The Dew Drop Inn… ah, the memories! It’s the namesake of this pub in Galway (the brightly colored building to the left). My grandfather (Layton McCarthy Massie) worked with the real Pa Walton once once a time, in Virginia. If you watched the show, you’ll recall Pa had to travel to find work a few times. It was one of those times. The family (upon which the TV series was based) lived in Skylar, Virginia, whereas my grandpa lived closer to the West Virginia line.
I had a ball in Galway this weekend, visiting Amanda Bernhard and her husband Jonathan Kennedy. Here’s a glimpse of some of the things we did.
We attended the Fulbright Association’s Thanksgiving Banquet on Friday and the Irish Music Club’s singing event on Saturday.
Shannon Jonathan and Amanda
Christmas decorations in Galway. And yes, they celebrate *Christmas* here.
Sunset over Galway.
We visited the gothic St. Nicholas church in Galway. It’s been added to many times. And I was able to guess the complex sequence properly — yeah!!!!!
A “new” ceiling over the unusually long south transept at St. Nicholas.
Dining at Kai with Jonathan and Amanda.
Very cool space inside Kai.
Hanging out at Kai with Amanda.
Making sure Jonathan’s uilleann pipes fit in a Ryanair-compliant carryon.
A charging station for electric cars on the campus of Galway University.
The beautiful banquet hall at the University of Galway. The university’s president attended and welcomed us all. Here’s a photo of Jimmy O’Brien Moran playing Jonathan Kennedy’s uilleann pipes. What a treat! Jimmy is a former Fulbright who I got to hear sing at a Fulbright reunion held in Dublin earlier this fall.
Thanksgiving dinner at the University of Galway.
Thrilled to be part of the Fulbright community here in Ireland, I accepted the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner in Galway and hopped on a train headed west. I saw the event as a chance to see Amanda Bernhard and Jonathan Kennedy (who are studying at the University of Galway) and reunite with the always-interesting Fulbright community.
Shannon Chance, Anne Weadick, Roisin Tiernan, Amanda Kelly, John Madden, and Anne Madden at dinner. Photo by Felix O Murchadha.
The banquet hall at the University is a truly amazing space! The event felt a bit like being in the movies.
Dinner was delicious: ham and turkey with dressing, root vegetables, potato au gratin, cranberry sauce, and pecan pie! A real American feast.
At the end of the meal Amanda and Jonathan played a piece, their Irish teacher and mentor sang a song in Irish, and Jimmy O’Brien Moran gave us a tune using Jon’s uilleann pipes. It’s amazing the talent these Fulbright have!
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Jonathan Kennedy and Amanda Bernhard played some Irish music after dinner. Lillis Ó Laoire sang and Jimmy O’Brien Moran played pipes as well.
At the end of the meal Amanda and Jonathan played a piece, Lillis Ó Laoire (their Irish teacher and mentor sang a song in Irish), and Jimmy O’Brien Moran gave us a tune using Jon’s uilleann pipes. It’s amazing the talent these Fulbright have!
I’ve heard people muse that perhaps Ireland should become the 51st State. Although Puerto Rico has beaten Ireland to the punch in requesting that position, I sometimes feel that Irish values are so close to our own that perhaps they effectively did become a state some time ago. Perhaps they actually came in about 35th?
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We headed to the Scholars Rest for pints after dinner. Of course!
I’m not wild about spending months apart from Dave, but there are so many fun ways to communicate theses days using the web. They make it much more bearable than the year I spent working in Switzerland (1997) without him.
I thought I’d share some fun things Dave sent me this past week:
A photo from our March 2012 day-trip out of Dublin to see Malahide Castle (top). It was, unfortunately, closed at the time. Wish we’d have had a closer view of the castle (below the castle).
Dave also sent this pattern he found:
May 7, 1920 birthday of the Uncle who Dave’s Dad was named after
May 7, 1945 date of German surrender WWII
May 7, 2012 date of Dave’s Dad’s death
In another email:
“Imagine my surprise…
davechance.com is a ‘premium’ domain name.
currently for sale for $1200….”
Yikes! Guess that’s what happens when you have a “web presence.” Companies buy your name hoping you’ll buy it back.
Máirtín sent me some updates to our conversation today, after reading the blog. This is the kind of conversation and cultural exchange that I think the Fulbright program is all about. These are Máirtín’s words:
Order here: Bungalow Bliss. Mairtin downloaded this image from Flicker.
Diane Hamilton (Guggenheim) was the wealthy American that brought Liam Clancy to America, who later appeared on a 20 minute slot on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1961. They achieved fame as ‘The Clancy Brother’s & Tommy Makem’.
It wasn’t just womens’ names, the tradition was that the first child would be called after the mother’s people, giving us names like Bradley, Harrison, Stewart, Rawson, Carroll, and so on and so forth as first names.
This tradition comes from the Ulster Presbyterians, or now Ulster Scots, from the North. There is an Ulster Scots Heritage Park between Strabane and Omagh in Co. Tyrone. In an intersting link to the Blue Ridge Mountains many of the Ulster Scots had the first name ‘William’ after William of Orange, William the Third of Great Britain, victor of the Balltle of the Boyne. So many of them lived in the mountains this is believed to be the origin of the term ‘Hill Billies’.
This is the Book, believed to have brought more shame to Ireland than @Ulysses’.
Bungalow is a Hindi word. In my opinion is that the Irish bungalow is a vernacular version of the traditional cottage. When John Ford made ‘The Quiet Man’ in the west in 1951 he was looking for a perfect Traditional thatched cottage to act as John Wayne’s character’s house ‘White O’Morn’. They found one near Maam Cross. When they were finished, they paid the owner a wedge of money, who used it to build a new house, and demolished the original. What is left has been pilfered by souvenir hunters.
Mairtin sent this image of Dan O Herlihy. IMBD says “Dan O‘Herlihy, Actor: RoboCop. Irish-born Dan O‘Herlihy decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps, forsaking the life of an architect in favour of the acting.”
I also meant to say that another famous (kind of) architect who became an actor was Dan O Herlihy, from Wexford, who qualified as an architect from UCD and went to Hollywood to become an actor. His most famous role is probably ‘The Old Man’ the head of the evil OCP Coproration in ‘RoboCop’ (1987). I hope you’ve seen it, if not I can lend it to you; a biting satire of Reagan era economics.
He is the father of Lorcan O Herlihy, a well known Los Angeles based architect.
The Director of ‘What Richard Did’ is Lenny Abrahamson, who also directed ‘Adam & Paul’ and ‘Garage’. Very good, but not ‘Feel Good’. Don’t watch on a Sunday night when you have the fears……
Shannon and Dave–hot in the pursuit of abandoned castles. We stopped to admire Grennan Castle from a far.
We didn’t get inside Grennan Castle, but did catch a glimpse on one of our castle-hutting-near-Killkenny days. This castle was constructed in the year 1210.
“Grennan Castle measures 20 metres x 13 metres and stands 20 metres tall, the walls at their base are 2.5 metres thick. The ground floor contains three barrel vaulted chambers with an entrance to the second floor on the south side by a staircase built hidden into the thickness of the wall. At the top of the staircase is just a gaping opening down to the floor below. This opening was originally covered by a trapdoor, hence with the trapdoor raised the castle was almost impenetrable.”
Abandoned Ireland also notes that “In 1650 Cromwell’s troops called to the castle. The siege lasted only two days, the garrison marched out leaving all their weapons behind them and promised to never again oppose English rule.” It wraps up by stating, “Grennan Castle survived in good repair until the early 1800s.”
You can click on this image to see a larger version.
You can click on this image to see a larger version.
2012 Irish Fulbrighters visiting Trim Castle. (All orientation photos by Dave Chance.)
Fulbright Ireland welcomed us to to the country with Irish warmth and hospitality.
Although I haven’t sorted through my own photos from the September 6-7, 2012 orientation that Fulbright Ireland hosted, Dave edited his long ago. Some of them are here for you to see.
Hamming it up on top of Trim Castle, with Joanne Davidson, my guardian angel.
During the orientation, we spent a day visiting the Hill of Tara and Trim Castle. We also had a day of informational sessions including sessions on culture and language.
The Fulbright Commission in Ireland is very family-friendly. You’ll see we all have family member with us. For instance, Dave (my husband) and Heather (my sister) came along for the Friday festivities.
I’ll also take this opportunity to introduce you to Joanne Davidson–one of my guardian angles from the Irish Fulbright Commission. Colleen Dube, another angel and the Head of Fulbright Ireland, is pictured in the photo gallery (walking with Jonathan Kennedy, who you’ve seen playing elbow pipes at the Cobblestone Pub).
Fulbrighters: if you want to download high-resolution copies of these and other images that Dave took, please email me and I’ll give you access to the Dropbox folder where we keep them.
Hamming it up on top of Trim Castle, with Joanne Davidson, my guardian angel.
Kilkenny Castle’s lawn was full of crafts people last weekend. They demonstrated traditional building methods for visitors to see. I’ve included photos of a man operating a pole lathe and one of a man who thatches roofs.
When visiting County Kilkenny, Dave and I got to visit castles built in a couple of different styles. We did this with the help of the Office of Public Works (OPW) branch located in the industrial park outside Kilkenny.
Just before we arrived at Burnchurch Castle, Dave had set me up for free iMessaging (iPhone texting) to his sister-in-law, Lucy. When she texted me a video of the kids chanting “Hi, Aunt Shannon!”, it finally dawned on me that I could easily share moving images with my friends and family back home.
As Dave and I explored the castle, I sent video clips back to the States and got immediate reactions from my beloved ones.
Both the castle and the family pow-wow were amazing.
“Many tower houses have an abundance of mural chambers and passages hidden away within their walls, though few have the number and complexity of those found in the early 16th-century castle of the Burncourt FitzGeralds,” explains Ireland’s Eye. “This well-preserved tower house, occupied until 1817, has four storeys beneath a vault with the principal chamber above, lying just below a gabled roof.”
Ireland’s Eye continues, “Apart from its mullioned windows, this chamber is noteworthy for its finely carved chimney-piece; it has a tall, round chimney, while the roof’s gable walls have been extended so that both ends of the tower are carried up an extra stage to provide high battlemented fighting platforms.”
“A great hall was formerly attached to the tower’s outside wall, but this has now vanished, as has most of the bawn. A curved outside staircase still provides access to the three upper floors of this little tower.”
“There is precious little material available about this pretty well preserved Irish tower. It was built sometime in the fifteenth century by the FitzGeralds of Burnchurch in County Kilkenny. It is known for being one of several Irish towers with the slightly narrower sides of the castle extending up an additional floor, creating in essense a pair of tower wide turrets.”
“This furnishes a natural gable at both ends of the roof as well as an additional defensive level of battlements. There are numerous narrow rooms in the walls, including a ‘secret room’ on the fourth floor. The rounded chimney may be a later improvement [that on the model is square], and the fireplace in the 5th floor Hall sports a ‘joggle voussoir arch’, whatever that is.”
“The castle originally had a bawn with a 41 foot tall tower at one corner. Though the old drawing, date unknown, shows remnants of buildings, only the round tower [see both below] appears to be standing in pictures I found on the internet and in a library book. Burnchurch was apparently last occupied in 1817, but it can be explored.”
At the end of the day, Dave and I celebrated with a trip to Kyteler’s Pub (establish 1324). Dave tortured Lucy (who was visiting his Mom at the time) by texting her this catchy little video.
I’m posting a few photos my husband Dave Chance took the night Amanda Bernhard and her husband Jonathan Kennedy played at the Cobblestone Pub. We’d met them at the Fulbright Orientation weekend, and invited them to stay over at our place so they’d have the chance to visit the Pub.
Both Jonathan and Amanda play uilleann pipes. Amanda also plays fiddle.
Amanda is the Irish language Fulbright to Ireland this year. They are both studying Irish–at the Master’s degree level–at the a university in Galway. Amanda has been blogging about their adventures. You might want to visit her site to learn about on the other coast of Ireland, where many people still speak Irish day to day.
Jonathan is shown here playing uilleann pipes. Amanda plays the uilleann pipes as well as the fiddle. (Copyright Dave Chance Photography, 2012.)
Amanda Bernhard playing fiddle at the Cobblestone Pub. (Copyright Dave Chance Photography, 2012.)
Amanda Bernhard and Jonathan Kennedy playing at the Cobblestone in September 2012. (Copyright Dave Chance Photography, 2012.)
Ireland by Chance 