We have some distant relatives in Cork and Dingle, I've been dreaming about going back for a visit. Loved reading this and living vicariously through you! And I bet even without getting any questions, your talk (great title btw) planted more than a few seeds.
The feeling of being on the edge of the world in Ireland is so potent! I felt that exactly when I visited the cliffs of moher and the Aran islands. Your reflections on traveling and connecting with people, tracing histories remind me of Rebecca Solnit’s The Book of Migrations, about her travels through Ireland woven with reflections on Ireland’s history and her own ancestral history/memory
I would love to experience the Cliffs of Moher too, I can imagine it would be just as powerful. <3 And thank you for the Rebecca Solnit rec, I pretty much always love her work, but I didn't know about this book!
As someone who also almost always loves her writing, I was surprised that it took me until within the last year to come across that book (it came out in 1997 from verso!)
My parents were born and raised in Belfast, where all of their siblings still live. I spent big chunks of my summers there as a kid in the 1980s into the early 90s. I always enjoyed it, but the Ireland of my memories is urban Belfast filled with tension and anger and routine patrols by British troops decked out for battle, flanking armored carriers and stomping right through our football games on my cousin’s street off the Falls. An added curveball: my mom is Protestant, so there was always a transfer midway through the trip where I’d be passed on to my aunt and live in a completely different Belfast out of the crosshairs of soldiers.
That must've been so intense, Mike. I want to explore northern Ireland next time for sure. I have an even more complicated/evolving relationship to that history because I was *really* celebratory of the IRA (and still am to some extent) through Leftist spaces, but then had more conversations with people who lived through the Troubles and I realized it was pretty disrespectful to flatten the era as entirely black and white. Always yes to resisting colonial forces, and also, what a tough thing for people to live through. Thanks for sharing, would love to hear more sometime!
what stunning photos despite their inability to capture all you experienced— the food also sounds so good too. the serendipity and intermingling grief and transformation of that story gave me chills. thanks for sharing.💚
We have some distant relatives in Cork and Dingle, I've been dreaming about going back for a visit. Loved reading this and living vicariously through you! And I bet even without getting any questions, your talk (great title btw) planted more than a few seeds.
I want to explore the whole country now. I hope you can get back there sometime! And thank you, I am okay with planting seeds :)
There’s a museum called Strokestown House that I highly recommend in Roscommon
Also reading about the famine is something to recommend although it is heart wrenching.
I am from Galway and the edge of the world feeling is definitely very powerful in Kerry, especially the dingle peninsula
I hope to go there sometime too! Thank you.
The feeling of being on the edge of the world in Ireland is so potent! I felt that exactly when I visited the cliffs of moher and the Aran islands. Your reflections on traveling and connecting with people, tracing histories remind me of Rebecca Solnit’s The Book of Migrations, about her travels through Ireland woven with reflections on Ireland’s history and her own ancestral history/memory
I would love to experience the Cliffs of Moher too, I can imagine it would be just as powerful. <3 And thank you for the Rebecca Solnit rec, I pretty much always love her work, but I didn't know about this book!
As someone who also almost always loves her writing, I was surprised that it took me until within the last year to come across that book (it came out in 1997 from verso!)
My parents were born and raised in Belfast, where all of their siblings still live. I spent big chunks of my summers there as a kid in the 1980s into the early 90s. I always enjoyed it, but the Ireland of my memories is urban Belfast filled with tension and anger and routine patrols by British troops decked out for battle, flanking armored carriers and stomping right through our football games on my cousin’s street off the Falls. An added curveball: my mom is Protestant, so there was always a transfer midway through the trip where I’d be passed on to my aunt and live in a completely different Belfast out of the crosshairs of soldiers.
That must've been so intense, Mike. I want to explore northern Ireland next time for sure. I have an even more complicated/evolving relationship to that history because I was *really* celebratory of the IRA (and still am to some extent) through Leftist spaces, but then had more conversations with people who lived through the Troubles and I realized it was pretty disrespectful to flatten the era as entirely black and white. Always yes to resisting colonial forces, and also, what a tough thing for people to live through. Thanks for sharing, would love to hear more sometime!
what stunning photos despite their inability to capture all you experienced— the food also sounds so good too. the serendipity and intermingling grief and transformation of that story gave me chills. thanks for sharing.💚