Wednesday morning my students finished telling their first Irish story in class. They did very well all the way around; they chose stories that suited them and told them with verve and style.
After a quick break, Simone Schümmelfeder came in to tell them a couple of stories. She started with a story she created for Liz Weir to explain where the fog comes from. It’s a beautiful story about a fire-juggler who sacrifices himself to save his small son. Then she told the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin, since she lives very near there. Simone is a very good teller, and she and her identical twin sister often tell together. They are both serious about storytelling. Simone had a two month internship with Liz, and her sister, Silke, works for a storytelling organization in Munich (I think).
When class was over, Simone and I drove into the center of Athlone to the office of the Athlone Community Radio. We were interviewed there at 11:30 by Fionnuala O'Connell, a good friend of Danielle’s. We talked about the festival and each told a couple stories. Simone told the same two she’d told in class, and the one about the fire-juggler brought tears to Fionnuala’s eyes. I told The Whole Brain, a story from Kazakhstan collected by Sally Pomme Clayton that explains how storytellers came to be, and Ballerina Eyelashes, which explains how I did not come to be a dancer. We visited with Danielle’s friend Irena Cvetkovic, a producer at the station, and then had a bowl of soup at Loaves and Fishes.
I took Simone back to the apartment, and then went back downtown to St. Peter’s National School to meet Anne Fagan, a resource teacher at the school who introduced me to Bríd Kilgannon and Catherine Hannon to whose 5th and 6th class students I’ll be teaching storytelling for the next couple of weeks. We had a quick productive meeting, and I met Bríd’s class before I left. They had been told that I was a writer, and one asked, “Are you Stephenie Meyer?” When I said I wasn’t, she said, “Good, because I don’t really like her books.”
I then drove myself to the underground parking structure of the Athlone Town Centre mall, which gives the easiest access to the Aidan Heavey Library. I wanted to catch Fionnuala McKinley’s session there at 3:00. And that was when I realized I’d over booked myself because I needed to pick up Pat Ryan at the Athlone Springs Hotel where Mary Dillon was dropping him at 3:45 and I had to get groceries on the way. So . . . I said hello and goodbye to Fionnuala before she started her session, heard one story – a good one about where Finn McCool is buried – and then ran into the Marks and Spencers in the mall to get some supplies for dinner.
As I drove into the Athlone Springs at 3:50 I saw Mary Dillon driving out. I met Pat and Danielle inside at the bar. Danielle left to supervise Katie’s swimming lesson. I had a cup of tea (much needed) and we headed back to Athlone about 4:30. While Pat rested before his evening session with my students, Simone and I made dinner. Danielle joined us during dinner, and then Pat and I went to the apartment we are using as a classroom to set it up for the storytelling scheduled at 7:00. At 6:40, I drove back into Athlone to pick up Sarah Williams, a young woman from America who received a grant to study storytelling, and who has come to Ireland especially for the Three Rivers Festival.
I’ll write about Pat Ryan’s session for Study Abroad Ireland in the next post.
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