A Dingle Weekend

I'm back from the Dingle Peninsula! We had a fabulous weekend; so much fun but very educational as well. Unfortunately my the slide show website isn't working, so you may have to wait until tomorrow for pics. Anyway, the weather held out for us -- just a few showers, but usually at night or when we were on the bus.

Our first stop on our way South was at Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. The castle was awesome -- everything was reconstructed to be as accurate as possible, and we got to go into a large variety of rooms (again connected by winding narrow staircases). Everything is the castle was designed for safety, even down to having the soldiers live right inside the doors. The folk park was also setup to be authentic, although we didn't spend much time there as we were more enthralled by the castle.

When we arrived at what I'm told was the nicest hostel on earth, we headed to a pub (John Bennys) for dinner, and stayed around for the trad music -- both were fabulous! Video to come!

Saturday we hit a lot of sites -- we began by examining some Early Christian round houses, also known as beehive huts. These along with most of the stone structures we observed throughout the day, are amazing simply because they were built without any mortar holding the stones together -- and they have survived! We then continued on to Coumeenoole Beach -- I'll let the pictures speak for themselves on this one; it was absolutely gorgeous, although the sea was incredibly rough there! Still, we decided we should just move there and become sheep farmers so we'd always have the view. We then went to the Blasket Island Cultural Center, and learned about the small community that made their homes on the side of a small island/mountain. The stories of these people are amazing, and several of the islanders have come to literary acclaim for writing about them. In the afternoon, we stopped at Gallarus Oratory, which is the best preserved unmortared Early Christian Church. Our guide for the day, Isabel, had so much unique information to impart -- it would take me all night to type the details! Our final stop was at Kilmalkedar, a 12th Century church that was often frequented my men heading out on a pilgrimage (as Saint Brendan the navigator was associated with the church). There were many ancient unique features at the site, including a sun dial.

We were free again in the evening, and we headed first to Dingle Pub for dinner, but as it was nothing special we headed elsewhere for fabulous desserts (I took pictures). Once we finished those off, we headed for more Irish music at a bar with an Irish name that I don't remember (I'm sure Kate does -- check her blog at www.kateandtheworld.wordpress.com). We enjoyed the music once again, and we met a great couple from San Diego. After the musical groups was finished playing, we hung out with them for quite awhile -- we all had a great time. They were cool guys; Matt the guitar player will be in the US touring with The Chieftans in the winter.

Today we headed back, only stopping in a village for lunch -- we were all pretty drained!

I want to say a little something about Irish literature as it related to the culture. As I mentioned in a previous blog, much of the literature has nationalistic themes, as Ireland had been struggling for its independence for quite some time. Another theme also found is a connection with the land and work of the peasants. Traveling to a more remote part of the country helped me relate to these themes in a different way. Although we had already visited some beautiful areas, we weren't where people were making their living off the land. It was incredibly hard work, and there is quite a bit of literature that represents the happiness of the simplistic lifestyles but also the terrible hardships that these people faced. The fishermen in the seas of Dingle often risked their lives, and wives were often left waiting overnight to find out if their husbands had been whisked away. To quote Yeats, the sea was a "terrible beauty" to these people, as was farming the beautiful land. As you can imagine, the literature tells these bittersweet stories. When working with my students to create new literature, I will now insist that we look at the literature of their homelands. I can't tell you how much the land-literature connection has helped me to understand the culture and pride of the Irish people, and I want to make sure we capture that when writing something that represents our histories. (I wish I had time to share more interesting facts about the lit, but again, I'd be here all night!)

I hope you enjoy the pics (assuming I can get them up!) I had a very hard time picking them this time -- I tried for a sampling of everything. Tomorrow it's back to the grind -- our first exams are Tuesday!