Spring Term in Ireland, 2007

 

This coming spring term, Professor Marc Conner of the English Department will lead a six-week semester abroad to Ireland.  We will spend the first four weeks in the storied and lovely southwest of Ireland, based in Tralee, County Kerry.  From this base we will visit such sites as the Dingle Peninsula, the Blasket Islands (famous for the great Blasket storytellers of the early 20th century), the Ring of Kerry (Ireland’s majestic and gorgeous 110-mile coastal and mountain road), the medieval towns and ruins of Cashel, Killarney, and Cahir, and the golden plain of Tipperary.  We will also visit and study Irish ruins including pre-Christian sites from Celtic antiquity, and medieval monasteries, priories, abbeys, and castles.  We will travel through the western part of Ireland, beginning in Galway and the Aran Islands (still home to a fishing and agricultural people who live essentially a medieval lifestyle), taking in the famous Tower of the great poet W.B. Yeats, as well as countless prehistoric and Celtic religious and burial sites.  The final two weeks we will spend in Dublin, Ireland’s capital city, touring some of the most famous sites, museums, and monuments in all of Europe, including St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Trinity College, the Boyne River Valley, the General Post Office (site of the doomed Irish uprising of Easter, 1916), prehistoric sites in and near Dublin, the great River Liffey, St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, and of course the famed Dublin Literary Pub Crawl.

 

Students read a wide range of Irish literature, including medieval and modern Irish poetry, works of fairy-tale, folk-tale, and mythology, the poetry of Yeats, Kavanagh, and Heaney, Synge’s The Aran Islands, the Blasket storytellers, Joyce’s Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and several plays that we will also see performed in Dublin and regional theaters.  We will also devote three weeks to the introductory study of the Irish language and Irish mythology.  Students will be housed in a combination of dormitory rooms or apartments in Tralee, bed-and-breakfasts during our week of travel, and hostels/apartments during the two weeks in Dublin.  Credits will be 6 credits at the 300 level in English, and also 1 credit for a pass-fail winter term orientation and introduction course.  Suggested, but not necessarily required, pre-requisites are at least six credits in English at the 200 level or above, and junior standing, or permission of the instructor.  Interested students should contact Marc Conner, Department of English, x8924 (connerm@wlu.edu).  For more details, including course descriptions, itineraries, and links, as well as an informative Travel Log detailing prior Spring trips to Ireland (in 2000, 2002, & 2005), view the Spring Term in Ireland web site at:  http://ireland.wlu.edu. 

 

SPRING TERM IN IRELAND 2007 DATES AND GENERAL ITINERARY:

·        Sunday, April 22nd:  arrive in Shannon Airport, Ireland

·        April 23-May 19th:  based in Tralee, Co. Kerry, working with the Irish College for the Humanities

·        May 20th:  travel to Dublin

·        May 20-June 1:  based in Dublin, working with USIT

  • Saturday, June 2nd: depart from Dublin