How I miss you and our adventures! When people ask me how the trip went, I brag about the great group of people, the wonderful weather, and the fun we had. I hope you feel the same.

I have some small and interesting things to share with you. I thought I’d create a post so I could add photographs and links.  Here goes.

Dave Yeates, our beloved Ireland driver-guide, will be in Atlanta from November 15th to 17th. I am tentatively planning a  get-together at my house for you with him for Friday, November 16th. So pencil that in, but Dave’s plans are not final yet. Remember that last time we tried to have a reunion with him he was trapped on a Florida key by a hurricane! I will keep you posted as to his plans. If you are not Facebook friends with Dave, you should be! Dave says that there has been no rain in Ireland for six weeks and “the grass has thrown in the towel.” A Belfast friend posted the photo to the left on Facebook. They’ve had  a record-breaking heat wave there with temperatures in the eighties for days.

I have many fun and meaningful memories from the trip–conversations with you, words from guest speakers, the view of Loch Lomond from my hotel room window, jokes, beautiful valleys with sheep and pheasants,  awesome works of art or creativity, and more. But one of my favorite moments was this exchwith Betty Derrick.

Betty to Christine: “You’re different from other academics.”
Christine, suspiciously: “What do you mean?”
Betty: “You’re normal!”

Thank you, Betty!

Click here to see the collection of the poems and six-word essays submitted to our final Poetry Contest. Thanks to all who participated. Your thoughts and humor added a lot to the trip experience. There were others, of course, but these are the ones sent to me. You may not have realized it, but your group also pioneered a new form, the “unwittinging” or “spontaneous” six-word essay.

Mary Underwood has been corresponding with Thomas Turley, youth group leader and one of the two founders of the R-City Coffee project  where we visited (remember hearing that people monitoring the surveillance camera thought–wishfully, perhaps, that our tour group standing on the roundabout might be a “protest”?).  Regarding contributions to the work with youth, he told her that checks in American dollars would be fine. If you are so inclined, here is the information.

R City Youth
Ardoyne Youth Club, Old Bell Tex Mill
Flax Street
Belfast, BT14 7EJ

One of you–and I can’t remember who it was– introduced me to the “spurtle” in a gift shop on one of our stops.  Please reveal yourself; you have my gratitude! Dating from the fifteenth century, a spurtle is a uniquely Scottish kitchen item used to stir porridge and other soupy things like stew.  My interlocutor, whoever she was, bought one for her husband, and that  inspired me to buy one for my husband in the gift shop in the lovely village of Luss beside our Loch Lomond hotel. Ron loves it–I love it! About ten inches long with a horn handle, it is both beautiful and pleasant to hold.  I can’t wait for oatmeal season. Thanks to the mysterious spurtle buyer!

It’s only a week until we meet in Dublin! I’ve been in Ireland since May 14 travelling with a group of Agnes Scott students, pictured at left on Inch Strand on the Dingle Peninsula. We’ve made our way around Ireland and Northern Ireland visiting literary sites and many other places that are important to history or that are just plain stunningly beautiful. As that trip is winding down, I thought I would post a few miscellaneous items that might be of interest as you prepare to join me here next Sunday.

The student trip is in its fourteenth day, and I can only say I hope our upcoming trip enjoys the same good weather as we’ve had so far. We did have two days of rain, but every other day has been bright, sunny, and a perfect combination of warm and cool. A sweater and a rain coat, jacket or poncho will meet all your weather needs. Though I may be jinxing our trip by saying so, I recommend you bring some sunblock for your face, at least.

I have posted on our site the more or less final version of the itinerary. I say “more or less” because as you know, tweaks and changes—usually to our advantage—are always possible. Please take note of blocks of free time as well as dinners on your own—I can advise to some extent on these, but going online and asking at the hotels are probably your best bets.

The royal wedding last week was surprisingly popular in the Republic of Ireland with many people watching it on TV and talking about it. They did not go so far as to wave Union Jacks as many Unionists in Northern Ireland did, however. Up here (I’m posting this from Belfast), Loyalists held massive tea parties to wish the new couple well, but they seem to have been mainly populated with older people. The wedding was interpreted by many in the Republic as an important step towards modernity by the British monarchy, especially with regard to the multicultural, multiracial aspects of the marriage and the ceremony. In the days surrounding the festivities at Windsor, I have heard a number of people recalling with gratitude Queen Elizabeth’s visit here in 2012, when  she made the remarkable choices to say a few words in the Irish language (after centuries of the English trying to stamp out the rebel language) and actually apologize for Britain’s part in the Easter Rising of 1916 and the subsequent War of Independence.

You may have heard of “mummers” via the annual “Mummers Parade” in Philadelphia, but the tradition goes back many hundreds, maybe even many thousands of years in Europe and the Mediterranean world. Mummers are actors in folk plays, usually itinerant, who go from place to place putting on their plays at Christmas and at other sacred times of the year. While their plays do have religious themes, they draw heavily on folk traditions going back to pagan times, often mixing the two, and tend to be irreverent, outrageous, and sometimes bawdy.

A common theme in mummers’ plays is the scarcity of light or sun as the winter season begins and the fear that the sun may never return. This theme is often represented by a death, sometimes of St. George, sometimes of St. Patrick or another well-known figure, followed by attempts at revival and finally a resurrection. The plays include music, songs, dance, poetry, and all manner of entertainment because that is their primary purpose—to entertain the people of a village or manor during the long, cold, dark winter nights. The mummers appear in outlandish costumes, often wearing large basket masks of horse or cow heads and garish clothing. There are many stock figures, including a mysterious doctor wearing a cape with pockets full of “cures,” a pirate, and a man called “Johnny Jack” who “bears his family on his back”—cloth figures that are literally sewn onto his jacket to show that they are his burden. Saint Nicholas often appears, as do knights and ladies, a dragon, an old hag, clown-like characters, and others. The tradition is alive in rural areas of Ireland, and that’s all I will say for now!

As we drive from Dublin to Belfast on June 3, we hope to stop at a place called Monasterboice—a small monastic settlement in the middle of broad green fields in Count Louth—that has three impressive “high crosses,” one of which is said to be the most important in Ireland.

High crosses are found in Ireland and Britain and date from the eighth to tenth centuries CE, though there may have been earlier ones that did not survive. Ireland has so many that they have become an iconic symbol of the country. These crosses stood outside churches or monasteries and were surely built to impress. They served as gathering places and designated markets, but it is likely that they also served as visual aides for the teaching of Christianity through bible stories to a largely illiterate population. Panels on the crosses illustrate key biblical moments: Adam and Eve, the apple tree, and the serpent; Cain striking Abel; Daniel in the lions’ den; the adoration of the magi; the arrest of Christ; the resurrection, etc. I’ve posted a diagram of Muiredach’s cross below (sorry for the image quality, but my resources are limited at the moment).

Interlace patterns decorate the crosses, and there are often personal touches, such as a cat chasing a mouse, a scene from local history, and other secular images. Muiredach’s Cross at Monasterboice, pictured here, is an outstanding example of a high cross. Nineteen feet high and made of sandstone, the cross seems massive compared to the others on the site. The stories carved into its panels are still discernible, though they are gradually becoming effaced by exposure to the elements. Many such crosses have been moved inside with replicas put in their places, or roofed over for protection. For now, Muiredach’s Cross is still in the churchyard and will make an exciting and meaningful detour for us.

Ireland and Europe in general have always been way ahead of the US on the technology used for credit cards. They had chips here long before we did, then chips with PINs (Personal Identifications Numbers—we still don’t have chips with PINs in most cases). Now they are widely using a new system that requires you merely to touch your card to a certain place on the handheld machine—very fast and efficient. Don’t worry, your old-fashioned American card can still be accommodated. There’s always a way to get your money, isn’t there! Just so you know, for some reason American Express cards with chips still often have to be swiped. Visa and MasterCard work fine and are taken nearly everywhere, AMEX less so.

On Friday, the people of Ireland–aided by thousands of Irish men and women who flew home just to vote–voted overwhelmingly to repeal the eighth amendment of their constitution, one of the most severe anti-abortion laws anywhere and an oddity in the European Union. The 1983 amendment allowed no exceptions of any kind and was written in such a way that it caused  a long series of tragedies, including women being forced to carry nonviable fetuses to term and sometimes dying in the process. Several recent high profile cases, including that of the death of a 31 -year old woman named Savita Halappanavar, spurred the repeal movement.

This historic vote and others in recent years have shaken loose the conservative Catholic stranglehold on the country (see the this interesting NYT article and this one from today). A series of scandals in churches and church-run schools and institutions over the last several decades–and more to come, no doubt–exposed physical, sexual, financial, and other kinds of abuses–many of them horrific. These breaches of faith have emboldened people to take up issues like the role of women, same-sex marriage, and the eighth amendment  and to challenge the power of the church in a society that is increasingly diverse in every way, including religion.

Friday’s vote ended up with 66.4 % saying Yes, 33.7 % saying No, and a turnout that exceeded 64 %. That’s a resounding challenge to the status quo. It’s now up to the Irish house of representatives or Dáil Éireann [DOYL AIR-uhn] to come up with a new law representing the sea change expressed in the vote–no easy task. But the most important achievement in many people’s opinion was the unequivocal message of the people’s desire to separate church and state.

“Love, peace, and happiness–is this possible in Belfast?” Discuss! We will try to answer this question as we tour the city and talk to its people Belfastians are very fond of writing and painting on the gable ends of houses and other blank canvasses in their city. Obviously, they have a lot to say! On our city tour of Belfast we will be visiting Loyalist and Republican neighborhoods to see the famous political murals that are a must-see in the city. For nearly a century, these public artworks—and many of them are indeed works of art—have proclaimed a city, a region in conflict–violent, militaristic conflict.

With Republican murals sporting the green, orange and white of the tricolor flag of the Republic of Ireland (a “flag of a foreign country” in some Loyalists’ eyes) and Loyalist murals reiterating the red, white, and blue of the Union Jack, there’s no mistaking where you are. If you still don’t know, look at the lampposts and curbs for additional colorful evidence of which side lives here. The presence in the mural paintings of masked armed men pointing serious guns at the viewer, scenes of conflict from various attacks and bombings, and obscure (to the tourist) references to heroes and battles from the thirty years of the Troubles and from even earlier history has let everyone know for a very long time that this a divided, broken society at war with itself.

Until now.

Since the Belfast Peace Agreement of 1998 and mores specifically since 2006 and the establishment of the “Reimaging Cities Commission” by the government of the province, the city’s murals have begun a gradual but welcome (to most, not all) transformation.

As you might imagine in a divided society, not everyone is happy with this change. To some, it means “erasing history.” Sound familiar?  We have our own struggles in the US regarding what should be done with memorials erected to commemorate the Confederate States of America and its legacy of condoning slavery. Other Belfastians argue that murals have always depicted the concerns and aspirations of the community, and those tend to shift over time. Murals by their nature change, this argument runs, and that change is healthy.

Here is an example of an older Loyalist mural with images of masked gunmen and paramilitary insignias that has been recently replaced by a Loyalist mural of a very different kind.

The second mural–on the very same building–looks to ancient mythology, not the recent conflict, for a message that still speaks to a Loyalist identity (protestant, Ulster, ownership of the land) but does so in less incendiary terms. The severed hand on the beach may look like a result of battle, but the image goes back to a very old mytho-historical tale about a king and his two sons who were sailing to some part of Ulster to take it over. The king told his sons that whoever touched the land first would be its ruler. One son leaped out of the boat and swam as fast as he could towards land. Surely he would be the eventual ruler! But the second son took a more canny, if also more painful, approach. With a swipe of his sword, he cut off his hand and threw it onto the beach, thus “touching” land before his brother and winning the competition.

This story is said to be the origin of the “red hand of Ulster,” a symbol used by Loyalists in modern times to signal the importance to them of land, of Ulster itself, and what they are willing to do to keep it. It’s still violent, still bloody, still Loyalist, but it’s not a masked gunman aiming his rifle at you or your children as they walk to school in the morning. Interestingly, because the red hand of Ulster story dates back to the early middle ages or earlier, therefore preceding any hint of  sectarian divide, the story, the red hand, and the desperate claim of land ownership resonate with Republicans as well. After all, they see England as having “taken” their land from them, and they would still like to win back those six counties that make up Northern Ireland.

Here’s another example of an older, rather frightening mural, being replaced with a softer though still military image. The first mural depicts a soldier bringing death (see the reaper in the background) to his enemies, presumably at the Battle of the Somme, where the Ulster troops died in massive numbers fighting for Britain. The replacement image hearkens back to a safer historical moment: Britain’s King William (Britain and protestant Ireland) defeating King James II (Jacobites and French)–Protestantism defeating Catholicism–at the Battle of the Boyne north of Dublin in 1690.  King Billy is  favorite Loyalist icon, The image of him here may derive from  a battle, but it is more about bravery and horsemanship than it is about killing your opponents. Remember, these images appeared one after the other on the same gable end of a house in Belfast, a transformation that must have been perceived as dramatic by the locals.

Along with mythological images, pictures of sports stars and other cultural icons are appearing throughout the city. George Best, a famous footballer who died young, appears often. Since football (what we call soccer) is mostly a protestant game, the images of Best and others are not without political meaning, but at least the focus is on sports and not on paramilitary action.

Literary figures are also appearing more and more often. C. S. Lewis was born in Belfast, and though he lived in England for much of his life, Belfast claims him as a favorite son. Here is one of my favorite of the newer murals, this one celebrating the arts with a image of Lewis and one of his most famous quotations: “You are never told to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

 On the Republican side of town, the newer murals tend to celebrate human rights in various ways, to align the Republican cause with other rights struggles around the world, or to critique world events.  The mural below is a favorite with Agnes Scott students, and we like to quiz them on the many world human rights figures pictured. The man in the center–Frederick Douglass–visited Belfast in 1845 and enjoyed his stay there very much, as his letters home indicate.  He had just published his memoir of his life as a slave; the book caused a stir at home, and friends recommended that he go abroad to flee the furor. As a runaway slave, he could have easily been caught and re-enslaved in the US. Ireland and England proved more welcoming.

The next one is also in a Republican section of town and takes up the cause of climate change.

As an outsider to the conflict, I certainly welcome the change and side with those who see murals as, by their nature, evolving with the community’s needs and desires. We’ll see some murals that still represent the armed conflict and many others that show the new Belfast. Either way, there will be a lot to learn and “Discuss.”

To learn more, here are two interesting reports about the murals.

Art of  Conflict: Northern Ireland ‘s street murals (2013)

Northern Ireland’s Troubles: Walls of Shame (2016)

R-City Coffee (think “Our” City) looks like any coffee shop in any city in the world: tables and chairs, coffee, coffee accessories, pastries and other tempting food items, newspapers, people working or talking—you’ve seen a hundred of these.

But R-City has something other coffee shops don’t have: two entrance doors, one opening up on the protestant side of the neighborhood and the other opening up on the Catholic side. This unique arrangement means that people from the two communities—Shankill and Ardoyne—have a place where all are welcome.

The café opened in 2016, and the concept caught on quickly in the  traditionally antagonistic neighborhoods, which face each other right where R-City is located. Local initiative turned a former “hot spot”  into a friendly gathering place. We’ll get to see how it all works when we visit the shop for coffee and a chat on Monday, June 4.

Alan Waite and Thomas Turley run youth clubs in the Ardoyne and Shankill areas and work to bring their groups together. It was the young people who thought up the idea of a coffee shop with two doors; profits from the business go back into the community by supporting youth programs. According to Alan, the hope was that the café would be a place where “both communities would feel comfortable and where the young people could socialize,” and that’s exactly what has happened.

But the cafe is only part of the story. “The R City project aims to instill leadership qualities, helping young people from the Shankill and Ardoyne areas on their pathway to learning and employment. The project will promote the positive stories and events young people are participating in across north Belfast” (Belfast Telegraph 11-4-13).

I heard about R-City Café on a PBS segment evaluating the state of Northern Ireland on the twentieth anniversary of the Belfast Peace agreement. The violence has ended, but the two communities have not come together as much as many would like, and tensions remain high in some areas. Alan and Tom and the young people in their groups are trying to change that.

Community based peacebuilding initiatives are having more success than government sponsored efforts in Northern Ireland, and it’s not hard to see why. Throughout the Troubles, both sides had cause to be suspicious whenever the government got involved. Today, with the provincial governing body in a standoff since March of 2017 and direct rule from Westminster threatened at every turn,  communities are forging ahead to solve their own problems.

R-City focuses on youth for many reasons, not the least of which is that everybody knows the real hope for Northern Ireland lies in the generations that don’t remember the Troubles.

To learn more…

Click here to view the PBS segment: Two decades after peace pact, reconciliation still lags in Northern Ireland

You can learn more about R-City Café on their Facebook page; at the home page of their parent organization, Ignition; or in these two articles.

How a coffee shop is bridging the gap between Ardoyne and the Shankill

Belfast volunteers showcase what’s out there for young people in the city

Sir Walter Scott’s famous poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel was an instant success when it was published in 1805, winning Scott international fame and putting Scotland on the map as a tourist destination for the first time. The poem could be viewed as a kind of guidebook for our tour of Scotland (click here to read The Lay of the Last Minstrel Overview). And it all happened because of the way the moonlight fell on Melrose Abbey.

Scott set the poem in the landscape and among the monuments he knew from spending much of his youth in the Border counties. In the poem, the eponymous “Last Minstrel” tells his story of a sixteenth century Border feud to Ann, Duchess of Buccleuch [buck-LOO], some hundred and fifty years after the event. (Remember Diana Rigg as the Duchess of Buccleuch–a descendant of Ann–in Season 2 of Victoria?) Creating a narrative within a narrative was a common approach in the novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; it was a way of blurring the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction to lend an air of verisimilitude to the story. The tale is told at Newark Castle, a ruined edifice on the Bowhill estate, a most romantic location, which we will visit during our stay in Melrose.

Newark Castle has another claim to our notice related to the poem. Scott and William Wordsworth had been friends since the publication of The Lay in 1805. They visited each other in the landscapes each had made famous in poetry: Scott showed Wordsworth around Melrose Abbey on that first visit, and Wordsworth hosted Scott in Grasmere later on. Both writers play important roles in the birth of literary tourism, and they themselves were among the first literary tourists. Wordsworth came to see Scott for the last time in 1831, and together they visited Newark Castle, the two most famed poets of the English language in their day musing on Scott’s poem and the castle’s romantic past, no doubt. Both were ill, but though Wordsworth would have many more years to live (he died in 1850), Scott would die the next year.

Scott’s poetry and novels grew out of a love for local history and legends he developed as a child visiting his grandparents at their farm near Smailholm Tower between Melrose and Kelso. We’ll pay a visit to this place on the day we also see Abbotsford, Scott’s Gothic revival estate. Smailholm is a “peel” tower, one of many built to help in defending Scotland from English invasions all across the Border counties. Perched on a knoll, this sturdy tower still affords dramatic views on all sides of a landscape one can easily fill with imagined soldiers on horseback, minstrels roving the countryside looking for an audience, lords and ladies, workers toiling in the vast fields around the tower, and other characters from the sixteenth century.

Later in the course of the Border feud story, a key scene takes place at Melrose Abbey. In Canto II of his long poem, Scott describes the abbey “lit by the pale moonlight.” Melrose would never be the same. The popularity of the poem and that passage immediately drew hundreds of visitors to the village, hoping for a chance to see this phenomenon. Until this time, people from south of the border had not really considered traveling to Scotland, which had the reputation of being wild and barren. The Lay of the Last Minstrel stirred interest not only in historical poetry but also in the landscapes in which the events had happened. Take a look at the description of the abbey to see why this was so.

If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moon-light;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.
When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light’s uncertain shower
Streams on the ruined central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery,
And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;
When distant Tweed is heard to rave,
And the owlet to hoot o’er the dead man’s grave,
Then go—but go alone the while—
Then view St. David’s ruined pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair!

These are lovely lines of poetry—and there’s lots more where they came from! The vivid description of the abbey immediately captures the imagination, inviting the reader to imagine being in that landscape. Influenced by ballads and the verse forms of the old Scottish poets, the four beat lines (said to have been inspired by a performance Scott heard of Coleridge’s “Christabel”) and the couplet rhymes create an energetic, galloping rhythm. The mellifluous diction, visual images, and sensory details make the world of the poem come alive. Scott, like the other Romantic poets but especially Wordsworth, put real places into his poems—the abbey, the River Tweed, Melrose itself, and many more—which would have added interest to the lines. This move seems obvious to us today, but before the Romantics, poets and artists were attracted to more idealized landscapes. Scott was interested in past events, in what happened, but he found a way to bring that world home to his readers in terms they could feel and understand. No wonder Scott’s poem gained such popularity, and no wonder people came from all over Europe and North America to relive their favorite moments from the poem.

I regret now that I did not plan our trip to Scotland around the phases of the moon,  so that we  too, could see “Fair Melrose lit by the pale moonlight.” Of course, there’s no guarantee that the weather would have allowed us to see it.

Canto VI of the poem makes many references to Rosslyn, the castle and the chapel, which we will be visiting on our way north to Loch Lomond. Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, was not the first writer to see the possibilities of Rosslyn Chapel as a dramatic setting, though I’m afraid more visitors go there today for the sake of his novel and the film with Tom Hanks than for the sake of The Lay of the Last Minstrel. When you see this gorgeous church, think of Scott’s description of it as a fire rages nearby:

Seem’d all on fire that chapel proud
Where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffin’d lie,
Each baron, for a sable shroud.
Sheath’d in his iron panoply.

Seem’d all on fire within, around
Deep sacristy and altar’s pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
And glimmer’d all the dead men’s mail.

There are other mentions of Rosslyn in Canto VI. Scott visited the chapel many times and perhaps saw its potential as a tourist destination that would contribute to the fame of his poem.  He was very much an entrepreneur and, of course, an advocate of all things Scottish.

The first lines of Canto VI of The Lay of the Last Minstrel are often excerpted and presented as a stand-alone poem. While they make no reference to places we’ll visit, I think they capture something of what Scott brought to literature and to Scottish national identity—the pride and personal meaning one takes from belonging to a place: “This is my own, my native land!”

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
|Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;—
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.

I have just confirmed, that when we’re in Belfast we’re going to meet with Linda Ervine, who teaches the Gaelic/Irish language to Loyalists in the city. Linda will tell us about her work and give us a language lesson—get ready to learn a bit of Irish!

Why is her work so remarkable? The Irish language has long been associated with Republicanism, the brand of politics that advocates a unified Ireland separate from the UK. Most of the people who hold these views are Catholic. Loyalists, who are mostly protestant, fiercely believe that the six counties of Northern Ireland should remain a part of the UK, and in fact most of them see themselves as British, not Irish. They have historically objected to the Irish language movement and to anything that carries even a hint of Republicanism. Yet many Loyalists had ancestors and even parents who grew up speaking Irish. Place names throughout the island are heavily Irish, and the culture their ancestors knew was Irish in many ways

The stalemate in forming a provincial government has a disagreement over the language issue at its core. Republicans (Sinn Fein) want a language act passed to protect Irish and make it a state language, while Loyalists see such a move as giving “everything” to the other side. They fear their culture will be erased if the language associated with Republicanism achieves special status.

Linda Ervine, who comes from a Unionist family (milder form of Loyalism), didn’t grow up in an Irish speaking household, but when she became familiar with the language, she fell in love with it and started to learn. She wants to help depoliticize the language and assure its survival by teaching it. Her special mission of reconciliation and peace-building is to teach the language to the Loyalist community. Her students are people who have been told all their lives to stay away from anything “Irish,” especially the Irish language, but for one reason or another, they have desire to learn it. Some of them even sneak out to classes, not telling their families where they are going. Linda believes that language learning can play a role in bringing together Northern Ireland’s two communities.

Where government-sponsored programs have not always made a difference, creative community-based efforts often have more success. Linda is a lovely person who has found a way to reach out to others through language and through the very satisfying medium of lifelong learning. Given the still very raw sensitivities of the Republican and Loyalist communities, her work takes patience and courage. The Agnes Scott students who met her last year found her work to be fascinating; they proudly spoke the Irish she taught them for the rest of the trip.

I’m very interested in the ways in which individuals, grass-roots organizations, and cultural entities are seeking common ground with “the other side” in Northern Ireland. Linda has a great story to tell and I’m very excited that she was able to make the time for us.

To learn more about Linda Ervine and her work, take a look a this lecture she gave last year (click on the image).

Here are a couple of newspaper articles that tell about Linda and her work.

Linda Ervine: I realised Irish belonged to me–a Protestant–and I fell in love with it.

Linda Ervine lifts lid on teen pregnancy and being kicked out of school at fifteen

Here are some short notes about our upcoming trip—a mixture of advice, suggestions, things I’ve been thinking about, and excitement!

Things To Do in Melrose
We are staying for three nights in Melrose, Scotland, while investigating all things Sir Walter Scott. I sometimes fantasize about moving to this lovely Scottish Borders town that grew up around Melrose Abbey in the twelfth century. Surrounded by the Eildon Hills (supposed burial place of King Arthur) on the River Tweed, the town boasts not only Scott but several famous Rugby players and an Australian suffragist, Catherine Spence, as its former denizens. Our sister hotels—Burt’s Hotel and the Townhouse Hotel—are across the narrow main street from each other and very close to everything else in town. Restaurants and shops abound—our hotel restaurants rate #3 and #4 on Tripadvisor’s “Best of Melrose” list—and you could do no better than take an afternoon stroll around the town, visit Melrose Abbey, make a few purchases at the craft shop, and stop for a coffee or tea at the Old Melrose Tea Rooms and Bookshop or one of the several cafes nearby.

While there are a number of interesting castles, manor houses, and other historical sites in the region that would make good day trips from Melrose, you don’t have to leave town to fill your free time. There are two lovely gardens in the town, Priorwood and Harmony, the latter run by the National Trust for Scotland, and a small but famous museum of artifacts from a nearby Roman fort called the Three Hills Trimontium Museum.

Dr. Finlay
Speaking of small, delightful Scottish villages, my husband and I recently binge-watched the Doctor Finlay series, a BBC production made in the 1990s that takes place in the fictional “Tannochbrae,” a village very much like what Melrose must have been in the era following World War II. Dr. Finlay (David Rintoul) returns home from the war to rejoin the practice of Dr. Alexander Cameron (Ian Bannen) and his housekeeper-receptionist, Janet MacPherson (Annette Crosbie). This beautifully scripted series takes up many issues of the those times and ours and has a satisfying four seasons (twenty-seven episodes) to keep you busy. The series offers great insights about life in Scotland and so much more. Ron and I wanted twenty-seven more episodes when we reluctantly viewed the final one. (I watched the series on Acorn, a streaming service that is part of Amazon.)

A History of Scotland with Neil Oliver
While we’re on the subject of binge-watching, I recommend another BBC production, A History of Scotland with Neil Oliver, ten one-hour episodes first broadcast by BBC One in 2008-10. I have the DVDs, but the series may be available to stream or as a download. Though there’s a lot of Neil Oliver walking around on bleak, windy braes, this documentary is full of information and insight and was well received in Scotland.

Food!
I have always eaten very well in Scotland, but the real joy of food there is the vast array of adorable names for various dishes. Haggis, you know, but what about cullen skink? Cranachan? Clootie, tablet, clapshot, bannock, rumbledethumps, skirlie, crowdie, bridie, collops, and stovies? Hint: at least five of these involve potatoes!

I am going to recommend to you one Scottish food item that has a perfectly understandable name. The people of the United Kingdom from Cornwall to Shetland really understand dessert–they call all desserts “pudding” in some places– and are not afraid to consume a little sugar. We all know that shortbread is a Scottish specialty; even though the ingredients and cooking process are quite simple, people in Scotland compete with each other for the best recipe (I’ve witnessed this). But have you ever had “millionaire’s shortbread”? Name the three best things about dessert: shortbread, caramel, and chocolate, right? A piece of millionaire’s shortbread has all three in equal proportion, and in that order, with the chocolate on top. Ron and I tried one when we stopped for coffee on a long drive to the Isle of Mull one summer. We were going to share, but after one bite we ordered a second one. Wow.

Bookshelf
Besides the literature itself, two books stand out in my study of Scotland and Scottish literature. Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland by Neal Acherson (Hill and Wang 2002) is a Scotsman’s meditation on his native land and on what it means to be Scottish. The beautifully written book is full of history, contemporary observations, and reflection. I learned more about Scotland—and more that I couldn’t learn anywhere else—from this book than from any other source. Stuart Kelly’s Scott-Land: The Man Who Invented a Nation (Polygon 2010) makes the case that Sir Walter Scott invented Scotland and does so with great verve, as well as considerable erudition. You don’t have to have read Scott’s novels to enjoy this lively and insightful look at the man and his unique legacy.

Travel Tips
Some of you have asked about electricity, money, what to wear, etc.  Don’t forget that I’ve posted a handout on this subject under “Trip Basics” (to find this page look at the top under the main picture to the right). To reiterate a few things, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland (and the rest of the UK) all use the same power plug adapter, pictured here. Hotels will have them, but it’s always nice to bring your own. Just don’t leave them plugged into the wall when you check out of the hotel, as I often do.

AMEX, VISA and MasterCard are the main credit cards accepted, with AMEX accepted on a much more limited basis than in the US.

I get money from ATM machines in both Northern Ireland and Scotland. Don’t load up on British Sterling in NI–use it up before we leave for Scotland. Even though Northern Ireland bank notes are legal tender in Scotland, because banks print the money, NI money is often rejected on mainland UK.  The people of Northern Ireland get very annoyed by this, and so do travelers. See the ten pound notes below: the first note is from the Danske Bank and was printed in Northern Ireland (yes, it’s a Danish bank!); the second was printed in Scotland by the Royal Bank of Scotland; the third is the newest member of the ten pound note family, printed in England by the Bank of England.

I love bridges. I love to look at them, walk or drive across them, think about their history, and ponder their significance. Scotland has some of the UK’s most beautiful and interesting bridges, and we’re going to be able to see several of them on our travels. Driving around the country, I sometimes think the Scots built bridges just for the fun of it, whether or not they needed to get from one place to the next.

The most famous of all the bridges in Scotland is probably Glenfinnan Viaduct crossing the Finnan River in Inverness-shire—which is sadly not on our itinerary. I can’t resist talking about it, though, because it is both an architectural wonder and a jaw-dropping sight. The bridge opened in 1901 and is 416 yards long. Set in a lush river valley, it has twenty-one semicircular spans of fifty feet that curve slightly. Imposing and elegant, Glenfinnan Viaduct owes its fame not only to engineering brilliance, but also to the work of Scotland’s most famous writer, J. K. Rowling and the film versions of her Harry Potter books. The train to and from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry chugs along the bridge, billows of steam pouring romantically–if anachronistically–from its smokestacks.

Scottish bridges are legendary and not just because of Harry Potter. A country with as many rivers, firths (estuaries), and lochs (lakes) as Scotland has—some of them very inconveniently situated—was bound to need ways to cross them. Long known for their ingenuity, Scots built amazing bridges for centuries before civil engineering became a recognized and important science at their universities in the second half of the nineteenth century. After that, there was no holding them back. The natural scenery of Scotland is stunning almost everywhere, but man-made bridges throughout the country add to that grandeur by showing us the web of human aspiration and connection laid over the landscape.

Brig O’Doon
We’ve already discussed another bridge made famous by a writer, Brig O’ Doon in Alloway, the bridge across which Robert Burns’s Tam O’ Shanter rode on his wild night ride through the countryside chased by witches. We’ll see this bridge and be able to walk across it when we visit Burns’s birthplace. The setting—a lovely garden and wooded banks—and the stunning single arch of the bridge spanning the River Doon create the magic that is Brig O’ Doon.

The real Brig O’ Doon, sometimes called “the Auld Bridge,” was built in the early fifteenth century and has been ruined and rebuilt several times. It is said that the uneven cobblestones on the span are set awry to stop witches from crossing. As early as 1816, traffic was diverted from the bridge to another nearby as it was just too crowded. As you may have guessed, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe derived the name of their mythical Scottish village in the eponymous musical Brigadoon from Burns’s beloved bridge (click here to listen to the title song “Brigadoon”).

The Twa Brigs O’ Ayr
Not far (.7 miles) from the hotel where we’ll be staying in Ayr, the “Twa Brigs O’ Ayr” stretch across the river of the same name.  The “Auld Brig” was built in the late sixteenth century on the site of an earlier structure and has three broad arches. It was repaired and rebuilt many times after that. The earliest bridge at this point is said to have been founded by two sisters after the suitor of one drowned while attempting to ford the river.  The Old Bridge is today a pedestrian crossing, the fate of so many of the older structures and a boon for today’s tourists and walkers.

Just up the River Ayr to the northwest, the New Bridge was first built in 1789. Robert Burns knew the Old Bridge and the original New Bridge well and wrote a famous poem about them, “The Brigs of Ayr” (click here to read the poem in its entirety). In the poem, the two bridges argue with each other over which one of them is better and will endure. Here’s a sample of the debate between the Auld Brig and the New Brig in Burns’s poem.

The New Brig

There’s men of taste wou’d tak the Ducat stream,
Tho’ they should cast the very sark and swim,
E’er they would grate their feelings wi’ the view
O’ sic an ugly, Gothic hulk as you.”

The Auld  Brig

“Conceited gowk! puff’d up wi’ windy pride!
This mony a year I’ve stood the flood an’ tide;
And tho’ wi’ crazy eild I’m sair forfairn ,
I’ll be a brig when ye’re a shapeless cairn!

Prescient in this as in so many things, Burns foresaw the shoddy nature of some “modern” construction. The New Bridge of 1789 was destroyed by repeated flooding, and the new New Bridge replaced it in 1878.  Today you can enjoy the two structures together on a walk through the Ayr city centre.

Devorgilla Bridge
When we’re visiting Burns’s house and tomb in Dumfries, we will be a short walk from Devorgilla Bridge, one of the oldest still in use in Scotland. Built in the early 1600s on the site of several earlier bridges across the River Nith, the bridge justifies our tendency to call structures like this “she”: Devorgilla, Lady of Galloway, was the mother of King John Balliol of Scotland and the patron of the first bridge here in the thirteenth century. She must have been a formidable woman. Balliol College at Oxford is named after Devorgilla’s huband, but she provided the endowment upon his death and formulated the college statutes. Built of the red stone used in the area, this sturdy but remarkably graceful structure stretches across the river in six semi-circular arches, down from nine because the river narrowed over time. The bridge house still stands on the far side. Burns himself would have walked across the bridge, as people do today. The view of the town of Dumfries from the bridge takes us back to an older world.

Leaderfoot Viaduct
With its tall (126 feet), graceful arches, Leaderfoot Viaduct near Melrose is clearly a more modern achievement. When you come upon it reaching across the River Tweed in the green hills around Melrose, your heart soars. Melrose resident Sir Walter Scott died twenty-two years before it was built, but I believe he would have approved. It was opened in 1863 during the boom era for bridge building and the railways.

Like Glenfinnan Viaduct, which it resembles, Leaderfoot Viaduct (sometimes called Drygrange Viaduct) was built for the railway. These dramatic railroad bridges of yesteryear speak for the ambition of their designers and illustrate a grand idea about the industrial revolution and how it would change the countryside. No such feat would be attempted in this remote place today, and indeed, the viaduct was almost pulled down in 1981 when it seemed to be beyond repair. Now in the stewardship of Historic Scotland, a government agency concerned with heritage (now Historic Environment Scotland), the bridge draws tourists, bridge and train enthusiasts, and wedding photographers. Two nearby rivers, the Tweed and the Leader, often flood the valley in which the viaduct stands, adding to the need for constant maintenance. Today, Leaderfoot Viaduct no longer bears the railway, but Historic Scotland has created a walkway that is open to the public, weather permitting .

The Three Bridges: Three Bridges Spanning Three Centuries
The Three Bridges across the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh area are one of Scotland’s most stunning sights. Even the aerial photographs  don’t do justice to the awe you feel looking up at them from the shore at South Queensferry. Built at this logical crossing point over more than a hundred years at one of the busiest places in Scotland, these edifices together offer a crash course in civil engineering.

The Forth Bridge, sometimes called the Forth Rail Bridge, started it all in 1890, at that time the longest single cantilever bridge span in the world and the first such structure in the UK to be made of steel. Up until then, ferries had been the only way to cross the Firth. A tunnel was proposed in 1806 but proved unfeasible. Several attempts to design a bridge that could withstand the weather and tidal conditions of the area came to nothing. Given that the structure would need to carry the railway, a suspension bridge was ruled out. A cantilever design by the engineers Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker was finally chosen and took eight years to complete. Bridge and train enthusiasts from all over the world come to South Queensferry to see it. The three cantilever structures, each with four towers, and the brick red color make the Forth Bridge stand out dramatically against the blue-gray water of the firth.

The Forth Road Bridge just west of the rail bridge is a long span suspension bridge built in 1964, the first of its kind in the UK at the time. The Firth of Forth cuts deeply into Scotland just north of Edinburgh, and before this bridge was built, if you wanted to go from north to south by car you had to go around the firth or take a ferry. The reality of the age of the automobile finally necessitated a road bridge at South Queensferry. Over a mile and half long, the bridge served all traffic for over fifty years but now carries buses, taxis, and motorcycles and has a path for pedestrians and bicycles. The bridge has a motto in the Scots language, “Guid Passage”: no translation needed.

Queensferry Crossing, a three tower cable-stayed bridge spanning the Firth of Forth, the longest such bridge in the world, opened in 2017. It crosses the firth just to the west of the Forth Road Bridge and was constructed to relieve the heavy-load traffic that was already causing damage to its sister bridge. The M90—the main route north to the Highlands from Edinburgh—is routed across this bridge, The new bridge uses 23,000 miles of cable and suggests a magnificently strung tripartite harp. On the occasion of the opening of the Queensferry Crossing, Malcolm Roughead, Chief Executive of VisitScotland, said

Scotland will celebrate a moment in history on 4 September as the Queensferry Crossing is officially opened by HM The Queen.  At this unique moment, the country will become the world’s first destination to have three bridges spanning three centuries in one stunning location. It is a time to not only celebrate Scotland as a nation of pioneering innovation, design and engineering, but also give thanks all those who have worked tirelessly to create this unique new structure.

They may be just ways of getting from one place to another, but the Brigs O’ Scotland tell a compelling story of vision, ingenuity, and persistence, a story that is many centuries old.

I’ve been a bit carried away with Burns and Scott lately, so I thought it was time to get back to Belfast, a wonderful city that has transformed itself in the last twenty years from a bleak, barbed-wire-encircled fortress to a vibrant hub of arts and culture. We will have free time there, and while you can use guidebooks and the Internet to find things to do and restaurants to try, I’m going to tell you about a few of my favorite ways to spend time in Northern Ireland’s capital.

I first visited Belfast in January of 1998. The Belfast or Good Friday Peace Agreement was not yet signed (that would happen in March of that year), but a cease-fire had been in place for four years, and the city had already made a slight turn towards peacetime.

But there were still many signs of conflict. Big, hefty, stern bouncer-types stood at the door to every shop in central Belfast and beyond: they weren’t there to weed out the riff-raff but to prevent bombs from being left in innocuous looking shopping bags. The tank-like vehicles that patrolled the streets—these Shorland modified Landrovers were designed for Belfast and the Royal Irish Constabulary—gave the impression of a city under siege. I could not find a postcard, a tee shirt, a pencil or a coffee mug with the word “Belfast” on it, much less a tourist map. With the US government still warning citizens not to travel to Northern Ireland and Belfast’s image as a no-go zone, tourism didn’t really exist. Whenever I mentioned traveling to Northern Ireland, people grimaced and shook their heads.

Twenty years later, Lonely Planet named “Belfast and the Causeway Coast” number one on its list of “Top Ten Regions to Visit in 2018.” Gaudy souvenir shops are starting to blight city’s streets. Three “Hop-on / Hop-off” tour bus companies vie for passengers. You can download an App on your phone that gives you a tour of Literary Belfast. Ideas for new touristic sites abound. In 2012 a museum commemorating the building of the Titanic in Belfast opened on the centenary of its sinking, a concept that is filled with delicious irony. “She Was Okay When She Left Here!” is the cheerful motto of a nearby tour company.

A prison that played a role in The Troubles has been refurbished and is now open for business. In addition to offering regular tours during the day, the Crumlin Road Gaol has “Paranormal” tours and “Paranormal Investigation” experiences at night; it’s also a venue for rock concerts, which were unthinkable before 1998. Fine dining establishments are popping up everywhere, and the culture hungry Belfastians (Belfasters? There is no official word for them.) can attend concerts at the elegant Waterfront Concert Hall and many other venues across the city.

There’s even an ice hockey team—a sport unknown in Ireland until recently. In a place where everything is politicized, promoters thought a “foreign” sport might offer an evening of yelling for your team that didn’t evolve into sectarian strife. The existing sports were strictly partisan: Gaelic football and hurling matches were associated with Republicanism, and association football and cricket were associated with Loyalism. Rugby, interestingly, started out as a purely British sport but has recently developed more universal appeal.

There were many jokes about what the Belfast ice hockey team should be named. “The Belfast Bombers” had a certain ring to it, but a more peaceful name—the Belfast Giants—was eventually chosen. The name has meaning in the city because a natural formation on Cave Hill, flanking the city on the west, looks like the profile of a gigantic man’s face as he lies on his back (see the photo at the top). It is said that when Jonathan Swift was serving as a clergyman in Belfast, he saw the “sleeping giant” in the hills and got the idea for Gulliver’s Travels.

Here’s a list in no particular order of my favorite things to do when in Belfast. I’ve left out the places that are already on our itinerary.

Hop-on / Hop-off Bus Tour
They are a bit hokey sometimes, but don’t sniff at the hop-on / hop-off bus tours of the city. It’s fun to ride on the top of a double decker bus, and you have time to look about and really get the feel of the city. The buses take you up to the Titanic quarter and museum, Belfast Castle on Cave Hill, the Crumlin Road Gaol just outside the city centre, all worth a “hop-off” for a tour. Belfast City Sightseeing seems to be the one to use, and the tour with no hops-off takes about 90 minutes. There are stops throughout the city and near our hotel. I have heard that when these tours started, anxious sectarians from both sides road the bus incognito to spy on the guides and challenge their narration. When I last road the bus, I found the narration pretty even-handed and quite interesting.

Mount Stewart
Mount Stewart is a splendid mansion about 25 minutes by car from Belfast (a taxi will cost you $50-60 each way), or one hour by bus (Line 10, $6-$9). If you love houses and the decorative arts (I do!) or gardens (ditto), this would be a great place to spend an afternoon. The home of the Marquesses of Londonderry, the estate is now run by the National Trust. It has been recently restored with many more rooms open to the public. Set in a beautiful location on Strangford Lough, the neoclassical house has many quirky and wonderful features and stunning collections of furniture, china, silver, and paintings. You could spend your entire afternoon in the garden (I have), which has both formal and informal sections and includes a Temple of the Winds, extensive topiary, a rose garden, the Dodo Terrace (fanciful creatures in topiary and stone), Italian and Spanish gardens, a sunken garden, and woodland walks.

Queen’s University, the Botanic Gardens, and the Ulster Museum
Our Belfast hotel is a few blocks from Queens’ University, which has a beautiful campus, some elegant buildings, and lots to see. The Botanic Gardens is adjacent to the university and has 28 acres with paths and an early Victorian glasshouse called the Palm House designed by Sir Charles Lanyon, who also designed parts of the university—college Gothic on steroids! The Palm House is home to tropical plants and birds and makes a welcoming retreat on rainy days. The Ulster Museum is located at the edge of the park; it houses exceptional collections of art, history, and natural sciences.

Donegall Place
Donegall Place (north side of City Hall), the streets that lead off from it, and the area on the other sides of City Hall comprise Belfast’s main shopping area. Even if shopping is not your thing, this is a great area for wandering and people watching. The Victorian facades belie the fact that Belfast city centre was heavily bombed during World War II, and the facades are just that—supported by rebuilt structures. There are often fairs and vendors on the grounds of City Hall, and you might even catch a mini protest at the front or back gates.

Traditional Pub Crawl
Belfast has a fantastic collection of historic pubs that really give you insight into the city’s Victorian past and more. A list of 10 Pubs: Traditional Irish Pub Crawl takes you on a unique tour, all in walking distance from each other. If you’re interested in architecture, atmosphere, characters, or beer and spirits, a visit to even a few of these pubs would be worthwhile, and of course you can do your crawl from lunchtime to closing. Many of these places also serve excellent pub-style food.

Victoria Square Victoria Square Shopping Centre is in the heart of Belfast near City Hall. About ten years old, the centre definitely is a “peace dividend,” reflecting the change in people’s attitudes about spending time in downtown Belfast. It has all sorts of American and British stores that will be familiar and a few others, but the best part about it is not the shopping. “The Dome” atop the mall is made of glass and offers a 360˚ view of the city, worth seeing in rain or shine (but not in fog, and not in high wind when it closes).

Cathedral Quarter
This part of Belfast located a few blocks north of the city center is being developed as an arts site. It has a couple of small theatres and arts venues, shops, a literary pub named after the poet John Hewitt, and other interesting buildings. St. Anne’s or Belfast Cathedral (Church of Ireland) gives the quarter its name and is worth a visit. The sole tomb in the cathedral is that of Lord Edward Carson, hero to Unionists but blamed for intensifying sectarianism

in Northern Ireland, something he is supposed to have been uneasy about. He defended the Marquess of Queensbury in the Oscar Wilde trial and played a role in the “Winslow boy” case (there’s a famous play about it). Across from the cathedral, there’s a plaza with quotations from famous Irish writers etched on the pavement.

A Few More Thoughts…
I’ve not yet visited the Irish Republican History Museum, but it sounds interesting and would very likely represent the extreme Republican position. A taxi or bus ride out to the well-preserved medieval Carrickfergus Castle will take you to the shores of Belfast Lough. The Somme Museum and Heritage Centre in Newtownards (bus or taxi) tells the story of Irish involvement in the great World War I battle and even has a mock trench system that you can walk through surrounded by the noise of battle. According to their website, “The Museum has increasingly focused upon the community relations potential of this shared history as a vehicle to further cross-community and cross-border contact, mutual understanding and reconciliation.”

Ireland and Scotland are lands where writers and other creative people thrive. They are inspiring places—their literature is inspiring—and our group trip will be an inspiring experience, so we all need and to have an outlet for our creativity as we travel. Those of you who went on the first trip will remember—with delight, I’m sure—our daily poetry readings at the microphone on the bus, when members of the group, including the group leaders, offer insights and silliness about the trip using the forms of the Limerick, the Haiku, and the six-word essay.

We will of course continue that practice on this trip, with one addition: the Standard Habbie or Burns Stanza. The latter is the first “challenge” offered to you because it is slightly more complex than the others and certainly less familiar. A long serving form for poetry in Scots, the Standard Habbie found a pace (the “a” lines are in tetrameter or four beats, the “b” lines in dimeter or two beats) that suited the language. Burns took up this form and used it so often and with such distinction that it has come to be called the Burns Stanza.

Reading works of our own creation is a fun way to comment on what we are seeing, doing, and experiencing as we roll around the countryside. Your poems and six-word essays should be about the trip; humor and insight always welcome. No literary expertise or even inclination is required. All are welcome to read their offerings, and no one should feel obligated. Below you will find explanations of the four forms, chosen because they are brief and manageable and because they are apt vehicles for humor.

The second challenge will be a challenge to me and my aging brain, as well. Everywhere I went in Burns country I encountered people who could recite passages from his works. When a group of alumnae and friends visited the Burns Cottage in Atlanta recently, the club members who greeted us were impressively versed in Burns’s poems. They even knew all the verses of Auld Lang Syne. So my challenge to you is—memorize a stanza (more always welcome) of a Burns poem that you like and at some point during our trip, recite it at the microphone.

Nothing like memorization to keep the mind nimble! In my father’s day (he was born in 1916) memorization of poetry in school was required and must have been often assigned. He never went to college, but he knew many, many poems by heart. When I told him I was taking Chaucer, he immediately recited the prologue of The Canterbury Tales to me in Middle English:

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour….

Come to think of it, we are making a pilgrimage of our own on our bus to literary shrines in both Ireland and Scotland. Who is up for writing an epic poem about our journey?

Later on in graduate school when I mentioned I was writing a paper on Wordsworth’s sonnet “The World Is Too Much With Us,” to my astonishment Dad launched into a recital of that poem, making it all the way to the end without a mistake.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

I’m afraid that if our last trip is any measure, there will be some “getting and spending” on this one.

I wish I had the ability to hold whole poems and prose passages in my head; it would be a great aid in teaching, but it’s too late now. Still, I plan to challenge myself by memorizing at least a stanza, maybe a whole (short) poem. I hope you will join me.  If this little girl named Robyn can do it–Robyn reciting “To A Louse” by Robert Burns–we can, too.

Here are guidelines for the four forms we’ll tackle on the trip.

The Limerick
This well-known humorous verse form has been around since the early 18^th century, was popularized by Edward Lear in the 19^th century, and is thought to have derived its name from the term “Limerick song,” a kind of drinking song.

Guidelines

• Five-lines
• Anapestic meter: short, short long; – -/; as in “’Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house…
• Rhyme scheme (aaba)
• The first, second and fifth or aaa lines are longer than the bb lines
• Often disturbs normal speech patterns as in “There once was girl from Atlanta…”
• Always funny, often bawdy

Some examples from the previous trip.

Dave has his history down pat
Loves to drive, drink whiskey and chat
He’s the man with the plan
Ready to give us a hand
Now won’t you sleep better knowing dat?
(by Amy Chastain and Wes Cribb)

Which hotel are we in this a.m.?
I need coffee even to begin.
Tripped over the black case,
Fell flat on my face.
Now I’m making coffee again.
(by Margaret Barkley)

The Six-Word Essay
Another contest form for the trip is the six-word essay or narrative, made famous by Ernest Hemingway with this sad tale: “’For sale’ baby shoes, never worn.” We hope your six-word essays won’t be so sad.

Guidelines

• Six words—no cheating!
• The second part usually sheds new light on the first, adding the humor
• Must be true as opposed to fiction

Some examples from the previous trip.

Bags packed. Moving to Muckross House. (by Ellen Gaffney)

Agnes Scott husbands…a lucky lot! (by Jim Jarboe)

Long awaited, anticipated, over too soon! (by Mary K. jarboe)

Haiku
Your third option is the haiku, an ancient Japanese poetic form.

Guidelines

• Seventeen syllables
• Three phrases or lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables
• Two images or ideas with a “cutting word” between them to offset the comparison or connection
• Often has a reference to nature

Some examples from the previous trip.

The swans have left Coole.
Empty tower ‘neath the moon.
Still the words endure.
(by Betty Derrick)

Illuminati
A group of vibrant Scotties
Set Dublin aglow.
(by Gwen Shearer)

The Standard Habbie or Burns Stanza
From the online Burns Encyclopedia:
“ The stanza for characteristic of the eighteenth century Revival of Scots poetry, and particularly associated with Burns. But it was also used by Ramsay and Fergusson, and by almost every minor poet who employed Scot. Ramsay called it ‘Standard Habbie’, because the earliest use of it known to him was in ‘Habbie Simpson, the Piper of Kilbarchan’, by Robert Sempill of Beltrees (c.1595-c.i659). The ‘Standard Habbie’ is an easy stanza to write, and was particularly suited for the fast-moving social comment which was a major preoccupation with the writers of the Revival. Burns varied the form by substituting half-rhymes for full rhymes, especially at the ends of the four long lines.”

Guidelines

• Six lines in the stanza
• The rhyme scheme is aaabab
• Tetrameter (four beats) a lines and dimeter (two beats) b lines
• The second b line may or may not be repeated

An example from Burns—two wonderful stanzas from “To A Mouse.” Note how the dimeter lines add a certain punch or pithiness to the meaning of the stanza.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I cannot see,
          I guess an’ fear!

Remember, your poem or six-word essay must have something to do with our trip. It’s not too early to start practicing the limerick, the six-word essay, the haiku, and the Standard Habbie, or to exercise your mind on memorizing a few stanzas!