Kilmainham Gaol

Last Saturday, I went out to Kilmainham Jail (or Gaol, as they spell it here), which is in the south part of Dublin. It hasn't been used as a prison since 1924, when Eamon de Valera was released from it after the Civil War, and it has been converted into an excellent museum. The guided tour was led by - I hate to say this - the first truly attractive Irishman I have seen since I got here. That's not entirely fair, because there are a lot of non-Irish people in Dublin and I haven't really met many Irishmen, but, well, it's the truth. James, however, was very cute. Maybe I just liked his extensive knowledge of Irish revolutionary history and the paperback book sticking out of his corduroy jacket pocket.

Back on point, though: the tour was great, and we saw the cells where important figures in the Irish revolution were held, and the yard where 14 of the participants in the Easter Rising were executed (pictured above). We heard about Joseph Connolly, who was wounded and so ill with gangrene that the British soldiers had to tie him to a chair for him to face the firing squad, and Joseph Mary Plunkett, who married his pregnant fiancee in the prison chapel the night before his execution; the soldiers allowed them to say no more than their vows to each other. We also heard about the history of criminal justice in Ireland, and heard about how the prisons became overcrowded during the famine, when prostitution and vagrancy were common and cracked down on. So, that was fascinating.

Kenneth Foster

I am sure you are all aware of how very strongly I oppose the death penalty, but no matter what you think about the policy, I'm sure you'd agree that Kenneth Foster should not be put to death. According to Texas law, it is possible to receive the death penalty if you are involved in a crime during which a murder was committed. No one seems to dispute the facts that Kenneth Foster (a black man) was 80 feet away in his car when Michael LaHood (a white man) was shot, and that Foster was not aware that a murder was going to take place. Yet he is scheduled to be executed for LaHood's murder on August 15. This can't be right.

If you have a minute, click on this link and send a message to Gov. Rick Perry to stay Foster's execution: http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=12296.

For more information, check out: http://www.ncadp.org.

In related news, The Nation has an excellent story about the American criminal justice system: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/lazare. Just in case anybody's interested.

Ok, thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Back to work.

The rest of my weekend

On Sunday, it rained really hard, so Emily and I had a pretty lazy day. We walked along the beach and had a long lunch and went to the movies; it was great. On Monday morning, I took the bus back to Dublin and met up with my Uncle Bill and Aunt Ellen, who were visiting from Virginia. I hadn't seen them in probably five years; I hardly ever get back to Appomattox any more. It was wonderful to visit with them, and I spent almost all day with them. We walked around Temple Bar and went to the General Post Office to inspect the bullet holes from the Easter Rising, and had an early dinner. Then we went to see a play at the Gate Theatre; it was Noel Coward's Private Lives, and I had seen it before, but it's so funny I really enjoyed watching it again.

And now I'm back to work! I just booked my ticket to London at the end of the month, and my tickets to and from Budapest, so I am all set. It is a beautiful sunny day, and I wish I were not sitting in my office! I think I'll go take a walk for the rest of my lunch break.

Galway

I left work early on Friday and took the bus from Busaras Station to Galway. On the bus ride I saw: old ruined houses with trees growing inside them and green branches poking out through the windows and where the roofs used to be; two horses playing in a field overgrown by wildflowers and surrounded by a short stone fence; a lake whose rough waters lapped against the edge of the highway. The road split at one point around a diamond of grass where a flock of sheep were grazing and I wondered how they got there. I imagined their shepherd guiding them across while cars zoomed by (the Irish are terrible jaywalkers). Our route bisected the island, even making a pit stop in Athlone, which is practically at the center of the country.

Emily met me at the station, and we went out for fish and chips at a place Yvonne (from FLAC) recommended. The day had been beautiful, but we got caught in a storm on the way back to her house and were completely drenched (I took a picture of the two of us soaking wet, which is at the top).

Emily already had plans for Saturday (and who could blame her? I did invite myself on very short notice), and I wanted to explore the Burren, so when I read that it is difficult to get around out there without a car, I booked myself a place on a tour bus departing from in front of one of the youth hostels. I was ambivalent about joining a tour, and even as I was pedaling into town on Emily's bike this morning, I still wasn't sure whether I wanted to go. I got into town and locked up the bike a half hour early, and decided to pop into Charlie Byrne's Bookstore, which has to be the best used bookstore in Ireland, evidenced by the fact that I immediately stumbled upon Fabled Shore, Rose Macaulay's only travel book, which I have been searching for for at least two years (I know I said I wouldn't buy any more books, but out-of-print volumes by my favorite authors are always fair game). I had just enough time to make it to my tour if I headed straight there, but I walked slowly, the long way around, telling myself that if they left without me I would get a copy of the Guardian and plant myself in a cafe and read the book review over a cup of coffee, which is what I really had a hankering to do. I got there ten minutes late, but the bus still sitting there (of course it was! this is Ireland - nothing happens on time!), so I paid for my ticket and boarded.

The Burren is a sparsely populated region of Co. Clare known for its limestone-covered fields and spectacular cliffs, and I am glad I took the tour as I never would have gotten to see as much as I did if I had tried to get around by myself using public transport. But you have to admit, there's something depressing about going on a bus tour, lethargically disembarking from the bus to swarm among the hoards of tourists and dutifully snap a few pictures before being herded back aboard. I longed to wander off and get lost on a rocky hilltop and listen to the bleats of the sheep and the roaring of the ocean.

We stopped in Doolin for lunch, which is a charming little town (barely a town, really, more like a street), and I finally got my cup of coffee at a cafe devoted to traditional Irish music (apparently the westernmost cafe of its kind in Europe, it bills itself as "The Last Music Cafe Until America"). We departed from there to Cliffs of Moher (the second picture from the bottom), which can only be (and are almost always) described as "spectacular." We were lucky that it was such a clear day, for we could see all the way out to the Aran Islands and had a clear view of all 5 km of cliffs on either side of where we were standing. We had an hour to explore, and I walked out to the furthest point and stood watching the water crash against the rock formations.

From the Cliffs we drove through Kilfenora (setting of Paul Durcan's famous poem "The Kilfenora Teaboy" and a charming village I'd like to go back and explore) and Lisdoonvarna, site of Ireland's biggest annual singles' event. Every year in the olden days, apparently the farmers would come down from their hills to look for a wife, and if they were unsuccessful after a month, they would return to their farms and wait until the next year (how very Seven Brides for Seven Brothers!). So, the tradition has continued and every September singletons flock there from all over the world to consult the local matchmaker and look for love. Maybe I should make another trip out there next month. :)

Our next stop was an ancient burial site. You almost wouldn't notice it because the hills are so rocky, but it's a table-top "dolmen" (the last picture above.) They recently excavated it, and found 16 adults and 6 children, carbon-dated at 5000 years old (if I remember correctly - I should have taken notes). From there, we went on to the Ailwee Caves, and got to see what was beneath the limestone hills. It was a pretty amazing site.

New job

Well, I started my new job on Wednesday, at the Northside Community Law Centre. I am really excited about it: I am going to be updating their social welfare case database and actually drafting legal arguments on some current cases! They are keeping me busy, so if I haven't been as good about answering my emails, etc, that's why. My co-workers at FLAC organized a meeting to talk about my research, took me out to lunch, and all signed a card for me on my last day, which was very sweet. I am going to miss them.

Last night, Aoife, Olivia, and I went out on the town. (The picture above is of Aoife and me.) We went back to the Market Bar, which is where I went with my co-workers on Grainne's last day, and ate a lot of tapas and drank a lot of wine, and had a wonderful time.

This weekend is a three-day, so I am going to Galway to visit Emily Jarvis. I hope to go out exploring the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher tomorrow, and then we're going to Connemara on Sunday if all goes according to plan. I am leaving behind the book on Yugoslavia that I haven't been able to put down this week, and taking Rebecca Solnit's "Book of Migrations" on the bus with me, which is about her journey through western Ireland, so that should get me in the mood. I am looking forward to seeing Emily and being out of the city. I promise to take lots of pictures!