I’ve just received a draft of our itinerary. Once a few more things have been finalized, I will post it on this site, but I know some of you are wondering about free time in Dublin and hoping to make some plans, so I thought I would write about that a bit today.

Our trip is something of a whirlwind, so there is not a lot of give in the schedule, but on our first official day, Sunday, June 5, you will have most of the day free between our early morning breakfast at the Man O’War pub and a welcome dinner at our hotel. The Man O’War, by the way, was founded before 1595 and still retains many of its historic features; you won’t want to miss this chance to eat a traditional Irish breakfast in the company of your fellow group members in this storied building. The name of the pub has nothing to do with a type of ship, by the way! For those arriving in Dublin on June 4^th or earlier (like me), we’ll provide a departure time for the airport stop and this breakfast. Most of the rest of you will be picked up at the airport before we head to the pub. Details to follow.

Sunday is a great day to visit Dublin’s museums, several of which are situated very close to our hotel, the Davenport. All of them have nice cafes and gift shops. The National Gallery of Ireland (art) is across the street and down a short block. The NGI has been undergoing extensive renovations for several years now, but they’ve gathered their “greatest hits” into a few rooms, and these are well worth seeing. For those of you who read James Stephens’s The Insurrection in Dublin (see Trip Documents), there’s a fascinating exhibit about his life and times. Stephens was working for the museum during the Easter Rising. I saw this exhibit in March and loved it, but they only recently extended it to June 5, so you will be able to see it if interested and if you go on that Sunday. The Nobel Prize-winning playwright George Bernard Shaw had a special relationship with the NGI; I wrote about it in my blog, The View from Here.

A little further afield but still very walkable (about two blocks) is the National Museum of Ireland–Archeology, which houses a stunning collection of artifacts found all over the island and representing various stages of history. My favorites include finely crafted items from Ireland’s Golden Age, such as the 8^th century CE Ardagh Chalice, Tara Brooch, and Bell of St. Patrick. There’s also a collection of even older finely crafted gold items found in the peat bogs that cover the island and, because of their chemical properties, preserve artifacts in stunning condition. They’ve even found butter and wine in the bogs that are hundreds of years old but still viable! Don’t miss the “bog bodies” in the “Kingship and Sacrifice” exhibit at the National Museum—human remains mummified in the bogs and representing a practice of ritual murder that goes back thousands of years.

Next door to the National Museum is the National Library where W. B. Yeats and James Joyce were patrons. The library itself is closed on Sundays, but the stunning exhibit on Yeats is open and must for Yeatsians. Along with a collection of his personal times and an array of excellent short films, you’ll see the actual manuscripts of many of the most famous poems with his notes and crossouts.

Trinity College is also just a short walk from the hotel. In addition to strolling the campus and taking in the sights of a busy university and possibly a cricket match, you can visit the Book of Kells and the famous Long Room in the Old library. This famous illuminated manuscript is very popular, so be prepared to wait in line, but the wait is well worth it. Because the manuscript is in book form, only two pages are on display at a time, but there are other manuscripts to see and a very good exhibit on how such works of art are created.

There’s so much of historic interest to see in this area, as well as shops, cafes, beautiful parks and gardens,  restaurants,  pubs, and more. Dave and I can help you plan your Sunday afternoon if you want us to. Do let me know if you have questions or want to plan ahead.

History Ireland is a very interesting  and high quality magazine that publishes articles by scholars and researchers written for the general public and illustrated with photographs, maps, and charts. In addition to publishing books and special issues, the magazine sponsors lectures and panels on a range of topics at locations throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland. (If you are interested in subscribing to either the print or online editions, click here for a link to their home page.)

In preparation for the Easter Rising centenary, they have brought out a special issue called “1916 Dream & Death,” and because of its relevance to our trip, the Alumnae Office has purchased copies for each of you. We will be giving them out to those who attend either the April 25th or May 9th meetings in Atlanta and mailing them to the rest of you when we send you your travel documents.

I hope you find the articles and illustrations illuminating and relevant to your study of the historical and literary context of the Easter Rising.

When I teach Irish literature in the survey course at Agnes Scott, I always begin with a collection of poetry called “I Am Ireland,” or in the Irish language, “Mise Éire” (pronounced MEE-shuh AIR-uh). In different ways, poems on this theme declare and define an identity for the land of Ireland, often in the persona of a woman, sometimes called “Mother Ireland” or the “Poor Old Woman” (see Yeats’s and Gregory’s play Cathleen In Houlihan in Trip Documents). Poems on this theme span the centuries, and all have to do with defining or declaring Irish identity, though the phrase “Mise Éire” didn’t come into common use until a hundred years ago, when it began to take on a distinctly political and eventually sectarian tone.

For centuries, the people of the island of Ireland or Éire have been concerned with their identity, with distinguishing themselves in some way from their neighbors–especially those on the bigger island to the east. Such a body of work is not necessarily found in other literatures or regions, and there is much speculation as to why Ireland fostered this perspective or this need to claim identity. Of course, island status could in itself be a cause. An island, especially if it is relatively small, has distinct borders and might be expected to develop a bounded identity. Instead, as the site for millennia of a succession of arrivals or invasions of foreign peoples, Ireland developed a splintered population of clans or kingdoms and, until the middle ages, had no towns or unified rule. There has never been an all-Ireland, Irish-born royal family, or anything close to it. The map on the right shows what clan rule on the island looked like around the year 1100. Ironically, it would take the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in the twelfth century and the subsequent nearly 800 years of British rule to create anything like a unified “Ireland”–which is even today, of course, split into two nations, albeit  with a uniquely fluid border in all senses of the word.  This history of this island-ized identity before, during, and after colonial rule is what makes the “Mise Éire” poems so interesting and helps explain why this phrase was chosen as the title of the documentary made in the Republic in 1959 to celebrate the Easter Rising and the subsequent independence movement (some of you will be viewing this film at the college on April 25).

Patrick Pearse’s poem on this theme, written a couple of weeks before the Easter Rising, is reproduced below, and if you’re interested in pursuing the Mise Éire theme and the imagery associated with it in literature and politics, I’ve put the “I Am Ireland” poems in Trip Documents. In Pearse’s poem, the “woman of Beara” refers to the ninth century “Hag of Beara” (BEAR-uh) poem included in the handout. He also mentions Cuchulainn (coo-CULL-en), an ancient and iconic Irish hero-god. You can read about him here. We will be coming back to the Cuchulainn story as we study the Easter Rising and its iconography.  Of special note is Eavan Boland’s feminist response to Pearse’s poem in her “Mise Éire” poem on p. 8 of  the handout, in which she denounces the idealization of Irish identity and critiques its exclusion or stereotyping of women. Finally, you can listen to the famous theme music from the 1959 film (composed by Seán O’ Ríada)–played quite often during the Easter Rising centenary ceremonies in Dublin–by clicking on this link, Mise Éire.

I Am Ireland

By Patrick Pearse

I am Ireland:
I am older than the old woman of Beare.

Great my glory:
I who bore Cuchulainn, the brave.

Great my shame:
My own children who sold their mother.

Great my pain:
My irreconcilable enemy who harasses me continually…

Great my sorrow
That crowd, in whom I placed my trust, died.

I am Ireland:
I am lonelier than the old woman of Beare.

When giving advice on traveling to Ireland, I always recommend renting a car and driving southwest from Dublin to the Dingle Peninsula, one of the most beautiful and interesting places in the country. On our trip, we’ll be spending a day there, gasping at the gorgeous scenery, gazing across the water at the Great Blasket Island where famous writers such as Tomás O’Crohan lived and wrote, inspecting the ruins of ancient Christian communities like Gallarus Oratory, and of course, enjoying the atmosphere, shopping, and wonderful food in Dingle Town. Dingle Town is the capitol of this area, a designated Gaelic speaking region or “Gaeltacht,” so an added bonus is getting to hear this beautiful language spoken in the streets and shops and restaurants. There’s even a Gaelic bookshop and café, An Café Liteartha, where the scones and the book browsing are top notch.

For more on the Blasket Islands and the writers who came from there, check out the new handout I’ve posted under “Trip Documents.” We’ll be visiting the Blasket Centre, with its exhibits that celebrate the life and accomplishments of the community. You’ll see their handmade boats, baskets, fishing gear, and other items along with the manuscript of The Islandman and the pen O’Crohan used to write it. If it’s a clear day, we’ll be able to see Skellig Michael and the Little Skellig, two steep, rocky islands sticking jaggedly out of the sea beyond the Blaskets. Uninhabited now, these islands were once home to a thriving monastic community in the days when sea travel was the main way to get around Ireland and Europe. Today they’re famous for being the location of the last scene from the recent Star Wars film, The Force Awakens. The photo to the right shows the treacherous path up to the top of Skellig Michael—not on our itinerary this time!

The scenery is spectacular all around the peninsula, especially at the western tip with its many promontories and islands. If you’re interested, you might take a look at the David Lean’s Ryan’s Daughter (1970), which was filmed in Dingle and has extensive scenes of the gorgeous beaches and vistas. Though the film crew was only in residence for a few months, Dingle natives claim that their presence and interest in Dingle life created the confidence to develop the area as a tourist destination, which along with fishing, is a mainstay of the local economy today.

Dingle Town amounts to just a couple of streets reaching up a hill above the bustling harbor, where Fungie the bottlenose dolphin has hung out to amuse visitors with his antics for over thirty years. This area is favorite with craftspeople and foodies, so we’ll have a great few hours wandering around town. When I travel I like to buy thingfor friends or myself that represent the place they’re from. At Lisbeth Mulcahy’s The Weaver’s Shop on Green Street in Dingle, you can find handwoven scarves, shawls, placemats, and knitted sweaters in colors and patterns that echo the landscape around you.

Next door, Seán Daly’s Dingle Crystal brings the skills and vision of a Waterford trained glass-cutter to the local scene. I love the way Seán’s designs reflect the features of the surrounding area in patterns like Dingle, Skellig, and Blasket. We’ll get to visit him in his workshop and watch him create these wonderful items.

I think you can understand why on almost every trip I make to Ireland, I manage to find a few days for the Dingle Peninsula.

You may not realize that when you go around Ireland with me, you end up reading or listening to poetry and other literature being read aloud in strange but appropriate places. This practice has turned out to be one of the most meaningful aspects of the trips I’ve led, with even seasoned cynics giving in to the pure joy of hearing or speaking the words in the place where they were written, or at the place they were written about, or at a locale that is significant to the text or the author in some way. When I’m traveling with students, they are shy about this practice at first but soon find themselves competing to read certain pieces at certain places.

Of course we will read the “Proclamation of the Irish Republic” in front of the General Post Office, where Patrick Pearse read it on Easter Monday in 1916. We will read passages from The Islandman when we are standing at the end of the Dingle Peninsula, looking across the sea to the Great Blasket Island (pictured at the top of this page) where Tomás O’Crohan wrote his famous memoir. We will read W. B. Yeats’s poem “Under Ben Bulben” under Ben Bulben, the massive mountain that rises up just beyond Drumcliff Churchyard. Yeats created his own epitaph as the last lines of this poem: “Cast a cold Eye / On life, on Death / Horseman pass by.” So many Yeats poems are tied to the landscape and history of Ireland. The photo at the beginning of this post shows Meiqing Xiong ’16 on our last trip just after she finished reading “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” on a pier in Lough Gill, Sligo, with the eponymous isle in the background. A work of literature comes to mean something more to you when you’ve been to the place it represents, and nearly every student on the trip wants a picture like this one. I’ve linked the poem’s title to a recording of Yeats reading the poem. Listen for the clues to meaning and nuance his voice gives.

One of my favorite Yeats poems is “The Fiddler of Dooney,” included below in full. Yeats based many of his poems on the Celtic legends he heard growing up in Sligo, but this “legend” is one he is said to have made up on his own. I love this little poem for its celebration of poetry and song (the arts), for its whimsical story, and for the line “Folk dance like a wave of the sea.” This photo shows students reading the poem on the shore of Lough Gill with the gigantic “Rock of Dooney” in the background. If you click on the title of the poem in this paragraph, you’ll be able to hear a beautiful musical rendition of the poem by Sean Doyle.

The Fiddler of Dooney

by W. B. Yeats

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’
And dance like a wave of the sea.

(1899)

Today it is my pleasure to introduce you to my good friend and trusted co-leader, Dave Yeates of Dave Yeates Ireland Tours, who will be our driver-guide for the trip in June.

Dave has led four Agnes Scott student trips, and he has also led a trip for my husband’s extended family (16 people). I’ve recommended him to many other groups planning tours of Ireland. Dave has his own company that does business under the umbrella of Celtic Tours, who make all the arrangements, provide insurance, etc. With over thirty years in the travel industry, Dave is also a Certified Irish National Tour Guide, Bord Failte Approved (that’s the Irish tourism agency–it means “Welcome Board”). But those details don’t begin to describe his vast knowledge of the country’s history, culture, and geography; his energetic and fun-loving spirit, or his kindness and care for everyone on his trips. I know you will enjoy getting to know Dave and seeing Ireland under his guidance!

Just to tell you a few stories on Dave–he spends his vacations exploring the very few corners of Ireland he doesn’t already know well, talking to local musicians and performers, craftspeople, restaurateurs, etc. to devise new, unusual “detours” to enhance his tours. He keeps in touch with people who’ve been on his trips via Facebook and other means, remembering their birthdays, congratulating them on their accomplishments, and always offering an encouraging word or two. When I was living in Ireland last year, he cheerfully drove me around the country in search of some lesser known literary sites, as I documented in my blog: a little known geological formation mentioned in a Yeats’s poem “Man and the Echo” (46 Into the Night); and a privately owned estate home where a famous memoir took place (51 Woodbrook).  Dave will do anything to make your trip to Ireland as wonderful and memorable as it can possibly be.