and the firm weave of the machined pieces. I enjoyed it so much! We came to Dublin about an hour later than planned, but that was fine. Our bus driver was an unexpected bonus: in addition to maneuvering the bus through challenging territory (not just in Dublin but on the narrow country roads) he kept up a constant stream of chatter, discussing Irish history, environmental issues, corruption in the government (especially in construction), geology, literature, music, immigration, architecture, spirituality, etc. He was genuine in his opinions, not just telling people what he thought they wanted to hear (it’s pretty obvious when people are doing that). We were surprised and delighted.

On our last day we went into town at about 11 am and finished up our business, visiting the Chester Beatty Library for its exhibit of sacred texts from several different major religions. There were A/V demonstrations of illumination of Islamic manuscripts (including close-ups of mixing gold leaf with gum arabic and then painting it onto manuscript paper) and calligraphy and engraving and etching etc. etc. etc. It was fascinating! And how fun to actually look at the illuminated manuscripts with some sense of the care needed to do the illuminations! It was a real pleasure for all three of us. They also had a running video of people participating in important religious rituals from all over the world (funerals, weddings, religious holidays, sacred music and recitation, etc.). Fantastic! Morgan and I went off to a toy shop and found her a small stuffed dog to add to the two she’s brought on board from home. Fun! But among all the travels and visiting Dublin and drinking tea at Bewley’s Oriental Tea house (a near-daily experience), I was reading student papers and finding out about Spanish and Basque music to use in my teaching for the last couple of days.

We had a visit from Ambassador Kenny, the American ambassador to Ireland. It was grueling. He is a Bush appointee: need I say more? We faculty and staff got all dressed up and were hanging out expectantly in the faculty/staff lounge, being supplied with free food and drinks, and then the ambassador came and started talking about Bush’s policy and how he never disagrees with it. My teeth are grinding as I’m writing this. How about this: the new appointee to the US Supreme Court is “a brilliant man” (Cary walked out at that one), and “no president has done more to fight AIDS than President Bush” (I nearly walked out at that one). Talk about cringe-worthy! Several faculty threw some heavy questions at him, which he blandly deflected, and people were doing their best to remain polite, but it was hard! At our faculty meeting afterward, the academic dean joked that as punishment for not turning in a required set of papers on time, the faculty would be subjected to “another diplomatic briefing from Ambassador Kenny”! We were finally able to laugh about it, but I’m telling you, we were squirming from hearing him talk. Yeesh!

Leaving Ireland was, as it always is, awful. In spite of the fact that I was trying to prepare my classes for Spain, and I was behind on virtually everything (including reading student papers), I sat there looking out the window from the 7th deck faculty lounge, trying not to get all teary-eyed. I just couldn’t stand seeing the lights of Dublin receding in the distance. The truth is, I know WAY too many sad emigration songs, and they all go through my head every time I have to leave. At least I’m not sailing on an unworthy vessel, thank goodness.

Speaking of vessels, you should have seen the rolling water! There was a low-pressure system off the west coast of Ireland, which resulted in heavy wind-to-wave friction, resulting in large swells. If you looked out the window at the water, the distance looked absolutely calm (and there were no whitecaps), but the view of the railing as it swung way above and way below the level of the horizon was exciting and somewhat unnerving. And of course we all flew from one side of the hall to the other, running into each other and laughing. In my classes, I had to grip the podium to stay upright, and the only anxious moments were when I was trying to write on the board; you can’t hang on except to lean against the wall! We went on a fun and fascinating tour of the bridge, led by Eddie the Navigator, and got to see all the fancy radar equipment and compasses and such that they have on board. Eddie was telling us about instances when two giant ships have “T-boned” in the middle of the Atlantic with nothing about for hundreds of miles, simply because the captains and navigators of each ship were distracted. His number one words of advice: “Look out the window!”

On Friday night, before our arrival in Spain, the shipboard auction was held for multiple hours. They do it on every voyage to support various charities, and the charity of choice this time was something to benefit the children of the island from which our departed captain came from in Greece. As you remember, the captain loved children, so this is the one thing we’re all doing for him. Evidently the shipboard auction nets as much as $30,000 (don’t forget how wealthy some of the students’ families are!). Morgan had some drawings in the auction, and Cary and I were involved because of being members of the Hard to Fathom Boys: the ship’s photographer took “band member” photographs and arranged them to look like a CD cover, and that will then be printed onto t-shirts! Silly! But fun, too. We’re auctioning them off with the original (autographed!) lyrics to some of the songs we’ve performed. Oh, and we performed again: when arriving in Spain, what could be more appropriate than “Lady of Spain” with fractured lyrics?

Okay, we’re getting ready to meet my brother Guy and his partner Antonio, who are picking us up at the ship in Bilbao and taking us to San Sebastián (home of the best chocolate-and-churros in the world), then to Madrid to finally meet Antonio’s family after all these years! We’ve been excited about this for months! We’re flying back to Bilbao on Tuesday night and seeing the Guggenheim Museum (and eating pintxos, the Basque version of tapas) on Wednesday. Hooray!