Luck O’ The Irish
I’ve done my fair share of traveling in my life thus far. Being at Juniata has given me plenty of travel and study abroad opportunities that I would have never received at any other college. Aside from visiting the UK and Canada while in grade school, but through Juniata alone, I’ve been able to travel to China, Costa Rica, The Gambia, Hungary, Czech Republic, and study abroad in Belgium allowing me to travel all throughout Europe. (This highly benefits my degree in International Studies.) Many of these opportunities have been through the Juniata College concert choir, who travels internationally every year.
This past spring break, I had the opportunity to tour through Ireland with the choir, and out of all of the places I had visited previously, this experience was the most incredible and fulfilling. There wasn’t a single dull moment or any moment when I wanted to come home. I couldn’t wipe my smile off my face the entire week.
Our choir is very good, but out of my four years at Juniata, this is by far the best we have ever been. Our first night in Northern Ireland, we had a concert at the biggest Catholic church in Belfast, Clonard Monastery, and it was breathtaking to be able to sing in a space like that. For our closing song of our concert, one audience member filmed the song and shared it on Facebook with the Monastery. Last time I checked, the video had over 15,000 views. Pretty spectacular for a group from the boondocks in Pennsylvania with no one studying music for a future career.
The next several days blew by in a flash. I was fighting through sickness all week, but the fact that I was overwhelmed with excitement and enjoying every moment in Ireland allowed my body to sort of ignore my sickness temporarily. At the moment, that sickness has hit me like a bus full force now that I’m back in the states.
At our last concert, we performed in Gweedore county Donegal, an area in the Republic of Ireland that still speaks Gaeilge/Irish with each other over English. We performed with a local choir, and we learned some traditional Irish folk songs in Gaeilge. Turns out, this place we performed is the famous Irish pop singer (more commonly known for her vocals on the Lord of the Rings soundtrack) Enya’s home town. One of Enya’s sister’s was a part of the choir we performed with, and her other sister Moya, lead singer of a Clannad, a celtic rock group, and Grammy nominee invited us to perform for her personally at a local pup. From here, turns out a man at the pup that night hosts a radio show on Ireland’s national radio and invited us to record with the station. Monday morning, we all tuned in online and heard ourselves along with the rest of Ireland performing on the radio.
As some Irish would say, “this is mental.”
On top of it all is this one incredible moment that I had..
7 years ago, I met some people online (never met in person) and they become some of my closest friends that I had ever had. Truly best friends. They lived in Ireland, and in all of these years I had never met them in person. Our last night in Dublin, 7 years later, I was finally able to meet up with them in person, and it was unreal. We spent the entire evening together, barely even taking breaths in between sentences, and I found myself not even returning to my hotel until 3:30am. Since returning to the states, I have not stopped talking to my Irish friends (only to sleep.)
There are so many other moments that I could describe in detail, adding to why this was an incredible trip, but I could go on forever. I know in my heart that I belong in Ireland, and that I need to go back soon. I left part of my soul in those green fields, and I long to return.
