When you saw the prospectus for our trip, you probably said to yourself “Burns? Scott? Who reads them these days?” I have an answer for your doubts, but only if you’ll expand in your mind the meaning of the word “read.” Hang on though, because it will take me a minute to get there.

First of all, you are stuck with a literature person as your “group leader.” I hesitate to use that term, but please know that at some shopping locations abroad, group leaders get sizable discounts. And with the right number of trip participants, group leaders’ airfare and sometimes hotel are gratis.

I’m no expert on either Burns or Scott, but I studied them both in college and graduate school, and my dissertation, “The Magic Circle: Elizabeth Inchbald, Mary Hays, and Mary Wollstonecraft and the Politics of Domestic Fiction,” was an attempt to prove that Scott did not invent the historical novel entirely on his own, as many critics still claim. I love Scott’s novels, and I respect his efforts on behalf of his beloved Scotland, but the evolution of the novel is far more complex than “Scott invented the historical novel.”

Even more important, without Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, Scotland wouldn’t be what it is today. Each writer in his unique way contributed substantially to the creation of Scotland in the modern imagination. Interestingly, both writers reached into the past to do this.

Burns led the movement to preserve Scottish folk songs and their accompanying culture. He saw himself as the inheritor of a tradition, not an inventor of one, and relished being called Scotland’s “bard” in the old style. Back in the day, bards were much more than poets. They preserved the cultural through story and song, created and protected their patron’s reputation, and served as chief historian to the community. Burns lived in a time when Scotland’s identity was being swallowed up by Britain, and when the juggernaut of English was wiping out dialects and languages locally and all over the world (still true today). Because he wrote so many of his poems and songs in his native Lowland Scots or “Lallans,” as it was called in Ayrshire, Burns also helped preserve the old language.

Speakers of Scots today, whether in Scotland or Ulster, cherish Burns’s work, celebrating it both by performances and by educating the next generation. Today Scottish school children still learn to recite Burns’s poems, honoring the literature of their mother tongue. In Northern Ireland speakers of Ulster Scots or Ullans, a branch of Scots, teach Burns’s poems and songs in the schools under the auspices of the Ulster-Scots Agency (which we will visit when we’re in Belfast). With his love of natural settings, his command of language and rhythm, and his deep understanding of human nature, Burns makes a valuable and engaging study.

Even more purposefully than Burns, Scott sought to preserve the history and legends of his homeland in the poems that made him famous and in the novels he churned out during the second half of his career. In the novels, he brought forward past heroes of independent spirit, like Rob Roy, and invented others to serve as model Scottish men, and he populated the novels with an amazing and lively array of characters–a strategy we call “Dickensian” today. He also set about reviving the culture of the Highlands, which had faded from public attention as the Highlanders were driven north and persecuted. He saw the oppressed Highland people as Scotland in embryo. In his writing and in his life, he fueled the surge of interest in not only the ethos and culture of the Highlands but also the distinctive  Highland style of dress: tartan, kilt, sporran, kilt pin, clan badges, glengarry bonnet, ghillies, and all.

Scott participated enthusiastically in the newly invented “tradition” of associating one tartan design with a particular family or class (previously tartans had reflected only regional identity) and helped make the trend all the rage. When King George the IV visited Scotland in 1822, a very grand shindig engineered by Scott, the celebrity author persuaded the king to appear in full Highland dress. It is said that for the famous painting of His Majesty in this costume, the artist SIr David Wilkie replaced the monarch’s bright pink tights with elegant knees and socks. He also modulated the dazzle of the jewels, the brightness of the kilt, and the fat on the royal person.

It is interesting to note that Burns and Scott both came from the band of Scottish territory closest to Britain, where English ways and English authority easily penetrated. There was more intermingling and more intermarriage here than in the more northern reaches of the province. Did this nearness to the great foe of centuries make the need for a Scottish identity more intense?

In any case, Burns and Scott were part of a larger nationalistic movement sweeping Europe that would erupt in self-defining revolutions and rebellions for a century to come. The Scotland they dreamed of, wrote about, and celebrated is the Scotland we know today.

The answer to your doubts about these two literary giants depends on the meaning of the word “read.” No, people don’t read much Burns or Scott these days if you’re talking about picking up a book, and more’s the pity. People around the world encounter Burns every time they sing “Auld Lang Syne,” of course, or any one of the dozens of songs he penned. And his words and insights creep into our language every day without our noticing (click Robert Burns in Our Daily Language for a short list of just a few common Burnsian sayings). Burns clubs ring the globe, and knowledge of his work is far more widespread than is generally credited.

For his part, Scott revolutionized the novel’s form by using it to retell the past and popularizing the technique. Would we have Wolf Hall, I, Claudius, or A Tale of Two Cities without his bold and voluminous example? Though he would not have supported an independent Scotland, he built the foundation upon which the independence movement rests by giving Scotland’s its history–separate from England’s history–albeit fictionalized to glorify a certain ethos. And don’t forget, until that other Scot J. K Rowling came along, Scott reigned as the world’s most most famous writer.

To read Scotland,  to read the novel as it has evolved in our day, to read the reading mind of the world’s people, to read the human heart, you can do no better than to read and study Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott.

 

In Scotland, you can’t go very far without running into Robert Burns in some form or another.

On July 1, 1999, the Scottish Parliament opened for business for the first time since 1707. For nearly three hundred years, direct rule from Westminster had shaped the destinies of all Scots, a situation that did not sit well with Scottish nationalists of any degree of fervor, so it was a joyous occasion in Edinburgh on that day in 1999. The Queen was there to give a speech, a parade supplied the appropriate pomp and grandeur, and crowds thronged the city to catch a glimpse of the proceedings or the celebrities. But for many, the most poignant and important moment of the day was when folksinger Sheena Wellington stood up in the chamber to sing “A Man’s a Man for a’ That” by Robert Burns.

To listen to the performance, click here. For Scots words you don’t know, click here.

What better way to celebrate democracy, representative government, and an egalitarian society in which the “content of [one’s] character” matters more than wealth, position, race, or creed? As a number of his poems reveal, Robert Burns was interested in these ideas, which were deemed radical and dangerous in his time. In his youth, he had been inspired by the American Revolution and in 1795, when his radical poem was published, the French Revolution raged on very close to home. Anyone in Great Britain who expressed overt sympathy with the revolutionaries across the channel would have been in serious trouble.

Tellingly, Burns never agreed to the publication of the poem with his name attached, though his fame was such and his idiom so well known that others were easily able to guess who wrote it. The poem doesn’t go so far as to advocate the destruction of the upper classes, but it does argue forcefully for what Tom Paine had deemed “the rights of man”—the rights of the common man—just a few years earlier (1791).

“A Man’s a Man for A’ That” is copied below if you want to read or review it. Here are just a few thoughts about each stanza.

As is often the case, Burns titled the poem after its first line, “Is There for Honest Poverty,” but it wasn’t long before it became know for the key line in stanza 3, including the repetition of the phrase “for a’ that” (“for all that”). That three-word phrase and several variations of it (“a’ that,” “an a’ that”) form a “through line” of both meaning and rhythm throughout the five stanzas. The meaning shifts slightly with each repetition, but “a’ that” always implies a shared understanding or common ideals. It is one of the many democratizing claims in the poem. “The Man’s the gowd [gold] for a’ that” is another: the man or the person is the “gold,” not the rank, the clothing, fancy food and wine, the money, or anything else acquired for show or to hold power over others.

Some scholars have linked the phrase “coward-slave” to the question of slavery and abolition, very much in public debate in Burns’s circle. Was he somehow looking down on slaves, blaming them for their captivity and subservience? This interpretation doesn’t jive with the rest of the poem or with what we know of Burns’s albeit complicated views on slavery. He claimed to be against slavery, but at one point he did contemplate emigrating to Jamaica and working as a sort of administrator-worker on a plantation–a tacit approval, perhaps, of the economic arrangements found there.

From another perspective, “coward-slave” could also refer to someone who allows his mind, his dignity to be “enslaved” by acquiescence to rank and wealth, an idea that emerges later in the poem when Burns lauds the ” independent mind.” Welcome to the world of literary interpretation where, maddeningly, “nothing is only one thing” (To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, 1927)!

As an educator, I particularly like the last lines of stanza 3, in which Burns celebrates “the man o’ independent mind.” The poet seems to be reminding us that we ourselves have the capacity to break free of society’s false strictures. The “birkie ca’d a lord” [spirited fellow called a lord] who “struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that” is “but a coof [fool] for a’ that.” The man of independent mind is truly free because he has the strength of character to laugh at “a’ that,” seeing it for what it is. I intend to start using “coof” in my everyday vocabulary.

An honest man is above the “might” of a prince, a marquis, or a duke (Stanza 4)—” Guid faith, he mauna fa’ that!” [Good faith, he must not fault that!] –an honest man must not fault that

For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Their dignities, an’ a’ that,
The pith o’ Sense an’ pride o’ Worth
Are higher rank than a’ that.

Sense and self-worth are the only marks of high rank worth recognizing. Would that we lived in a  world today where that was true!

The last stanza of Burns’s poem foreshadows another great utterance that would come in a speech more than 150 years later.  A comparison of the two reminds us of the long journey towards equality and social justice.  Here is Burns.

For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s comin yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man the warld o’er
Shall brithers be for a’ that.

And here is Martin Luther King, Jr. on August 28, 1963,  from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

I have a dream that…one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

Both poets–for King was a poet of oratory–use the future tense for their dream of sisterhood-brotherhood. Fifty-five years later, the struggle continues.

 

A Man’s a Man for a’ That

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an’ a’ that;
The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that.
Our toils obscure an’ a’ that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an’ a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man’s a Man for a’ that:
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that;
The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor,
Is king o’ men for a’ that.

Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord,
Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that,
Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
His ribband, star, an’ a’ that,
The man o’ independent mind,
He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.

A Prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that!
But an honest man’s aboon his might –
Guid faith, he mauna fa’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Their dignities, an’ a’ that,
The pith o’ Sense an’ pride o’ Worth
Are higher rank than a’ that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a’ that,
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth
Shall bear the gree an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s comin yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man the warld o’er
Shall brithers be for a’ that.

Scroll down to see posts 1 and 2. The green words are links to online resources.

Even if I weren’t a literature person, we would have to study Sir Walter Scott to understand modern Scotland. Fortunately, Scott lived in a beautiful and interesting part of the province, and his world-wide fame meant that the places where he lived and worked and dreamed would be preserved for future generations to enjoy. We’ll visit some of these places and learn to understand Scott’s love for the region.

Our Scott days are centered in Melrose, Roxburghshire, a beautiful village in the Scottish Borders. The town grew up around Melrose Abbey, a Cistercian abbey founded in the early 12th century that was already a ruin in Scott’s day, thanks to the English armies under Henry VIII. The abbey is thought to be one of the most beautiful ruins in the UK. Robert the Bruce’s heart is buried on the grounds. Look for the bagpipe-playing pig gargoyle when you’re visiting the abbey. Scott grew up in this area, and once he had won fame and fortune, made his home at Abbotsford, just outside Melrose, where we’ll have a guided visit.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)—jurist, poet, novelist, collector, architect, renaissance man—took what Burns had unwittingly accomplished to the next level. Many scholars and popular writers credit Scott with Scotland’s modern-day identity—tartans, Highland heroes, romantic legends, nationalism, and all.

He is probably the most popular author ever on a world scale with one exception—another Scot named J. K. Rowling. The monument commemorating him in Edinburgh bears this out: at 200 feet, 6 inches tall, it has 68 figurative statues in addition to the enormous one of Scott and his dog. No monument to a writer anywhere in the world comes close to it in size.

Had he only written poetry, Scott’s fame would have still been phenomenal. No writer has done more to bring poetry to a wide audience. But in 1814 he changed careers and became even more famous as novelist, penning over 20 novels along with numerous plays and short stories before he was through. In addition to his astounding literary career, he orchestrated several dramatic historical events worthy of Geraldo Rivera and modern reality television. What did Scott accomplish and why was he so popular? Why are his works hardly mentioned and rarely taught today? We’ll try to answer these questions and more.

Readings
Waverley by Walter Scott, published 1814 (any edition). This is Scott’s first and most famous novel and a good “way in” to his fiction.  It is credited with being the first historical novel, but we’ll talk about why that claim is overblown.

If you want to read more, try Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, and The Heart of Midlothian (said to be his best).

Sir Walter Scott: his Life and Work by John Buchan (Luath Press Ltd. 2015, 1925) is an excellent, though older biography of Scott, reissued in 2015.

Scott-land: The Man Who Invented a Nation by Stuart Kelly  takes on some of the difficult questions about Scott’s life and work while crediting him with creating an identity for modern Scotland (Birlinn Ltd. 2011).

Scott was a world famous poet before he was a novelist. Like his novels, his poems reflect his interest in history and mythology. Here are his two most famous poems.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel by Sir Walter Scott

The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott

Films
An interesting lecture about Scott’s importance to Scottish identity.
Did Sir Walter Scott invent Scotland? A Lecture by Dr. Juliet Shields.

The Story of Scott’s home, Abbotsford.
Sir Walter Scott’s Home in Scotland–Abbotsford

Tentative Itinerary
June 10 – Today we’ll visit Sir Walter Scott’s magnificent home, Abbotsford House, for a guided tour; the beautiful ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, where Scott is buried; and several local spots that were important to the author. The afternoon is free. There are many fascinating places to visit within a few miles of Melrose (castles and estates, gardens, abbeys, walks, etc.), or you may want to spend time in this lovely village and visit the famous Melrose Abbey. Overnight Melrose.

June 11 – We’ll drive to nearby Selkirk to visit Bowhill House, a magnificent estate and residence of the Duke of Buccleach and Queensberry that was important to Sir Walter Scott, followed by a guided tour of Locharron Tartan Mill Visitor Centre (and shopping). Return to Melrose for few hours of free time. In the evening we’ll have a group dinner and ceilidh [KAY-lee] (traditional music and dance) performance at the Townhouse Hotel. Be sure to wander the streets of Melrose before departing. Overnight Melrose.

June 12 – It’s short drive to Roslin, where we will have a guided tour of the stunning Rosslyn Chapel, a 15^th-century church with elaborate carvings made famous by Scott in his “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” and more recently by Dan Brown in his thriller The Da Vinci Code. We continue our journey to South Queensferry for free time to explore this pretty town, where three magnificent bridges cross the Firth of Forth. The Hawes Inn next to the famous Forth Bridge (a cantilever bridge built for trains in 1890) was the setting for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, and Stevenson used to stay here. We’ll drive to our Loch Lomond hotel to stay for the next two nights. Overnight Loch Lomond.

June 13 – After all this literary and historical tourism, we need a day on a lake! This morning the group will tour the magnificent Loch Lomond by boat and later by bus. The lake is the dividing line between the Highlands and the Lowlands. There will also be opportunities to arrange individual excursions. Farewell dinner for the group at our hotel tonight (even though we have one more night in Scotland). Overnight Loch Lomond. Overnight Loch Lomond.

June 14 – Transfer to Edinburgh where the group will take a half-day guided tour focused on the literary perspective: the world famous “Book Lovers Tour.” We’ll have a few free hours in the city before driving to our airport hotel for the last night. Overnight Edinburgh.

June 15 – Transfer to Edinburgh airport and fly home to Atlanta or elsewhere!

 

It would be no exaggeration to say that Robert “Robbie” Burns (1759-1796) was the Elvis Presley of nineteenth-century Scotland. Even his own day, his popularity was extraordinary. As a self-educated man from rural, agricultural Scotland, Burns wrote poetry that spoke to and of the people and also captured the attention of the upper classes. His interest in folk culture came at a time when other Europeans were beginning to turn to native influences instead of seeing the ancient world (Greece and Rome) as the epitome of civilization. And his use of the Scots language in much of his poetry fueled the movement to preserve that language and the culture of the Lowland Scots. To many he seemed to embody the essence of what it was to be Scottish, and adulation of Robert Burns and all that he seemed to stand for became a cult in Europe, America, and all around the world that persists to this day. We’ll examine the man, the poetry, and the myth, and we’ll try to discover what Burns’s poetry has to offer two and a quarter centuries after his death.

The first part of our sojourn in Scotland was planned around Burns’s life and legacy, but we start with a famous Scottish Castle and incredible scenery. After taking the ferry from Ireland to Scotland, we’ll visit one of Scotland’s most stunning edifices, Culzean Castle (pronounced kull-ANE), perched above the Firth of Clyde on the Ayrshire coast. The castle is usually rated the “best castle” in Scotland and includes gardens, shops, a café, and gorgeous views. We’re staying two nights in Ayr, Ayrshire, to be close to the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in the village of Alloway, where we’ll have a guided tour the next morning.

The cottage where Burns was born is on the site, as is the haunted church that inspired his famous poem“Tam O’Shanter,” the fifteenth century bridge Brig O’Doon that figures in the poem, and a beautiful memorial garden. The Burns Museum houses an amazing collection of artifacts and memorabilia associated with Burns. In the museum you begin to get an idea of the intensity and range of the Burns cult.

Following our second night in Ayr, we’ll drive south and east to two Burns sites on our way to Melrose. Ellisland Farm is a lovely, bucolic spot where Burns spent perhaps his happiest and most stable years. He built the farm himself, and today it is preserved in his memory. It was here that he composed “Tam O’Shanter” and other works. We’ll have time to walk around farm and along the river. After lunch at the farm and a recitation of Tam O’Shanter, we will drive a short ways to Dumfries, where Burns spent his final years, to visit the Burns House and his magnificent grave at the nearby St. Michael’s Church. In the late afternoon, the scenic drive from Dumfries to Melrose takes us into Sir Walter Scott country.

Readings
Any collection of Burns poems will remind you of how many of these you already know. Burns was an astute observer of human behavior, and he had a knack for pithy sayings that still creep into conversation over two hundred years later.

Many if not all of his poems have been set to music, and you will find many familiar tunes and lyrics. Youtube has a great collection, like this stunning version of “Green Grow the Rashes O” by Jean Redpath, my favorite interpreter of Burns.

Here is a handout of The Poetry of Robert Burns that I compiled. If you have any favorites you want the group to know about that aren’t on the handout, please let me know.

And here is a side-by-side translation (you’ll need it!) of Burn’s famous poem Robert Burns’s Tam O’Shanter.

Burns’s poetry is best as song, I believe. Listen to this stunning rendition of his “Green Grow the Rashes O” by Jean Redpath, my favorite interpreter of Burns. There are many recordings of his poems available on YouTube and elsewhere on line.

There are many biographies of Burns, but the best recent one probably The Bard by Robert Crawford (Pimlico 2010).

Films
Here are a few online films about Burns’s life.

Robert Burns: The People’s Poet (BBC)

Robert Burns: The Man and his Legends (Edge Hill Communications)

Tentative Itinerary
June 7 and 8, overnight near Ayr, Ayfordshire

June 8–Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, local Burns sites; free afternoon

June 9–Ellisand Farm for tour and lunch; Dumfries to see Burns house and grave; drive to Melrose and Sir Walter Scott country

Welcome to the 2018 Agnes Scott Alumnae Trip to Ireland and Scotland! I’m starting to get really excited about the trip, and I hope you are, too. Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting information about the trip, along with some of my own thoughts and observations. I welcome your suggestions as to what I should write about.

Scroll down to see earlier posts–the newest one is always on top. I’d love it if you would use the “Comment” function just to let me know you are reading or to add your thoughts and questions.

Let’s start with the first four days of the trip! The brief introduction is followed by reading and film lists and a preliminary itinerary for the first part of the trip.

Belfast During and After The Troubles

Like Derry, Belfast was an epicentre for The Troubles from the late 1960s to 1998, and the peace agreement of that year was negotiated in the capital city. At one time, the city was dotted with barricades, police vehicles looked like armored tanks, certain neighborhoods were off limits to certain groups, and tourism was virtually unknown. Today, Belfast is a major tourist destination with three “hop-on-hop-off” tour bus companies and a booming international film industry. Drawing on literature, history, and film, we will examine how the conflict came to be, what happened in Belfast and in Northern Ireland during that period, how the conflict shaped the city, and how Belfast has fared since the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

The first four days of our trip are modeled on my “Journeys—Northern Ireland: The Trouble with Peace,” a travel immersion course that was part of SUMMIT in 2017. The Belfast Peace Agreement of 1998 sought to bring an end to The Troubles, a thirty-year period of sectarian strife in Northern Ireland (NI). Eighteen years later the violence has abated, civil rights have been gained, the cities are rebuilt, the economy has improved, and rising tourism is only one of many “peace dividends.” But how deep do these changes go? Can the problems of the past be forgiven and forgotten? What are the successes and the challenges of peace? How are changing demographics, new racial and ethnic diversity, and globalization complicating life in NI? To find answers to these questions, we’ll visit sites, museums, and monuments that tell the story of The Troubles, and we’ll talk to Northern Irelanders about the realities of the conflict, peace, and reconciliation.

Belfast was at one time on the U.S. State Department’s list of places NOT to visit; today it has a rich cultural and civic life and a thriving tourist industry. We’ll tour the city focusing on the events of the conflict and the ways in which it still marks the cityscape today, as well as on its industrial, scientific, and cultural heritage. A panel of former paramilitaries will help us understand why they were involved then and what they are doing now to reject violence and move forward in peacetime. During our tour of the Linen Hall Library, we will explore this bastion of free thought in the middle of a city divided by sectarian strife. As the library’s web site says,

The Linen Hall Library is a truly unique institution. Founded in 1788, it is the oldest library in Belfast and the last subscribing library in Ireland. It has a radical and ‘enlightenment’ foundation, and ever since has prized its independence and has maintained the principle that its resources are owned by the community for the community.

Another highlight of our trip will be visiting with proponents of the Ulster-Scots language (Ulster Scots Agency) and the Irish Gaelic language (Turas Irish Language Programme), who see language learning as a way to build community within and across borders.

While we may not come away with all of our questions answered, I think you’ll find you will have a much better understanding of the history and current situation of Northern Ireland, the successes and failures of the post-conflict era, the region’s rich and complex cultural heritage, and the role Northern Ireland plays today in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the world.

Clicking on the green words will take you to a document or an online source (audio, video, web site, etc.)

 Readings—fiction
The Way Paver by Anne Devlin and Naming the Names by Anne Devlin
When we are in Belfast we’ll have an evening with Anne Devlin.
The Wall Reader by Fiona Barr

These come from a great collection called The Hurt World: Short Stories of The Troubles ed. Michael Parker, Blackstaff Press LTD. 1995.

 Readings—history (if you’re interested and want to know more)
There are many good accounts of The Troubles. I’ll recommend two here. The first is a detailed, fair, readable account, updated in 2012. The second is written by a journalist and tells the story well—it might be the place to start.

McKittrick, David and David McVea. Making Sense of the Troubles: A History of the Northern Ireland Conflict. Viking, 2012.

Coogan, Tim Pat. The Troubles: Ireland’s Ordeal and the Search for Peace. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002.

Films
There are many good films about The Troubles. I’ll list a few of the major ones here. Again—view at your leisure.

The Boxer, dir. Jim Sheridan, 1997.
In the Name of the Father, dir. Jim Sheridan, 1993.
Hunger, dir. Steve McQueen, 2008.
Some Mother’s Son, dir. Terry George, 1996.
The Crying Game, dir. Neil Jordan, 1992.
’71, dir. Yann Demange, 2014.

Brief and tentative itinerary
June 3–arrival in Dublin and break fast at the Man O’War historic pub; drive to Belfast.

June 4–Belfast City Tour, murals; lunch in city centre; visit with Linda Ervine at Turas  (Irish language as peacebuilding)

June 5–Coiste panel at our hotel (former paramilitaries talk about the conflict and post-conflict); lunch and talk at the Ulsters Scots Agency (Ulster Scots language); afternoon free; theatre evening at Lyric (Brian Friel’s Lovers Winners Losers).

June 6–free day; Antrim Coast drive as one option; author Anne Devlin will give a reading and talk after dinner at our hotel.

June 7–Ferry to Scotland; visit Culzean Castle; overnight Ayr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like sheep. They’re not smart or cuddly or friendly, but they do look pretty good in a grassy field or on the slope of a steep hill, especially when there are a lot of them dotting the landscape. The brightly colored splotches on their fuzzy bodies are brands; with the open grazing system that characterizes some parts of the country, sheep from different owners may mingle and will need to be sorted eventually.

I can’t offer too many guarantees for our tour of Ireland, but I can guarantee that you will see sheep, and plenty of them. To quote The Irish Times, “there were 4.7 million sheep in Ireland in 2010, distributed among 32,100 farms, with an average flock of 148.” I would guess that today’s number is not that different. That’s about one sheep for every person in the Republic of Ireland. Once the birthrate for sheep exceeds that for Irish people, there’s going to be trouble.

I’m a knitter and love wool, tweed, weaving, and all of that stuff, so that’s one reason why I like sheep. Sadly though, for those of you interested in buying yarn in Ireland, I must tell you that Irish sheep are bred mainly for meat, and their wool is not suitable for carding or spinning. There are some wonderful Irish yarns, mostly spun and dyed in County Donegal and available everywhere. But the wool comes from Australia and other places. Irish lamb (and beef, for that matter) is famous all over Europe and a good thing to order at restaurants.

When I travel with students in early January, we usually spot some early lambs just born that day and still wet. There’s a lot of commotion on the bus when this happens and a lot of high-pitched “Oooooh! Newborn lambs!” and the like.  With everyone moving over to the side where the lambs were spotted, we sometimes think the bus will roll over. I would estimate that more than half the students buy some kind of stuffed lamb toy or other sheep paraphernalia while in Ireland.

Here is a sample of my sheep obsession and a glimpse of what you’ll be seeing out the bus windows during our travels.

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An island with a natural sense of “differentness” from neighboring places and, during its “Golden Age” (6^th to 9^th centuries CE), the most advanced culture in Europe, Ireland has quite a few distinctive, ancient architectural features that are only rarely seen outside the country. Here is a selection of those we’ll see examples of on our tour.

Earthworks
Ireland’s numerous earthworks, like those at the Hill of Tara, give the landscape an eerie, pock-marked quality and are best seen from above. They remain somewhat mysterious, as most have never been excavated. These mounds of carefully shaped dirt, sometimes packed with stone, are believed to have been built during the Stone Age (6000-2000 BC), but they were reused, rebuilt, and reinterpreted by subsequent generations, including modern day so-called “druids.” Fortresses, burial or ceremonial sites, enclosures for animals, palaces—they served many purposes over the centuries.

Quite a few of the earthworks are associated with the myths and legends brought by invading peoples long after their construction. The Hill of Tara is the most famous of these, with its many mounds and furrows and stunning views of the surrounding countryside. The site figures in myth as a center of power and sacredness and continued to have such significance through the centuries. Tara’s mythological fame meant that Irish kings or clan heads wanted to be crowned there. When St. Patrick returned to Ireland to convert the pagans in the fifth century, he came to Tara. In the nineteenth century, the “Great Liberator” Daniel O’Connell held “monster meetings” at Tara, rallying Catholics to force Britain to repeal the Penal Laws that had been intended to stamp out their religion, thus eliminating them as a political threat. Cuchullain, the heroic boy-god associated with the rebels of 1916, is said to have lived at one of the most massive earthworks at Eamhain Mhacha (OW-en MAH-kah) or Navan Fort in County Armagh.

We’ll see the famous stand-alone mountain Knocknarea near Sligo: the earthwork or mound on top is supposed to be the tomb of Queen Maeve. The fairy  people were thought to live underground in these structures; they were called  “aos sí ” or “people of the mounds” (“sí” is the word for mounds), which was eventually shortened to “sidhe” (SHEE). You know this word in another word, “banshee,” which means “woman (ban) fairy (shee).” The sidhe are not adorable, tiny, Tinkerbell-like fairies, by the way, but a powerful and often malevolent race of life-sized or even larger people, a race that was banished underground long ago and continues to bother and seek vengeance on the usurpers of their land. Like the megalithic tombs mentioned below, the earthworks in Ireland still have a connection to the supernatural for some, as evidenced by the “rag trees” nearby–trees bedecked with scraps of clothing left in commemoration of the dead or supplication for the living. The earthworks building sites are thought to be “thin places” where the passageway between the earthly and the supernatural is notably fluid.

Round Towers
Built by monks from the 9^th to the 12^th centuries CE, these remarkable structures are distinctly Irish: there are only three outside the country, two in Scotland and one on the Isle of Man. They range in height from 59 feet to 130 feet and show sophisticated engineering for their times. Each one has a door seemingly elevated from the ground, but some scholars think these doors were once at ground level. Other common features are windows at the top facing four directions and a conical rooftop.

Used as bell towers to summon the monks for prayer and as lookouts, the towers were an integral part of daily life in the monastic community. The theory that they were used by the monks to hide their treasures and themselves from marauding Vikings has been discounted. After all, the wooden doors could easily have been set afire, and the tall, hollow towers would have made excellent chimneys. There were once at least 120 of these towers in Ireland: most are in ruins today, but about 20 remain in good condition. We’ll see a fine one at the Rock of Cashel, a partial tower at Drumcliff in Sligo, and others along the way.

Ringforts
Found in Wales and Cornwall but very numerous in Ireland, ringforts were circular stone or stone and earth structures with open courtyards. There is a lot of debate about when they were built, but recent theories suggest the early middle ages, probably between 500 and 1000 CE. Some researchers believe there were once as many as 50,000 of these fortifications in Ireland, each the domain of a family or clan. Defensive in nature, ringforts also seem to have been used for different purposes in different places. Some housed farm animals and small dwellings, others were used for manufacturing pottery, still others may have been the dwellings of royalty or places of ceremony. Weather permitting in County Donegal near Derry, we will be able to see one of the most famous of these, Grianán of Aileach, positioned on hill with stunning views of the surrounding countryside. Like many ringforts, this one was probably a place of varying significance for different generations and may have been built on a much more ancient site. The fort plays an important role in Seamus Deane’s novel Reading in the Dark.

High Crosses
Large standing crosses elaborately carved with bible stories and symbols are found all over Ireland and Britain, with a few in Scandinavia. Dating mostly from the 9^th century CE, the crosses in Ireland are the most richly decorated and usually consist of a cross and a ring together: crosses of this type are called “Celtic crosses,” the ring thought by some to be a strengthening feature and by others to reference the sun god of the “Celtic” pagans whom the Christian missionaries like St. Kevin and St. Patrick sought to convert. I put “Celtic” in quotation marks because recent DNA studies and other research are dramatically challenging the received wisdom about the peoples typically referred to by this name.

Many of the high crosses were destroyed or damaged during the Reformation, and today they are falling victim to weather and air pollution. Some have been replaced by replicas and are housed indoors for protection. High crosses are thought to have been used as biblical teaching tools by monks, as the panels typically represent a standard selection of new and old testament stories such as Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, Cain slaying Abel, the adoration of the magi, the resurrection, etc. They also feature unique carvings probably representing the artist, such as the cats at the bottom of Muirdeach’s Cross at Monasterboice.

We’ll see an unusual type of high cross called a Latin Cross at the Rock of Cashel and a more typical carved high cross at Drumcliff. The crosses are scattered across the island, and my husband and I are on a mission to see all of them; so far we’ve visited about two thirds.

Court Tombs
There are many types of megalithic tombs in Ireland, structures that were reused and reinterpreted by subsequent generations like the earthworks mentioned above and often associated—even today—with the fairies. We’ll visit one of these when we drive north from Sligo, a place called “Creevykeel.” Probably built somewhere between 4000 and 25000 BCE, Creevykeel has an oval courtyard leading to two further enclosed areas housing burial chambers.

The elements along with tourists and vandals have damaged Creevykeel and most of the other megalithic tombs, so little is known about them except that the cremated remains of a small number of people—Royalty? Heroes? Priests? Particular clans?—were kept in their innermost chambers, and the efforts of more than one generation of workers went into constructing the tombs, often with large rocks that came from many miles away. Strong beliefs must have motivated such effort. Several rag trees on the path between the parking area and the tomb show that Creevykeel is very much an active place for spiritual communion today.

Beehive Huts
Beehive huts or “clocháin” (clawk-AWN) in Irish are dry-stone constructions with corbelled roofs that are usually associated with monastic settlements. They seem to have been built over a very long period from the neolithic era to modern times, mostly in southwestern Ireland. The smaller ones may have been used as places of hermitage, and they do seem to have had a religious purpose. We’ll see a group of them at Fahan on the Dingle Peninsulas that are thought to be 12th century.  There is another famous collection on Skellig Michael,  the rocky island off the Kerry coast recently in the news because the last scene of Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens was filmed there.  Click on the green text to see a short video about the movie in which the beehive huts figure prominently. Visiting the Skellig is all all day trip, but we’ll be able to see it from the Dingle Peninsula, weather permitting. Gallarus Oratory, also on our tour of the Dingle Peninsula, is a larger version, which some believe to have served as a church.

We will be spending two nights in the lovely County Kerry town of Killarney, a favorite place of mine, even though it can get a bit touristy in the summer. Surrounded by gorgeous mountains, forests, and lakes and the gateway to two spectacular drives, the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula, Killarney is also known for its excellent restaurants and shops (including an outlet mall). The town is small enough that you can easily walk from one end to the other, and it has a nice selection of music pubs, if you want to hear a bit of Irish music in the evening and have a bit of “craic.” Pronounced CRACK, is the Irish word for “fun,” meaning laughs and good conversation.

I have a special love for Killarney because when I was spending a semester working at a primary school in London with my college roommate, we hitchhiked here from Dublin.  I remember a wonderful, bitterly cold March weekend of exploring the area on rented bicycles in the rain. I had never been so cold, or so happy being cold. My friend and I had not done any research on this locale, taking the word of an acquaintance who lived in Dublin before setting out, and when we realized where we were and what we had before us, we couldn’t believe our luck. There were castles and abbeys and manor houses galore, breathtaking views in all directions, jagged coastline and wild seas, and everything else we had expected Ireland to offer.

Hitchhiking around the Ring of Kerry one day, we were picked up by the local school bus, which was really just a covered truck with a lot of hay and seven or eight redheaded children in the back. It was a different time. The fanciest accommodation in town was the “Great Southern,” an elegant nineteenth-century railway hotel that is still there, though now called by another name. We couldn’t afford to stay in such splendor, but the exchange rate was so favorable that even on our student budgets we could afford a sumptuous dinner in the grand dining room. I’m quite sure we imagined ourselves in a Victorian novel that evening. I only spent a week in Ireland on that trip and only four days in Killarney, but everything about the experience had me hooked for life, and when I made my first return trip fifteen years later, I dragged my whole family to Killarney. They were also hooked.

Like most towns in Ireland, Killarney started as a religious settlement with several ancient church sites, and there are still remnants of buildings going back to the twelfth century. The name comes from the Irish “cill airne” or “church of the sloes,” referring to blackthorn trees. Killarney is surrounded by forests, unlike much of the country, thanks to its vast sources of lumber being commandeered for the building of the British fleet. The town sits at the base of Ireland’s tallest mountains, McGillycuddy’s Reeks, at just over 1,000 metres or 3,300 feet. The three famous “Lakes of Killarney” and countless waterfalls and streams add to the picture, and for centuries poets, artists, tourists, and at least one monarch, Queen Victoria, have been enthralled with the views.

Queen Victoria arrived with her entourage in August of 1861, only a few months before her life would change forever with the sudden death of her husband Prince Albert. She had already made several state trips to this part of the empire but had never gone as far west as Kerry. The couple reportedly enjoyed their time in Killarney and the hospitality of the Herbert family, owners of the splendid Muckross House, which is included on our visit. I don’t think anyone will disagree with me when I say that the setting of this house–on the shores of Lough Leane with mountains all around–is the most beautiful in Ireland, and the grand mansion isn’t bad either. The Herberts had spent the previous six years preparing for the queen’s visit, redecorating the house from top to bottom and running themselves into financial ruin in the process. We’ll see some of the splendid furniture and decor they provided for Her Majesty, valuing the success of the royal visit over their future financial security. After the Herberts, the house passed into other hands and was eventually gifted, along with its substantial parklands, to the Irish nation in 1932. And what a gift it was. Ireland’s first national park was established here, more land was added later, and the beautiful house and gardens were saved from ruin with painstaking conservation funded by the state.

We’ll see the national park from several perspectives, including bouncing along its automobile-less roads in a jaunting car—the horse and buggy conveyance unique to this area. The slow pace of the horse and the driver’s characteristic badinage set the mood for enjoying the beautiful lakes and woods, Ireland’s only herd of native red deer, and the wildflowers and other wildlife that thrive here in this oldest of Ireland’s national parks. The jaunt includes a stop at Ross Castle, a sturdy fifteenth-century Norman keep on the shores of Lough Leane. The castle is noted for being the site of last stronghold against Oliver Cromwell in all of Munster in 1652.

In addition to seeing Muckross House and the national park, we’ll use Killarney as our base for visiting the Dingle Peninsula. The drive there is long-ish, so use your time brief free time in Killarney well to stroll about the town and into the park, check out the shops, and dine in one of its stellar restaurants.

County Kerry is famous for being the home of numerous rebels  and ambushes during the independence struggle 1916 to 1923; there are memorials everywhere. And the county as a whole is mad crazy for Gaelic football, winning the All-Ireland championship four out of the last ten years. I can’t close without saying a word about the Kerry accent or dialect, which I hope you will hear when we’re in Killarney. It’s easy to distinguish this rapid, “bubbling,” lilting way of speaking from other accents and difficult, even for Irish people sometimes, to understand what the heck is being said. I couldn’t find a good audio clip of just the Kerry way of talking online, but for some extra “craic,” listen to this short clip on Irish accents in general, which dubs the Kerry accent the “crown jewel.”

The art of tour guiding (click the green text to read my blog post on this topic) is finely honed in Ireland, and over the years I’ve been fortunate to work with the best. In addition to Dave Yeates, our driver-guide for the upcoming ten day trip, you are going to meet two other wonderful Irish tour guides who have worked with Agnes Scott since 1998. One of the reasons I like to plan the tours well in advance is to make sure that Michael O’Brien and Ronan McNamara are going to be available when we need them.

Michael O’Brien will be joining us for our second day in Dublin as we tour sites related to Easter 1916. Michael was the driver-guide for the first five Agnes Scott student trips. For those trips, he was the heart and soul of our daily experience, opening his country to us and making us feel welcome. I learned a lot about Ireland from him, but I also learned a lot about how to do a group trip, how to maximize the experience for the group and for individuals, how to deal with the problems that inevitably come up, and how to remain patient and philosophical all the while. Now retired, he still does a lot of guiding, and whenever I lead a group, I insist on having him as our “city guide.”

Michael is a legend among tour guides for his deep and broad knowledge of Ireland, his storytelling ability, and his uncanny way of quoting poetry at length. On my first trip with him in 1998, I made a list of the poets he quoted from memory–whole poems, that is, not just lines: William Wordsworth, W. B. Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh (his favorite), Robert Service, Seamus Heaney, Francis Ledwidge, Patrick Pearse, to name only a few. You’ll notice the richness of his speech, too, along with his mastery of dates and other facts. Ask him anything, and he’ll have an answer and a story for you. On each one of our trips, he regularly made friends with all the students but kept an eye out for those who might be feeling lonely or homesick, and he always learned everyone’s name.

I almost gave up leading trips to Ireland when Michael retired, thinking I would “never see his like again” (to paraphrase The Islandman), but I was fortunate enough to be paired with Dave. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have worked with two of the most knowledgeable, kindest, and most helpful driver-guides imaginable.

When tourists first started coming to Northern Ireland in the 1990s, the tourism business was not well developed, and sometimes you would encounter guides with strong sectarian leanings they didn’t bother to hide. On the first Agnes Scott trip in 1998, I was apprehensive about our guided “wall walk” in Derry, thinking we might be stuck with a rabid Republican or Loyalist, the extremes on the two sides of the conflict. Once again, my luck held, and I met Ronan McNamara of McNamara Tours. Ronan hails from the Republic, born and raised in a town in the middle of the country called Banagher. He went to university in Northern Ireland, fell in love with Derry, and started giving tours of a city that was only beginning to recover from The Troubles. Ronan is credited with launching tourism in that city. He has a deep and encyclopedic understanding of NI and its troubled history, and like Michael is a consummate storyteller. He has brought tears to my eyes more than once with his stories of the tentative steps towards peace and reconciliation in Derry.

Our students love Ronan and can’t get enough of him on our tours. They always develop a real connection with him for many reasons, but especially because, as you might have guessed from the photos, Ronan is biracial, like many of them. His mother is Chinese, his father Irish, and Ronan has spent a lifetime navigating Ireland’s gradual recognition and acceptance of diversity, which continues to be a defining factor on both sides of the border. When he speaks of the percentages of Catholics and protestants in Derry, he always adds “and one Buddhist.” His knowledge of such issues and his openness about discussing them resonates well with our multiracial, multiethnic, socially conscious students.

Michael, and Ronan, and Dave will add immeasurably to our group and your individual experience. For me, each of them is synonymous with Ireland, and I count time in their company as my best times in their country. I am also grateful that all of them are willing to put up with my whims and crazes, my insistence on taking the bus down windy country roads to remote locations like the Lake Isle of Innsifree,  and my tendency to hold the group up with poetry recitations and other literary digressions.

For poetry and other materials related to Derry, see “Trip Documents” or click here. 

You might be wondering why the name of the city we will be visiting in Northern Ireland is often represented two ways. The story behind that practice says a lot about the city’s history. “Derry” is the city’s original name; it comes from an Irish word “doire” (DOY-ruh) meaning “oak grove.” St.  Columcille (also Columba, Columb), one of Ireland’s “top three” saints along with Patrick and Bridget, established a monastery on the site in the sixth century. Columcille had a great fondness for his homeland: long after he had moved to Scotland to found the famous monastery at Iona, he wrote poetry full of longing for Derry:

It is for this I love Derry,
For its quietness, for its purity,
And for its crowds of white angels
From one end to another.

A scholar, monk, and warrior, St. Columcille had a fascinating life and was involved in what is considered to be the first copyright case, the “Battle of the Book” (he lost). The Church of Ireland (Episcopal) cathedral in Derry is named after him (St. Columb’s). Remember that the oldest and most beautiful churches throughout Ireland—including the magnificent St. Patrick’s in Dublin—are Church of Ireland properties rather than Catholic. When Henry VIII decided to dissolve the monasteries in his kingdom in order to destroy their power and grab their wealth c.1540, he absorbed these edifices into his new church. And that was the root of the “Troubles” in Ireland for centuries to come. Under subsequent protestant monarchs, Ireland was “planted” with settlers to spread the faith and the king’s sovereignty. The Catholic, Gaelic speaking residents and landowners (or so they thought) of Ireland were not consulted, and many lost everything to the colonists. Ulster, the northern quarter of Ireland and the closest in proximity to the other island, was the most heavily settled during this time. The “plantation of Ulster” in the early seventeenth century made protestants wealthy landowners and Catholics poor tenants or worse, setting the stage for the sectarian strife of the twentieth century.

Derry was not destined to be a place of “quietness” for long. Strategically located on the River Foyle connected to a large inland sea called “Lough Foyle,” the settlement grew quickly during the plantation period, and in 1613 was granted a royal charter by King James I. London-based guilds gave money to build the walled city, and their contribution would be commemorated both in the city’s new official name, Londonderry, and in its most famous building, the Guildhall, built in 1890 and today the seat of the city government.

At the behest of Ulster protestants who wanted no part of an independent Ireland and in order to shore up votes for the political party in power, Britain partitioned Ireland in 1920, creating the six-county province of “Northern Ireland” (the remaining twenty-six counties would become the Irish Free Sate in 1922 and the Republic of Ireland in 1949). The six counties were chosen because they had a protestant majority. While religious differences between the two sides were minimal and not part of their conflict, class differences deepened and led to Catholics being excluded from access to housing, jobs, voting rights, and more. No wonder their acts of defiance soon began to resemble those of the American Civil Rights movement.

During the most intense era of sectarian strife, The Troubles from 1969-1998, the name Londonderry became controversial, with Catholic nationalists and republicans adhering to the original “Derry” and protestant unionists and loyalists standing by “Londonderry.” During the peace negotiations in the 1990s brokered by President Bill Clinton and Senator George Mitchell, the president came to speak in the city. Clinton and Mitchell are still praised all over Ireland for their fairness to both sides of the conflict, and the people of Derry were anxious to see how Clinton would handle the name controversy. Ever the diplomat, he spoke of the “city of Derry. . .in the county of Londonderry,” using both names throughout his stay.

Derry city center was nearly leveled during The Troubles and was the site of much bloodshed and destruction, including the infamous “Bloody Sunday” massacre of 30 January 1972. The city has come a long way since the Belfast or Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998 and is now a center for power sharing, reconciliation, and planning for a peaceful future. But the city name is still a problem for some. Outside Derry you’ll notice road signs where the “London” of the official name “Londonderry” is crossed out. When conferences are held there, the organizers must produce two sets of name tags, one saying “Derry” and one saying “Londonderry.” While most attendees don’t care what their name tags say, some will ostentatiously rip up and toss out the one they don’t like. Though a law in 2007 declared “Londonderry” the official name, today most people from both communities call the city “Derry” for the simple reason that it’s shorter and easier to say.

You may also hear Derry called “Stroke City,” a name conjured up by a local radio personality to reflect the stroke mark (technically a “virgule”) often seen between the two names, as in “Derry/Londonderry.” Others believe “stroke” refers to the life-threatening medical condition possibly induced by the city’s history of violent conflict or Northern Ireland’s predilection for large platefuls of fried food.

Derry is Northern Ireland’s second largest city after Belfast and is today a beautiful and fascinating place. An intact wall built in the early seventeenth century rings the city center, affording marvelous views of the old city inside the wall, the River Foyle with its elegant bridges, and the surrounding scenery. The Guildhall, St. Columb’s, the Craft Village, and the Tower Museum chronicling the city’s history are the must-sees within the wall.

Our visit will include a guided wall walk; a look at some of the famous political murals that commemorate the conflict ; the Guildhall; and the Museum of Free Derry, an interpretative center dedicated to the story of Bloody Sunday and staffed by relatives of the fourteen peaceful protesters who were killed by the British army on that day.

Whenever I’m in Derry/Londonderry, I make it a point to walk across the stunning Peace Bridge, a foot and cycling bridge opened in 2011 to symbolically join the largely nationalist “Cityside” and largely unionist “Waterside” communities (see slideshow below). On the day the bridge opened, thousands of people on both sides of the river thronged the streets, lining up to walk across the bridge, many of them in tears. Today, the bridge is the site of festivals, performances, and other joyful activities. (see video). Visitors wonder why the Peace Bridge forms an “ess” curve instead of reaching directly across the River Foyle as the other bridges do. The answer is simple: the path to peace is never straight.

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