khassandraAre you a Joyce fan? How to travel to where it all began: Ireland!
June 8th 2007 20:17
I'm a huge fan of literature of all kinds, and one of my favorite authors is James Joyce. So, when reading Ulysses last summer I decided to take my reading a bit further with a travel component. If you have read any James Joyce, you know that homeland and exile is the major theme of all his work-- he was born and bred in Dublin, Ireland, but left as soon as he finished college and never returned. While Joyce was hot to leave Dublin as soon as he could, it was still apparently very close to his heart, because Dublin is the setting of or figures prominently into everything he wrote. Sometimes I tend to feel the same way about the American South-- I live here, but all I've ever really wanted to was leave, and still the things I write always seem to end up in the Bible Belt. Anyway, to me, it seemed like a complex relationship that could only be understood better through immersion. So I decided to go to Dublin, Trieste (Italy), and Zurich (Switzerland), the places where he spent the majority of his life. But what I want to talk about here is primarily my Irish destinations, because a friend at Oxford recently told me that she'd be traveling with her mom in Ireland, and I got really excited about it. 
Ireland is an awesome place-- if you've never traveled there, it's something you can't miss. Firstly, the Irish people are incredible. One of the things I had to read a lot of footnotes on in Ulysses was Irish nationalism (it was written when Ireland was in the process of becoming independent from Britian), and the spirit of being Irish is everwhere in Ireland today (though possibly a little less notably in Dublin, which has become an increasingly international city). As you leave the eastern part of the country and travel more towards the west, you can encounter towns where most of the people still speak primarily Gaelic, and throughout the country signs are written in both English and Gaelic (or just Gaelic), largely thanks to the language revivals of the early twentieth century. There are even language schools you can take part in in various places in western Ireland-- I found one in Dunquin (or Dun Chaoin depending on the spelling-- that's another thing. Towns, mountains, etc., often have multiple spellings). So this is a very cool cultural time in Ireland. There's also a lot of advocacy for Gaelic football (and attempts to make it more popular than English-brought football, or soccer as I call it
) and in general a lot of excitement about promoting Irish heritage and culture, especially as you move towards the western side of the island.
When I visited, I spent long enough in Dublin to get to wander around the city and see some of the famous sights from my James Joyces studies, other Irish authors like Oscar Wilde, and Irish history in general (schools, churches, the Joyce Center, Oscar Wilde's house, St. Stephen's Green, Phoenix Park) and to feel a little bit at home in the lively metropolitan atmosphere, and then I hopped a bus for Killarney, where national parks and natural beauty abound. It was really easy to arrange my trip-- the bus system is really easy to navigate, they have a good website, and you can buy tickets in advance online, at the terminal, or even when you get on the bus (provided that there's room), and they can take you pretty much anywhere you'd want to go. I specifically advocate going to Killarney and to the Dingle Peninsula and Blasket Island (once inhabited by farmers, but abandoned decades ago and now home to the wooliest sheep I've ever seen) because that's where I went, but when I go again I'd definitely like to head up the west coast a little farther and see the northern part of the island as well.
Ireland is an awesome place to meet some friendly strangers, have a pint of Guinness, watch a sporting event, take a hike, grab a bite to eat, and see some brightly colored houses and doors! And the great news is, if you want to make Ireland one stop on a larger European tour, Ireland is the home of RyanAir, a discount intracontinental European airline that will fly you to most places in Europe (sometimes for just cents before fees and taxes). RyanAir is absolutely brilliant, and while you'll have to doublecheck which airport you're flying into (often it's a lesser airport outside the major city center, but always with a bus or train connecting it to the city) and bring your own snacks (because they don't give you any peanuts or water on these ultra-budget flights) you can score some amazing deals this way.
So whether you're a fan of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, or any other Irish author (not Yeats, though-- he was Anglo-Irish and from Northern Ireland
), or not a fan of literature at all, you'll stand to benefit from the rich cultural and geographical landscape of Ireland, that other island nation. And if you ARE a James Joyce fan, hustle over for Bloomsday, June 16th! You still have time to enjoy the festivities and craziness! 
St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, Ireland
Ireland is an awesome place-- if you've never traveled there, it's something you can't miss. Firstly, the Irish people are incredible. One of the things I had to read a lot of footnotes on in Ulysses was Irish nationalism (it was written when Ireland was in the process of becoming independent from Britian), and the spirit of being Irish is everwhere in Ireland today (though possibly a little less notably in Dublin, which has become an increasingly international city). As you leave the eastern part of the country and travel more towards the west, you can encounter towns where most of the people still speak primarily Gaelic, and throughout the country signs are written in both English and Gaelic (or just Gaelic), largely thanks to the language revivals of the early twentieth century. There are even language schools you can take part in in various places in western Ireland-- I found one in Dunquin (or Dun Chaoin depending on the spelling-- that's another thing. Towns, mountains, etc., often have multiple spellings). So this is a very cool cultural time in Ireland. There's also a lot of advocacy for Gaelic football (and attempts to make it more popular than English-brought football, or soccer as I call it
) and in general a lot of excitement about promoting Irish heritage and culture, especially as you move towards the western side of the island.When I visited, I spent long enough in Dublin to get to wander around the city and see some of the famous sights from my James Joyces studies, other Irish authors like Oscar Wilde, and Irish history in general (schools, churches, the Joyce Center, Oscar Wilde's house, St. Stephen's Green, Phoenix Park) and to feel a little bit at home in the lively metropolitan atmosphere, and then I hopped a bus for Killarney, where national parks and natural beauty abound. It was really easy to arrange my trip-- the bus system is really easy to navigate, they have a good website, and you can buy tickets in advance online, at the terminal, or even when you get on the bus (provided that there's room), and they can take you pretty much anywhere you'd want to go. I specifically advocate going to Killarney and to the Dingle Peninsula and Blasket Island (once inhabited by farmers, but abandoned decades ago and now home to the wooliest sheep I've ever seen) because that's where I went, but when I go again I'd definitely like to head up the west coast a little farther and see the northern part of the island as well.
Blasket Island, Ireland
Ireland is an awesome place to meet some friendly strangers, have a pint of Guinness, watch a sporting event, take a hike, grab a bite to eat, and see some brightly colored houses and doors!
And the great news is, if you want to make Ireland one stop on a larger European tour, Ireland is the home of RyanAir, a discount intracontinental European airline that will fly you to most places in Europe (sometimes for just cents before fees and taxes). RyanAir is absolutely brilliant, and while you'll have to doublecheck which airport you're flying into (often it's a lesser airport outside the major city center, but always with a bus or train connecting it to the city) and bring your own snacks (because they don't give you any peanuts or water on these ultra-budget flights) you can score some amazing deals this way.
Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
So whether you're a fan of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, or any other Irish author (not Yeats, though-- he was Anglo-Irish and from Northern Ireland
), or not a fan of literature at all, you'll stand to benefit from the rich cultural and geographical landscape of Ireland, that other island nation. And if you ARE a James Joyce fan, hustle over for Bloomsday, June 16th! You still have time to enjoy the festivities and craziness! | 51 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
Comment by David
I'll look forward to reading your Bloomsday Post. (Watch out for Guiness-induced typos and spelling mistakes).
David ...
Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
Health Focus
Poetry Lighthouse
MS Paint Art
I guess a visit to Ireland really brings your reading alive for you.
I'm ,in part, of Irish origins [can't you tell?] and I just loved your post and your pictures, it makes me really want to go.
katyzzz
Comment by David
katyzzz is here.
What a surprise.
Wow.