Past Posts
2 How It All Began
People often ask me where my interest in Ireland comes from and how it became so…well…extreme. I’ve been obsessed with the country—its history, literature, landscape, culture and everything else about it—for a long time. My interest was piqued when I was ten or eleven and discovered a copy of Finnegans Wake on my parents’ eclectic bookshelves in our house on Lincolnwood Drive, Evanston, Illinois. Both of them were readers and always had books stacked on their nightstands and near their chairs. The bookshelves covered two corner walls in the...
1 Greyness Run to Flower
In “The View from Here” (“An Radharc d’Anseo” in Irish) I’m writing about living in Ireland from the perspective of someone who has visited the island many times, taught Irish literature and history, helped countless friends plan their Irish trips, and led groups of students on study tours (eight so far), but never stayed longer than a few weeks at a time. I’m excited about the opportunity to see Ireland in a new way and expect everything I think I know to change during this year—to shift, deepen, flip-flop,...