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