Art History

We walked over to the Irish National Gallery for most of class. A good chunk of the gallery's funding still comes from the estate of George Bernard Shaw, so My Fair Lady is very popular with them.

We looked at an awful lot of portraits and landscapes, but nothing I got too excited about. The professor's comments about Georgian architecture are far more interesting so far. Next week, we're going to just wander around Dublin looking at architecture, so that should be fun, and perhaps even give me some good photographs.

An Introduction to Northern Irish Troubles

I'm having a hard time convincing myself not to do all the work for this class. It's extremely interesting, but since I'm auditing it, it's hard to justify writing lots of extra papers. It's especially interesting because the professor for this class sees things very differently than the professor for the next class.

Reporting Northern Ireland

We spent a lot of class talking about the day's news: the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland just released a huge report proving collusion between police and loyalists (the Protestants) during the Troubles. Effectively, the police ignored murders taking place, refused to investigate them, all sorts of things. Very scary stuff.

Creative Writing

In class yesterday, we got side tracked talking about County Cork, which often refers to itself as the Republic of Cork, and takes a very Boulder-ish approach to viewing their own autonomy. This, of course, all dates back to 1922, when Michael Collins signed a treaty with the British, effectively getting independence for 75% of Ireland. A bunch of rebels, based in Country Cork, felt this was selling out and started a civil war.

In other, more modern news, we each have to have a workshop. I volunteered to take the first workshop because I'm the only person with anything written at all (two pages of a very depressing short story). But I now have incentive to hurry up and finish it, because it has to be emailed out to the class on Monday.

Revolutionary Traditions

Despite this class being basically straight lectures, it's still amazing. The professor says things in the most amazing way.

So, they told the British parliament, "We have a very good argument. And, oh, an army."

Just thoroughly enjoyable.

This Weekend

I still haven't a clue what I'm doing for this weekend. I'd like to go somewhere, but at the same time there is a huge traditional music festival in Dublin. It caters to the tourists, but, I guess that's what I am.