A Song for Ireland: Dublin on for VisionQUEST or Acceleration
As a VisionQUEST or Acceleration destination, Dublin has thrilled “generations” of Village and Catalyst students. Is the city worth your time?
(The short answer: yes, absolutely. Because flying there is simple from London or Paris on Ryan Air. And because flying from there to Barcelona or to Berlin is too.)
The juxtaposition that is Dublin–so modern and trendy and yet so charming and grounded; so quintessentially Irish and yet so different from Ireland; so urban and yet so cozy; so “in the streets and in the pubs” and yet so literary and culturally vigorous; so ancient and yet so new. The stirring lilt of Arcady’s version of The Rocks of Bawn is balanced by a cutting-edge contemporary music scene that variously boasts about and disdains Bono and the boys. It is often said that Dublin is haunted by its literary past and the fact that so much of that written genius was generated ABOUT Ireland while her writers (sons and daughters both) were AWAY from home. Maybe there are ghosts? It can feel that way, walking along the sacred ground around Trinity College. Or venturing out on a misty evening into the tiny warren of streets by the River Liffy, where the infamous Temple Bar neighborhood lies in wait like a Gaelic Bourbon Street, full of jaunty “trad” Irish music and raucous sing-alongs that seem to go all night long. The ghosts, if there are any, can feel most present late at night, at the apex of the Ha’penny, with the Guinness black water of the The Liffey rushing fast and cold underneath.
But what our Village students and faculty come back from Ireland to tell us in the most general sense is that the people they meet in Ireland are the real treasure of the island, whether in Dublin or somewhere rural, verdant and dramatic. The people who offer directions when we are lost, or the folks who “stand” a newcomer her first properly poured pint of Guinness: they seem to emerge with a friendly and helpful approach to any situation as though they’re being paid by the smile or the quip. A cab driver recently met one of our British Studies visitors whose last name’s Irishness was pretty total, simply by saying “welcome home then dear…has it been too long that you were away?”
Irish pubs and Irish traditional music are their own symbiosis, the one seeming to both beget and be preceded by the other. And yet to enter any Irish pub on a summer Sunday in time for the famed carvery (you won’t ever eat much better than you will on such late afternoons, and you won’t ever eat more food for less money) is to almost feel a pub-wide anticipation for the music that is coming. And sure enough, it does come, as folks begin to wander in with their instrument cases, settling gently into a special “snug” that’s been reserved for the players. Around 6 pm, with visitors and countrymen alike joined by children and a line of extra musicians eager to sit in if anyone leaves for a bathroom or bar break, the circle around the players tightens and the first reel is followed by the first jig and then the first “standard” gives way to a random U2 or Van Morrison cover.
Other plans you might have had for “later” are forgotten, as “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” strikes up to produce very few dry eyes in the room, after the house goes quiet at the insistence of the band’s senior player, who stands precariously on a table and leans out toward the bar…to tell everyone what happened to one young boy at Gallipoli in 1915. Your Sunday night in Dublin or Doolin or Galway just passed from great to epic without anybody much noticing.
Ireland: a place where even without an Irish surname, you’re never a stranger for long. In only a few days, Dublin or other amazing Irish locations will have you tenderly crooning your own version of “A Song for Ireland.”
