We wrapped up the program last night with our “gala dinner”: a fancied-up meal in one of the WIT restaurants, for which all the students dress up a bit, which featured speeches (me), an art exhibition (the students), a poetry reading (also the students), and even a bit of dancing (yep, also the students). Everyone finished our cleaning and packing and many of us went out for at least one last beverage. I went to bed around 10:30 with the alarm set for 4:00 in anticipation of a 5:15 departure for the airport. In true form, I woke up around 3:15. Most of us have not had a lot of sleep; some of us, maybe none at all. But we were on time and rolled out at 5:15 as scheduled. We were about halfway to Dublin when my colleague showed me the distressing announcement on Delta’s app of a 3-hour flight delay. Our 12:20 departure was pushed to 3:10. Not great, but just a long wait in the airport. We soldiered on with equanimity.

One student had a connection in Atlanta for El Paso that he wasn’t going to make because of the delay. I advised him to go up to the desk as soon as we arrived and talk to them about rebooking. When I got inside the terminal after helping unload luggage, he came to meet me with an alarmed look. “Now they’re saying our flight is canceled,” he told me. “They want to talk to you.” Program Director Mode: Activated!

Here’s where I have to start giving Delta Air Lines and our students a ton of credit. The airport services manager greeted me and immediately outlined a plan. He had been on the phone with Delta and with the Carlton and gotten arrangements made for our group before ever approaching or speaking to me. I was thus able to turn to the students and tell them exactly what was happening and what we would do next. Delta would pay for our hotel night, meals, transportation between the airport and the hotel, and would rebook us as soon as the cancellation of the flight became official. They were calling the hotel to come and get us early so that we wouldn’t be sitting in the airport any longer than necessary. They also gave us a voucher for €3 each for coffee while we waited for the hotel pickup.

The students were distressed—some were tearful—but everyone stuck together, rallied, and comforted each other. Some watched luggage while others took restroom breaks. Some made the coffee run while the rest stayed behind to call parents. No one asked unanswerable questions e.g. “Why are they doing this to us?” Some were even checking up on me. “How are you doing? This must be really tough for you!” I’m so grateful to be able to say it hasn’t been as hard as it could have been. Communication has been clear, Delta has been responsive, and students have been attentive exactly when we most need them to be. I feel for them as they deal with this disruption. They and their families aren’t used to it. Family members had taken time off work to pick their students up from the airport. One grandmother had come the night before and stayed in a hotel, and would now need to get an extra hotel night and figure out what to do about her pets. Everyone is very tired, most of them are pretty broke, and we are all ready to be home. But it could have been much, much worse.

Delta automatically rebooked us all for tomorrow and I realized when the new confirmation came in that they had actually added a flight to accommodate the cancellation. They could hardly have done otherwise; it’s peak travel season and “our” flight (DL177) is full every day. But I was far from expecting it and was envisioning a nightmare scenario in which we were split amongst multiple flights and plane changes to get home. If everything goes as planned tomorrow, I’ll consider victory well snatched from the jaws of defeat.

Update: Dateline 33,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, near the southern tip of Greenland. Victory is ours! The afternoon and evening were relaxing and pleasant once we got into our rooms and could seize the day for enjoying the hotel or the city. This morning was a rush through check-in, Irish security, TSA security, and customs preclearance, but we all made it onto the flight in good order and good humor. About 4 hours from now we’ll be landing in Atlanta.

Terrible photo but pretty representative of what I like to do in Dublin!

Henry Street as seen on my Instagram (I forgot to save the picture!)

Flying home at last

The bathroom light switch is always on the outside.

No power outlets in the bathroom except a shielded one for an electric razor.

European keyboards are just different enough to be a little frustrating.

Irish water heaters a.k.a. “the immersion.” Even private homes have some version of this rather baffling system.

Lots of food products have these little cooking instructions on the packages. (“Hob” = stovetop.)

License plates (I think in Ireland they say “number plates” or “registration plates”): I didn’t take a picture of one but Irish reg plates go like this:

192-W-12345

where the first part is the year plus “1” for January through June or “2” for July through December (so 192 doesn’t actually start for another week), the middle part is an abbreviation for the county (W is for Waterford), and the last part indicates that this car was the nth car registered in that county during that period. There would never be 12,345 cars registered in 6 months in County Waterford, but maybe in Dublin. The plate also shows the name of the county in Gaelic. Sometimes if you aren’t sure based on the abbreviation, you can figure out the country from its Gaelic name: L = Luimneach = Limerick. Sometimes it’s total confusion: MH = An Mhi = Meath. (It doesn’t help that I do not yet know all the county names.)

I love being in another country, observing these differences, and trying to put the pieces together to figure out why things are the way they are. I will never fully understand “the immersion,” but, I am confident, neither does anyone else!

From Waterford we headed west on Thursday morning toward our base of operations in Killarney, with a stop in Cork to break up the drive. I hadn’t been to Cork before–last year I missed this day on the program because of an emergency–and I wish I’d had more than a couple of hours to spend there this year. It’s bustling like Dublin but more compact-seeming. I just had time for lunch with colleagues and a very quick dip into a couple of stores (several of us went to Lush for bath bombs in anticipation of the bathtubs in our hotel rooms!) before hitting the road again.

I only took 4 pictures in Cork. I’m a good program director but a terrible blogger sometimes.

Had to capture the giant moka pot on the side of that building!

After 2 years enjoying the golf course views and occasional deer sightings at the Castlerosse Hotel on the outskirts of Killarney, we had to change hotels this year to get the dates we wanted. We chose the Killarney Towers Hotel, right in the city center, and were not disappointed. Killarney town is pleasant and walkable, with lots of places to eat, drink, and shop, and the hotel is very comfortable, especially after 4 weeks of dorm beds and cafeteria food. I can’t speak for anyone else but I slept extremely well and enjoyed my bathtub very much.

Friday morning we got the worst weather of the day out of the way in the first 20 minutes while walking to the bus. The rest of the day was excellent–blue skies and puffy clouds but not too hot. Touring the Ring of Kerry is one of the few times during the program when we really need good weather, so we were blessed to get it! We visited some towns and historic sites and just plain gorgeous views during the day:

Kerry Bog Village: a reproduction 19th-century peat cutters’ village.

This “Romany caravan” is not very different from what traditional Irish Traveller caravans looked like in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The remains of a 19th-century stone cottage whose owners left because of the Famine.

The Bog Village has two Irish wolfhounds. They’re enormous but smiley and eager for pets.

Getting photos at a scenic overlook.

Waterville, where Charlie Chaplin lived.

From Com an Chiste you can see to the Skelligs if the weather is clear enough. We could not see Skellig Michael a.k.a. the Star Wars island.

Our final stop was the Ladies’ View, so called because Queen Victoria and her ladies-in-waiting thought it was the prettiest place on the Ring when they toured it.

Saturday we returned to Waterford by way of Blarney Castle. I continued my tradition of NOT going into the castle or kissing the stone. It was a particularly good day for not kissing the stone, because the place was packed and the queue was massive–up to an hour and a half wait. Luckily, the grounds and gardens are beautiful and it’s a great place to walk around and take photos. I never feel like I am missing out by not going in. The Blarney Castle “campus” is also the home to Blarney Woollen Mills, which bills itself as the biggest Irish goods store in the country. If you want a souvenir of Ireland–from a €3 plastic leprechaun to a €3000 piece of Waterford crystal–you can find it there. The number of Blarney Woollen Mills shopping bags that came back with us on the bus Saturday afternoon was . . . considerable.

What’s not pictured in my Ring of Kerry pictures is the time we spent riding the bus between “places.” The journey is at least as good as the destination; the point is definitely not to get there but to be there. And the views from the jump seat on the bus are spectacular! Just remember that cars go clockwise on the Ring and buses go counterclockwise (anticlockwise if you’re Irish). In a fair few spots the road is only about 1.25 lanes wide and someone has to move aside to let someone else pass. The Ring would not function if buses had to try to pass each other. Even with everyone moving in their prescribed directions, there’s always a BMW driver who thinks he can play chicken with a bus and win. I gotta give a shout out to our bus driver, Tony, who was doing the Ring for the first time and crushed it. He got us through Beemer encounters, hairpin turns, narrow tunnels, sections of road that were obviously paved-over cow paths (the Irish word for “road,” bóthar, literally means “cow path”), and a narrow escape from our hotel Saturday morning after a food delivery truck blocked the bus lane. I hope he had a really restful Sunday!

And now it’s Monday afternoon and we are officially on the short countdown to departure for home early Thursday morning. Already???

The first stop on our tour was the famine graveyard in Ardmore, which is the final resting place–in unmarked graves–of a thousand or more victims of the famine in the late 1840s. Between deaths and emigrations, Ireland’s population was cut in half by the famine and still has not recovered.

These places are sad but I am glad they still exist and people still visit them. Ireland’s history is still so present for its people–it’s something Americans could learn a lesson from.

With a few short stops along the way we arrived in the town of Ardmore where we set off with Liam, the former headmaster of Coláiste na Rinne, to tour some sites associated with St. Declan and take the Ardmore cliff walk. St. Declan lived in the 5th century and founded a monastery in Ardmore; he is considered at least locally to have preceded St. Patrick in bringing Christianity to Ireland:

This church window reminds viewers (in Irish) that “Declan is the Patrick of Waterford.”

St. Declan is said to have come here in a boat by following a mysterious floating stone.

Liam shows us this altar near St. Declan’s well in Ardmore.

The cliff walk itself is 4 kilometers and a little strenuous (but only a little), but well worth it for the amazing views:

The walk ends at the last St. Declan site, where he built his monastery and where he is buried:

The medieval round tower at the site of St. Declan’s monastery.

This field trip is great because all the students start out panicking about the walking distance and end up dazzled by how beautiful the cliffs are. Liam and Martín are great guides, too. Their pride in where they live and its history and culture shines through. Makes you want to be Irish or at least learn to speak Irish!

Tuesday we visited three places in Co. Wexford, immediately northeast of Waterford along the coast. Wexford has the special distinctions of being our consultant Jonathan’s home and the 2019 Leinster hurling champions. Our students watched the Leinster final with intense interest–and, I suspect, some money on the line. When Wexford pulled out an unexpected victory, Georgia EC (as we are known here) got pretty excited! It was fun to go to Wexford right after the win and see the team colors flying everywhere around town.

We went to the 1798 Rebellion Centre in Enniscorthy, an interactive museum about–can you guess?–the 1798 rebellion of Irish insurgents against British troops. Although unsuccessful, the rebellion is considered important in the overall history of Irish independence and in linking Ireland with the revolutionary movements of the United States and France.

Students listening to a weapons demonstration

A quick lunch stop in Enniscorthy, which is small but pretty . . .

. . . and we went on to the Irish National Heritage Park. Here is where I admit that I did not take the tour this year, having done it three times already. But if you have a chance, you should go. The park reconstructs 9000 years of prehistoric and early Christian Ireland so you can get an idea of how people lived all those millennia ago. It is fascinating and worth seeing–at least 3 times.

“Program director privilege” is the right to skip the tour and sit in the café overlooking the back of the park instead.

We finished the day at the Dunbrody in New Ross. The Dunbrody is a reconstruction of a 19th-century famine ship and they do an interactive tour that describes the experience of crossing the Atlantic on such a ship.

The Dunbrody visitor center also has a great restaurant where we always eat dinner after the ship tour. It feels a little funny to learn about a famine and then have a nice meal, but the students love it.

Wednesday afternoon after classes we got to go over to the WIT Arena to learn the basics of how to play hurling. We get to do this every year and it is always a highlight. My colleague Paraic Fanning, who handles a lot of the logistical arrangements for our program, has been involved in hurling all his life and is actually manager for the Waterford senior hurling team this year. So he arranges for a couple of WIT GAA players to come and teach us the basics. Some of the students were surprisingly good!

Thursday was our trip to Co. Tipperary, which might be my favorite field trip day. We made 4 stops; the first was the Swiss Cottage, a 19th-century cottage orné (think of the Trianon at Versailles) built by the Butler family (like seemingly everything fancy in Ireland) and restored in the 1980s after some years of abandonment. No photos allowed inside but the outside is beautiful:

Next door (so to speak) in Cahir is Cahir Castle–the Butlers who built the Swiss Cottage were the 10th Baron Cahir and his wife but I don’t think they ever lived in the castle. It is great to look at but would have been expensive to furnish and heat.

We had lunch in Cashel at the Brú Ború Cultural Centre and enjoyed a mini performance of traditional Irish music and dancing that, it being the 4th of July, culminated in a surprise performance of the Marine Corps Hymn by one of the musicians who had been in the U.S. Marines. I’m not sure who was more delighted–us or the musician! After Brú Ború we had time to meander all over the Rock of Cashel and enjoy the amazing views. The Rock is a huge limestone outcrop on which a cathedral was built in the 13th century. A late-18th-century archbishop had the weird idea to move the cathedral to a different site and removed the roof as a first step. The plan foundered after that and the cathedral–probably the most impressive in Ireland if it had remained intact–has become a ruin. Even as a ruin it is dazzling:

The view from the Rock is amazing as well.

Finally, on Friday night the faculty took the bus to Dungarvan–about 45 minutes away on the coast–for dinner at the Tannery, a restaurant owned by Lords & Ladles chef Paul Flannery. It was a great experience: outstanding food and drinks in a gracious (but not intimidating) atmosphere. I had:

Heirloom tomato salad to start.

Imam bayildi (had never heard of it; delicious) as the main course

Chocolate mousse served with lemon sponge for dessert

And Dungarvan looking gorgeous at sunset when we left the restaurant to catch the bus back:

I’m finishing this entry fresh off the U.S. women’s World Cup victory, which we watched in the local pub in good Irish style. Congratulations, USA!  Ready for another big week to start tomorrow.

In the dressing room listening to our tour guide.

Looking up the stands to where trophies are presented.

On the pitch, or at least next to it–we were not allowed to walk on the grass!

The best part of the Croke Park tour is the “skywalk” around the top of the stadium. Great views of Dublin!

On the “cantilever” section of the skywalk that extends over the pitch. I love it up there!

From Croke Park we stop at our lodgings on Dublin City University’s Glasnevin campus (check out DCU Rooms if you need inexpensive, no-frills accommodation in Dublin in the summer) to drop off luggage, then head into the center of the city for a short walking tour down O’Connell Street to Trinity College. The Liffey River divides Dublin into north and south sides and makes it pretty easy to navigate. Starting from Charles Stuart Parnell’s statue on upper O’Connell, you head down toward the river via the General Post Office (important 1916 Rising site) and the Millennium Spire to Daniel O’Connell’s statue. Cross the river and bear right and you’re at the front gate of Trinity College. It’s taken me a few visits to get the hang of all this but I’m finally getting the rest of my Dublin points of interest oriented around those basic landmarks.

Parnell’s statue at the top of O’Connell

Looking down O’Connell toward the Spire.

The Spire + the GPO + a Dublin Bus is Dublin in one photograph.

At the base of O’Connell’s statue, Jonathan fills us in on some history.

Crossing the river

Trinity College

From here we dismissed the students to get dinner on their own and we faculty decamped to an undisclosed location for our dinner (Pro[gram director] tip: keep a good restaurant/bar/pub in your back pocket and do not share it with students. Everyone needs their own space). On Wednesday the faculty had field trips with their classes but I did not have to attend anyone’s field trip, so I was at large in Dublin:

This is my favorite spot on a Dublin Bus (top deck, front seat) right up until the bus lurches to a stop 1.5″ from the back of another bus.

I went back to the Book of Kells and Old Library at Trinity. No photography in the Book of Kells room but they did have this great exhibit of the materials used to make colored inks for manuscripts.

Some friends I saw in the Old Library . . .

The beloved second husband of my research subject Mary Delany.

Shakespeare, of course!

The “Brian Boru harp,” a Renaissance-era harp traditionally associated with the legendary medieval musician Brian Boru and now used as a national symbol of Ireland.

They call it the Old Library but it never gets old.

Love this quotation on a window at Trinity.

Thursday I went with one of the professors and his class on his field trip to St. Patrick’s Cathedral (my favorite place in Dublin) and then to Glasnevin Cemetery, Ireland’s national cemetery. There are three times more people buried in Glasnevin than there are living in Dublin today! I somehow barely took any pictures at St. Patrick’s

Queen Anne’s patent granting Jonathan Swift the freedom of the city of Dublin.

Stained glass in St. Patrick’s

Saw lots of unusual and beautiful monuments at Glasnevin:

Daniel O’Connell’s grave

Friday was the beginning of our free weekend and of my weekend off. I kept it mellow in Dublin and finally made it to visit the Chester Beatty Library, a fantastic museum of manuscripts (and some early print materials) from around the world. Couldn’t take pictures inside the exhibits but the building and grounds are really cool too.

Making friends in St. Stephen’s Green.

Approaching the Chester Beatty.

Inside the roof garden.

Looking out from the roof garden.

Back at ground level. That’s Dublin Castle across the lawn.

My favorite part of the weekend was Saturday (yesterday) when I went to Dublin Pride. I hadn’t been to a Pride parade since about 2004 and I regretted not going to last year’s Dublin Pride, so I decided to make up for it this year. It was so much fun. Just a friendly and happy atmosphere with smiles on everyone’s faces and, of course, rainbows everywhere:

The GPO decked out for the occasion.

Dublin Bus goes all-out for Pride every year.

#bootenvy

Everyone was in the parade. Not just LGBT+ organizations but political parties, unions, government bureaux, corporations (lots of tech companies have headquarters in Dublin): everyone!

The Gardaí brought their band, a bunch of officers in dress uniform, and another bunch of “supporters” in matching t-shirts.

Some awesome wings.

Teachers!

I’m thinking these folks are SCA?

Dropbox’s float

My colleague Dr. Stewart will want to add this suit to his collection.

See, everyone was in the parade!

I went to the after party in Merrion Square for a few minutes but before I knew it it was time to go back to DCU and collect my backpack, then head to the train station and back to Waterford. The week and weekend were packed and seemed to go by so fast; I know my pictures and paragraphs do not do justice. I did not take pictures of:

• Breakfast at DCU
• Riding the #13 bus a million times
• Hodges Figgis
• Walking 10 miles a day, mostly on O’Connell St.
• Two different picnic lunches in parks
• Coffee Angel, Costa, Caffe Nero, another Costa . . .
• An amazing dinner at Marco Pierre White
• A pint of Guinness, a pint of Bulmer’s, maybe another pint of Bulmer’s in there somewhere
• Everything I didn’t buy in Grafton Street

Dublin is pretty cool, folks. I recommend it.

It feels like the days and weeks go faster every year that I’m here, maybe because there is an element of routine that is created. It’s nice to feel a sense of routine in a faraway place–one of the advantages of returning to a destination multiple times. A few things change (the cafeteria has been remodeled, the bus routes have been renumbered) but many more stay the same. All of a sudden lots of people here at WIT know me, and I know them. “Welcome back” is a sweet thing to hear!

Classes have been going smoothly and although we did have an unusual number of minor illnesses this past week, I think we are over that particular hump. The physical and mental stress of travel will do a number on one’s immune system, so it’s not that surprising that we had a few casualties. What is surprising is that this group of students has been fantastic about showing up on time for everything. It sounds like a small matter but in a group situation, getting everyone from place to place in a timely manner is a challenge. The challenge is compounded if people are a little lackadaisical about the schedule. We impressed this concern on the students at orientation and they have really come through. Every time we get on the bus, we count off to make sure we’re all aboard, and every time, they’re all in place.  It’s dazzling!

So here were our field trip destinations for this week: Tuesday we started at Woodstock House, a former eighteenth-century stately home that is now a ruin and unlikely to be restored (for a mixture of political and economic reasons), but that is surrounded by extensive and very beautiful gardens that are under restoration by Kilkenny County Council.

Thomas Francis Meagher Bridge, the longest single bridge span in the Republic and surely the prettiest.

Woodstock House–likely to stay a ruin as it would cost a fortune to restore and not everyone appreciates a monument to British aristocracy.

Flowers at Woodstock House

The view from the front garden of Woodstock House.

From there we went to Kilkenny town to visit St. Canice’s Cathedral, second oldest in Ireland after St. Patrick’s in Dublin, and Kilkenny Castle. They are separated by the “Medieval Mile,” a narrow street of shops and restaurants that reminds you how old the city is. It’s a fantastic place.

The medieval round tower at St. Canice’s–one of only a few in which you can climb to the top.

Stained glass is hard to photograph but sometimes I get lucky.

Stained glass at St. Canice’s

The Butlers of Ormonde ruled the Kilkenny area starting in the 1300s and owned Kilkenny Castle until 1967.

An epitaph that both ticked me off and touched my heart

Kilkenny Castle

Kilkenny Castle

Every young teen in France was at Kilkenny Castle on Tuesday.

Thursday we went to Dungarvan in Co. Waterford to visit a 12th-century castle situated there and spend the afternoon in town. Between Kilkenny, which is a great but busy and full day, and our odyssey to Dublin next week, Dungarvan is a great chance for everyone to take a breath.

Looking in through the gate of Dungarvan Castle.

Dungarvan Castle’s tower

The white building is an 18th-century military barracks.

A small street market in Dungarvan

My favorite!

Cutest little wi-fi sign I have ever seen.

The pace of life really is different here. It has taken me this long to even begin to get used to it, and I am still overclocked compared to the Irish people I work with. Don’t get me wrong: they have plenty of hustle. Plenty. But they don’t do performative busyness like Americans do, and they take more advantage than we do of social connections when doing business. I’ve never been invited to a “meeting” here, though I’ve had plenty of them. It’s just that around here a meeting is called “We’ll have a coffee.”

I’ve been here 10 days and have had approximately 600 flat whites.

Reginald’s Tower in Waterford city centre near the river

Students learning about the Charter Roll in the Medieval Museum

The Medieval Museum holds the only set of pre-Reformation cloth of gold vestments in Europe.

Some of these vestments weigh so much that putting them on takes two helpers.

Students listening to Jack Burchell’s tour outside Waterford Crystal

Inside Christchurch Cathedral

Acting out the marriage of Strongbow and Aoife, which took place in Waterford in 1170 and began the long history of Anglo-Irish relations.

Students at Tramore. It was a tad windy!

By the end of Saturday we were all ready for a rest. The dorms were quiet until early afternoon Sunday, especially because it poured rain intermittently through the day! Today, classes started and we are all getting into the groove. Fingers crossed that the sunshine sticks around for our visit to Kilkenny tomorrow.

So it’s been a long odyssey but it all went very smoothly with minimal stress. Now I am in my room at WIT having made it to within 20 minutes of my “first night in Europe” assigned bedtime. (The rule is: NO NAPS.) I’m going to sleep very well tonight.

Just a few pictures from my journey. You will notice that I’m not actually in any of them, because “transatlantic flight” and “photo ready” are mutually exclusive.

Lucky shot on my way to my gate last night.

My ride to Dublin: Boeing 767-400.

Crossing Dublin on a gorgeous day.

Countryside scenery from the train.

Hello again, WIT!

Dorm Sweet Dorm

More and better blog content when students arrive Friday, if not sooner.

Suitcase and carry-on. Suitcase is 26″ x 19″ x 8″ and weighs about 6 lbs. empty. Backpack is . . . the size of a backpack?

Cross-body bag for daily carry once I get there.

Pants, long-sleeve shirts, and sweaters. I may have a little problem with stripes.

T-shirts, my WIT Vikings pullover, and the pencil skirt and leggings I plan to wear on the plane.

Exercise clothes and my travel yoga mat, which successfully passed the “But will I use it?” test last year.

Shoes!

Important odds and ends: washcloths (never provided in Europe), plug adapters (can’t have too many), mini tripod (handy), luggage scale and corkscrew (ways to make myself indispensable)

Carry-on toiletries–trying to keep it minimal but I’ll probably stick a mascara and lip gloss in there in the morning.

Electronics–this time it’s my phone that isn’t pictured because I was using it to take the pictures!

All you REALLY need is your passport and credit card. And BuJo. And €13 in change. And Duke.

Copies of my passport and credit cards ride in the suitcase to make replacement easier if anything gets lost.

Everything in except toiletries and my trench coat. As always, socks, underwear, and PJs are not pictured.

The research questions embedded in this year’s packing are:

• I’m adding a Bluetooth speaker this year because I wish I had one every year. Will it pass the “But will I use it?” test?
• I am not taking my “real” camera because I suspect it’s starting to die. Can I take 5 weeks’ worth of attractive and interesting pictures with an iPhone 6S? Here’s hoping.
• Have I brought enough warm clothes? Probably.
• And will I regret taking only sneakers? Proximate cause to buy shoes in Ireland, so no.

Shuttle to the airport at 5:00 tomorrow afternoon. Flight at 9:45, arriving in Dublin at 10:35 Tuesday morning. I’m excited!