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