Ireland Study Abroad, Installment 6

Midterm Break is over, and we’re now beginning the section of our program set in Belfast. We were able to travel independently over the break, so I traveled within Ireland. I was able to see the Frank McCourt museum and take the Angela’s Ashes walking tour in Limerick.

Just riding on the bus to reach places on the Dingle Peninsula was absolutely beautiful. Tralee has a very nice town park where I practiced some of my watercolors, and Dingle Harbour also had some amazing views, although it would've been easier to watercolor if the rain would stop drizzling or me every fifteen minutes or so. It was nice to take things at a bit of a slower pace, although I wish I had done more work while I was at it.

I was traveling by bus, which gave me plenty of time to do some reading. Seamus Deane’s Reading in the Dark and Glenn Patterson’s The International are both books on our Belfast reading list. I enjoyed The International the most, although both were good books for trying to get some idea of the experiences of The Troubles. I did find it interesting that Patterson’s narrator Danny, a barman at The International Hotel, identifies as neither Catholic nor Protestant, although one of his coworkers does identify him as Protestant based on his educational experiences. Meanwhile, Seamus Deane’s young narrator is decidedly Catholic; his book is definitely about the Catholic experience living in such a violent environment. It seems that Danny is intended to be a more generally relatable narrator, although I'd be curious to know if he would seem to be Catholic, Protestant, or neither to a native of Northern Ireland.

Ireland Study Abroad, Installment 5

It's been a long and busy handful of days in Galway. I really enjoyed the size of Galway; it felt manageable enough to get a handle on location. I know where all my favourite coffee shops are by now. The Arts Festival has been great, and we've seen lots of shows: Irish Shorts 6 from the end of the Film Fleadh, Yellow Moon, Bathroom, Pumpgirl, Dún na mBan tri Thíne (The Fairy Fort is Burning), Woyzeck in Winter, Crestfall, and a staged reading of Bir Tawil.

We also met with the author of Solar Bones, Mike McCormack. I really appreciated that he talked a lot about the publishing side of being an author and how he was rejected so many times. I'd like to try reading some of his other books, particularly Notes from a Coma, if I can find the spare time someday.

We also spent a day at Cliffs of Moher and Coole Park, as well as a day on Inis Mór. I wish we'd had more time to spend at Coole Park; there were a lot of trails I wish I could've walked, and views I would have liked to have attempted to draw or paint.

A lot of the performances we were able to see were quite good; I personally think I enjoyed the reading of Bir Tawil the most, even though it was only actors reading a script rather than a full production. You could see a few of the actors tearing up on stage during the reading. Afterwards, there was a Q&A session so the playwright could get feedback on his work. Crestfall, on the other hand, has mostly left me very unsettled. While the production itself was strong, I'm having some difficulty understanding what purpose was served by putting that type of graphic violence and brutality on stage.

Ireland Study Abroad, Installment 4

We've arrived in Galway to catch part of the Galway International Arts Festival. We've got a lot of things to see as well as excursions to the Cliffs of Moher and Inishmore planned.
Our last handful of days in Dublin were relatively slow-paced. We met with Claire-Louise Bennett (insert link here), author of pond. She was also a very interesting person, as most of the creative types we've met with have been. These people seem to have so much vitality and vibrancy of character; no wonder that people would pay for their work.
We saw The Great Gatsby at the Gate Theatre last night. I'm not too sure what my feelings about it are. All of the seating was removed and 20's dress was encouraged. The audience were the invitees to one of Jay Gatsby's famous parties. Attendees might learn to dance the Charleston or follow various characters into backstage areas of the theatre to learn secrets. All of the main plot points occurred in the large main room, ensuring that every audience member viewed that much of the story, regardless of where else they wandered. However, I'm uncertain if the thread of events made any sense to anyone who hasn't read the book or seen the film. While people enjoyed it, it felt a bit like a costume party for those people who had read the book. Of course, there may not be very many people who aren't at least vaguely familiar with the story of The Great Gatsby. I did find the depiction of George Wilson to be far more sympathetic than I had ever found him to be in the book. His physically locking up his wife Myrtle is quickly skated over in this performance, and there's a good deal of focus on his motivations and his love for her. The scene in which he mourns his wife provides a direct contrast to Gatsby's death: while Myrtle's body and George's grieving is shown, Gatsby's corpse is not seen, and Nick Carraway recites a quote about how no one shows up to Gatsby's funeral.  Overall, the performance was a more multifaceted view of the world and the story of Jay Gatsby than the original text, which is filtered through Nick Carraway's perceptions.

Correspondances

This is a final project I did for one of my classes last term, an illustration of Charles Baudelaire's poem "Correspondances". (Click for an alternate viewing experience.)