Trathnona maith agat!

That’s Irish for good evening.  I got a CD-ROM, "Learn Irish," from the library.  I started with the Teach Yourself Irish tape from the library.  That was not working!  It was a book and tape but the dialogue went by so quickly, something about somebody looking for a job, I think…  I just want to learn" please" and "thank you" and maybe how to find the lady’s room.   That’s Mna if you’re interested.  Anyway the CD is much funner.  However the book/tape did spend some time on how to pronounce the various vowels and consonant groups which are quite unusual.  For instance, Emmeline’s teacher is Naimh.  Pronounced Neeve, mh sounds like v.  Enough for this evening’s Irish lesson.

Well, the past 2 weekends we have been off seeing the country side.  Last Saturday we went to the Rock of Cashel.  (Want to see it again?)  We had a nice drive through the countryside.  Driving in this country is a lesson in faith.  You might see a sign pointing you in a direction for a place.  (you mighy not…) You’ll drive along and maybe or maybe not see another sign at the next intersection for which way to go.  So you kind of guess and hope you’re right,  because if you aren’t there’s no way the road is wide enough for you make a u-turn.  The other interesting thing is you never quite know which unit of distance is being used on the signs.  Often you will just get a number.  Kilometers?  Miles?  It’s anybody’s guess.  So either you will get there in some time or 2 thirds of sometime.

So we went to the Rock of Cashel.  It is big and high.  And it has some old ruins on it.  There are some ancient cathedrals.  Some of the structures have been restored and some not.  There is a beautiful chapel, Cormac’s Chapel that has some remnants of what must have been incredible frescos.  The blue is just stunning.  It is also interesting to go into these places and see the stonework.  There are carved faces and masks all over the place, in many of the intersections of arches and walls, as well as around the tops of the columns.  Last Saturday we also went to Cahir Castle.  That was so cool.  In many of these places you can walk around on your own or wait for a tour.  Sometimes there are signs about what you are looking at and other times there is no signage.  At Cahir they had a tour but we only caught the tail end of it after we had explored much of the castle by ourselves.  We were free to run all over this wonderful castle, portions in ruins, portions restored.  Climbing up the walls, up these circular staircases into the towers.   I can really feel so much of the history that a 12-year-old girl named Mary Beth devoured come alive.  What it must have been like for Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots to run around in these magnificent castles!  I will say, however, that given the litigious nature of the states, there is no way you could have near the same experience at these places if you were in the US.  We are able to climb in and out and up and down all over these ruins with no rails and lots of crumbling stonework.  In the US with all the worries about lawsuits you wouldn’t get closer than a telephoto lens shot of these.

We have learned a lot about castle constructions.  For instances the staircases in the castle keep which spiral up in a clockwise direction on stairs of uneven width and height.   It really confuses the enemies trying to ascend the tower.  And on the second floor, immediately above the main door there is often a "murder hole" down which the guards would drop missiles or boiling oil, boiling tar, old phone books, whatever was handy.

We also went to a place called The Swiss Cottage, a small house Lord and Lady Cahir had built along the River Suir, a few miles from Cahir.  It has been fully restored and is a charming place you could see the 3 bears living in.

Last Sunday we went to a place called the Cragganouen Project, a re-enactment of what life might have been like in various ages of history, from the stone-age to, say, a modern 15th century dwelling.  We saw some things called crannogs which were man-made islands upon which were built thatch huts.  If you remember the scene in Braveheart where the ambushed Scots bodies were hanging you’ll know just what I’m talking about.

On Sunday as we drove home we listened to the All Ireland Hurling Final.  It’s a real experience to listen to highly excited play-by-play announcers describe a totally foreign sport.  I had no idea what they were describing(nor, often, what they were saying).  We stopped at the grocery store on the way home, however, and Mark said "I think I hear it" and sure enough there was a TV with the Hurling Final on.  So we watched a bit.  It does seem like a pretty fun sport.  But I’m surprised there aren’t more injuries.  They’re running all over the field with what looks like a short-bladed hockey stick and whacking a ball into the air and still they manage not to hit each other.  I don’t know how they do it.

Yesterday we went to Killarney National Park.  In Garth’s 5th  grade in Seattle each child picks a national park to study.  Since we will be here for half the year, Garth will bring back information on an Irish National park for his report.  We went to an old castle, complete with murder hole and spiral staircase.  We also took a boat ride out on one of the lakes to an island which holds the ruins of an ancient abbey.  We say our first real Celtic cross on the island.  We saw a lot of deer hoofprints but, much to Emmy’s dismay, no hoofs.  Elsewhere in the park we saw a beautiful Elizabethan-style house built in the early 1800s.  It was incredible.  It had been visited by Queen Victoria and apparently the owners knew 6 years ahead of time that she would come to visit so they totally re-did the house and commissioned the building of much furniture specially for the visit.  She stayed 2 days!  But it was beautiful.  And the gardens, even at this time of year were fabulous.  I would love to see them in May or June.  We also saw a lovely waterfall and hiked up a bit above it to see a spectacular view out over the lakes.

Today we went to Lough Gur, a place about 10 miles from here.  As  in "Meet the Flintstones", they’re a modern stone-age family.  From the town of Lough Gur, they’re a page right out of history."  Nearby is a 4500 year old stone circle.  Adjectives like "old" take on a whole new definition in this country.  This morning the circle was home to 4 calves.  Watch your step!

I am volunteering one morning a week at the kids’ school.  The junior infant’s classes (that’s 4 and 5 year olds) have 34 kids.  One teacher has a student teacher for a few weeks this fall, but other than that she is on her own.  I had left the principal a note saying that I was not working and at home all week and looking for something to do, and that I would love to help out one morning a week if they could use me.  She said "You’re home 5 mornings a week but you only want one?"  I said, "Let me start out slow."  So I worked this last Wednesday.  The teacher is great.  And I will learn all those Irish phrases a 5 year old needs.  Like "Open the door."  Actually, I think it will be fun.  And quite interesting to see the different way a school is run over here.  And it is different.  Lines are big here.  As in standing in gender segregated, and coloring neatly within.  But the teachers seem quite warm and caring toward the kids.

That’s the news from these parts.  Somehow the travel log doesn’t lend itself to humor quite as much as the telephone.  Still, I’ll see what I can do.  Oh, here’s some humor.  We get great cookies for the kids’ lunches.   Penguin Cookies (or biscuits as they are know here),  each individually wrapped with a riddle on the wrapper.  What do you call a fish with no eye?  Fsh.

Slan,

Mer

Once more into the breach,….  Once more I take up the mouse and keyboard and try to earn my keep and board (bored yet?) by writing something for the folks back home.  As you may recall, last week I was badly affected by the fact that I had been reading that book about British men freezing nobly in the Antarctic.  This week I have been trying, not nearly so successfully, to read a book by Lawrence Stenhouse (also British ? also frozen, I think) titled "An Introduction To Curriculum Research And Development,"  (You will note, though not be interested in the fact, that I do not hold with the silly convention that we should capitalize only certain words in book titles.  I think that if you are going to go to the trouble of writing a book, and believe me, Larry here went to a LOT of trouble to write this book, all of the words you put in the title deserve to be capitalized.)   Fortunately for you this book is not one that rubs off in one’s writing style, even briefly.  He does come up with some great quotes though.  For instance, he quotes Jerome Bruner’s great question: "What did the penguin wear to the penguin ball?" and the Tyler’s quick witted reply "Glass flippers".  I have already made that into a PowerPoint slide and will be using it soon in my seminar.
Yes, I will be teaching two sections of EN4003.  That’s a course that is for second-year teacher ed. students.  It has to do with curriculum (hence the Stenhouse) and ed psych, I think.  Their rationale for asking me to take these two sections was magnificent ? they all had student teachers to supervise on Mondays.  The set up is interesting.  This is a course, as noted above, for second-year students.  There will be about 140 of them, it is expected.  They will all attend "lecture" on Thursday afternoon.  A post-tea time I think.  The lecture is given by the course leader.  It is conducted in a lecture hall.  The students also attend the seminars where it is our job, I think, to give the students ways to make sense of the lecture material. We are to help them understand how the theory will work out in the Irish schools, given the prevailing cultural norms, the relevant historical background, and so forth.  I think that this is where my tech background will really come in handy….
On a different note, we have been driving that poor little Fiat down quite a few roads lately.  We have been to a number of castles ? a countably finite number but only just.  They are cool.  We need some of these scattered around our country and I urge you all to write to your feudal lords and representatives to see what can be done.  Think of how a castle here and there would change the feel of a place like, say, Renton.  Tourists would immediately arrive and would pay a few pounds each to scramble around and take pictures.  They would buy postcards, pencils with shamrocks painted on them, little stuffed sheep made of real wool, and tiny bottles of Guinness.  Think of the boost to the economy.
Well the batteries on this machine are about to run out so I will too.
Mark