Ireland Journal
-
A Wonderful Morning with Liz Weir
Last Thursday, June 18th, I had the good fortune to spend most of the day with Liz Weir. She started off her day with my Irish Storytelling Tradition students at the Croi Oige Student Accommodation on the Dublin Road. Early afternoon she was in the Aidan Heavey Library, right next to the Athlone Towncenter…
-
Scoil An Chroí Naofa
Yesterday I had my third and last session with the Third Class at Scoil An Chroí Naofa (pronounced skwel on kree nayfuh), at the library in Ballinasloe. Scoil An Chroí Naofa, or Sacred Heart School, is a national school which means that a large portion of the curriculum is conducted in Irish, or as Gaeilge. More and…
-
The Sheela-na-gig at Clonmacnoise
For years Barry Vaughan, the director of Study Abroad Ireland has been telling me that there was a sheela-na-gig on the Nun’s Chapel at Clonmacnoise. So, this year, on our annual trip to the beautiful monastic site set at a crucial crossing of the north-south Shannon and the east-west I thought Barry knew…
-
Banshee Bones
I was over at Danielle Allison’s the other day for lunch on my way to Ballinasloe to tell stories at the library. She handed me a packet of crisps, which is their generic term for potato or corn chips, plus anything else crispy that comes in small sacks. Chips, by the way, is what…
-
How can you go wrong with a story titled “The Hags of the Long Teeth?”
I have an excellent group of storytellers this summer in The Irish Storytelling Tradition. That's all of them with Liz Weir last Thursday. After each story that they tell, they submit a reflection paper in which they tell me why they chose the story, how they prepared to tell it, and how they thought the…
-
Leaping into Dublin Lore and Landscape with Niall de Burca
I spent a beautiful Dublin afternoon with storyteller Niall de Burca on Saturday, June 13th. I took the DART from the center of the city east along Dublin Bay to Sandycove, where Niall fetched me in his silver VW Golf. He filled my head with local lore for several hours as we wandered the landscape. It…
-
The Story
Last Thursday night at the Dublin Yarnspinners, Batt Burns spoke a very moving poem by Brendan Kennelly called “The Story”. Right away I knew I wanted to learn it. I found the volume that houses it, Familiar Strangers: New and Selected Poems 1960-2004, at Waterstone Bookstore on Jarvis Street, but decided not to buy it…
-
Batt Burns at the Dublin Yarnspinners
The Dublin Yarnspinners is held the first Thursday of every month at 8:00 p.m. in the Club na Múinteoirí, the Teachers Club, at 36 Parnell Square. This month’s session was on the top floor, and when the participants of Study Abroad Ireland arrived we found Aideen McBride at the door and her father Jack Sheehan…
-
My Computer Lost Its Soul!
Or something very much like its soul, anyway. On Thursday morning when I got up my computer did not. I got a screen that basically said, “You are screwed, girly”. Windows had crashed, and it wanted a disk that I did not have. It was about midnight in Arizona, so I figured Mark would be…
-
Dr. Pat Ryan Tells for Study Abroad Ireland
Dr. Pat Ryan is one of the most scholarly storytellers I’ve ever met. He conducts research, develops and conducts research projects, teaches and trains, collects stories, and tells them in England, Ireland, Italy, America and beyond. He is associated with Glamorgan University in Wales, with whom he conducts some of his innovative projects. He has…
-
Wild Wednesday
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…
-
Featuring Fionnuala McKinley, Pat Ryan, and Simone Schümmelfeder
The second week of the Three Rivers Storytelling Festival was a busy one. On Monday, Fionnuala (fin-oo-la) McKinley arrived from Warren Point in Co. Down, and Pat Ryan arrived from London. They were both put up at the Carlton Sheerwater, a nice new hotel in Ballinasloe. I told at the Ballinasloe library and collected Simone…