Final Post

So, the program is nearly finished. We leave Derry tomorrow morning at seven in the morning to start our long trip home. The past three weeks have been beyond amazing, and I think as soon as I get home the first thing I do will be to sleep for at least twenty-four hours. Maybe more. I've gotten such an immersion into a culture that is incredibly fascinating, and met with some incredible people. We've seen examples of the best in people and the worst in people, and heard stories that I will never forget.

In conclusion, here is a list of observations I have made during my time here:

1. Super glue in Ireland really in super.
2. 60% of all men under the age of 50 (and some older) have some variation of the pyramid haircut.
4. Public urinals are never, ever designed with flushing mechanisms.
5. It rains at least four times a day
6. There are more sheep than people.
7. All roads are so narrow as to be barely wide enough for one car...on a two-way road.
8. If you take any two Irish people and put them together, they can and will find something to argue about.
9. The average age to start drinking in Ireland is 13.
10. Irish people curse...a lot. And they start around six years old.
11. Complete strangers will go out of their way to help you.
12. There are more bars than there are traffic lights.
13. Whereever you are in the city, you are within a two minute walk of some place that sells prepackaged sandwiches and unusual flavors of fruit juice.
14. Fries are chips, chips are crisps, and crisps go on sandwiches. Cookies are biscuits, biscuits are scones, and scones are round. (and really really good)
15. Europeans really do have bad teeth.
16. Not only do they drive on the left side, they also walk on the left side. This makes for a great way to meet the locals when you forget and try to walk on the right.
17. Going to the pub is a family outing.
18. Everyone, and I mean everyone, over here hates George W. Bush with a passion (I knew I would get along with these people).
19. Football (soccer) is not a sport, it's a national obsession.
20. A sandwich with salad does not actually mean you get a salad with your sandwich, but that it will have lettuce, tomato, and onion on it.

And now, I'm off to the pub to watch the next World Cup match. Slancha!

Academics

Sorry for the lack of updates the last few days. Blogspot has been finicky and wasn't letting me into the poster function of the site. But everything seems to be working for now.

I've heard that a lot of people are curious about the academic side to what I'm doing here. So, the answer those queries, there's a lot. The main part of it is the lectures that we have every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Different professors from Magee University (where we're based out of) and other universities around the country come and give presentations on the work that they've done. Before each of these, we read articles either on the topic of the lecture, or work that the lecturer has already published. For each of these readings we also write up summaries, responses, and questions that we want to ask the lecturer about their article. The lecturers themselves come from all over the academic spectrum. We've had politicians, historians, lawyers, psychologists, sociologists, archeologists, and mural painters. Most of the lectures we have over at the Magee University campus, but some (which tend to be my favorites) are done out in the field. We spent several days looking and analyzing the murals for which Northern Ireland is famous for, as they are very heavily politicized. When studying the Bogside murals, we met with the artists themselves who took us on a tour of the murals and explained what their thoughts and inspirations for each one were, while telling stories about the areas that we were walking through. One of the best lectures we had was with a noted archeologist who has worked all over the world, taking to major sites along the west coast of Donegal, ending up in a bog where he explained the significance the bogs had had on Irish culture and the details of the ancient Gaelic culture that the bogs had revealed. We've also met with people such as the city mayor, who explained to us the political workings of the city council, and John Hume, a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize for almost single-handedly getting the peace process in Northern Ireland started. Tomorrow we have a panel discussing the future of Northern Ireland with higher-ups from two of the country's major political parties, as well as leaders of several community organizations and programs.

Along with these lectures, we write reports on our time spent at our community organizations, reflecting on our experiences there and tying them into the political themes and past conflicts that we're studying. Most placements are with community organizations in the city, or centers focused on treating those traumatized by the violence of the past thirty years. I and four others have, as I mentioned earlier, been going to a local primary school. The significance of the school is that it is one of the very few integrated schools here in Northern Ireland, having both Catholic and Protestant students attending. These integrated schools have only been running for the past ten years, and I think have huge potential for ensuring the peaceful future of the country, if only they make more of them. It's hard to make a difference when these schools only comprise about five percent of the schools in Northern Ireland.

We also had a midterm paper that we turned in last week, the topic for which was "What is your understanding of the current political and social situation in Northern Ireland." Talk about broad topics. We will also have a final paper that we write when we get home based on the results of tomorrow's panel. All in all, by the time I leave this Sunday, I'll have written forty nine pages worth of work. And while the work load has made these three weeks some of the most hectic and frenzied weeks I've yet experienced, every bit of it is worth it. The lectures and readings have given such insight into the culture that we can then immediately apply just by going out the door and watching the people around us. It has really expanded the scope of the program from simply visiting a conflicted society to truly understanding a conflicted society. Its instant application and instant gratification, something that you rarely get in academic settings. Without a doubt this has been some of the most rewarding academic work I have ever done.

Sunburns in Ireland?!

This past weekend we visited the west coast of the island, going through County Connamera and over to Inishmore, the largets of the Aran Islands off the western coast. Our first day was visiting an island which is the site of several ancient church ruins and a holy well that was origionally of Gaelic pagan origin but was absorbed by the Catholic church by sprinkling a little holy water into it. This adoption of the local customs and rituals of the people here by the Catholic church was common here, and is one of the ways that Ireland was so easily brought into the Catholic faith. The island itself is rather interesting in that it's only really an island about half of the time. During the day the tide goes out and leaves a stretch of beach clear from the island to the mainland. There is only one permanent resident of the island, Pascal, who, our tour guide informed us, was "mad as a hatter, and the best expert on the monastic ruins in the area". We also visited the church that W.B. Yeats is buried at. The hostel we stayed in that night was really cool, and full of character. Each of the rooms was themed after a different country, and they had a sitting room where they burned peat, and a piano that I'm convinced hasn't been tuned in at least fifteen years. Duckworth would probably have loved the sound of it. The proprieters were very generous, and cooked us a full meal for dinner that night that was incredibly good. Also by the hostel was a graveyard from where an old Industrial school used to be. These industrail schools were reform schools for children who's parents had cast them out of their homes and recent investigations have been discovering more and more evidence of the horrible treatment that the children recieved at these schools. They were pretty much used as slave labor and beaten until they died, usually at very young ages (7-14). The graveyard was set up as a memorial a few years ago to the countless children who died at this particular school. After visiting the memorial, we all spent a fun evening at the local pub where they had three locals playing Irish folk music. Ian, our bus driver, came with us, and we stayed for a little while enjoying the music and atmosphere.

Saturday started out with a guided tour around the area looking at some major archeological sites nearby, including several quartz standing stones and an old tombstone that was written in both english and old gaelic. The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent hiking through a bog which was the home to a four thousand year old burial chamber, which has since appeard through errosion of the hill that origionally housed it, and the ruins of a village that was abandoned during the Famine early in the 20th century. For the evening we stayed in Galway city, the tourist trap of the coast. As fishing is the second largest industry in Galway after tourism, we decided that dinner at a seafood resturant was in order, and were not disapointed.

Our last day we took a ferry over to Inishmore. The weather was beyond beautiful, and most of us came away from the weekend with sunburns (who would have thought I would get sunburned in Ireland?!). We rented bikes and traversed the sixteen square-mile island looking at the ruins and beaches they had there. The largest of the ruins was Dun Anghusa, a three-walled fort that had it's back right along the edge of the cliff. It was an impressive site to behold, perched right at the cliff edge hundreds of feet above the water. They don't have any fencing or anything there either, so you can go right to the edge of the cliff and look down. I wonder what kind of insurance they have for clumsy tourists. We also biked up to the lighthouse tower, which gave an amazing panorama of the island and over to the Black Fort, another multi-thousand year old fort ruin. What puzzled me most about the island was that it was completely covered in low stone walls. There wasn't so much as an acre of land that wasn't walled off. Considering that the native inhabitants of the island only occupy one small town near the middle and the pier at the coast, none of us could fathom what the purpose for all of the walls was. We finished the day by relaxing back on the porch outside our hostel, talking and watching the harbor. It was an amazing weekend that we all agreed will be one of the high points of our time here in Ireland.