This program was developed as advanced level work with a balance of intensive, comprehensive reading and knowing works for performance by heart. The program included selected works of non-fiction, poetry, film, literature and music, and an introduction to the Gaelic language. The fall term was structured as follows: at the beginning of the program the students received a basic introduction to Ireland and to issues of orality and literacy. The class then spent several weeks on the culture of ancient Ireland, focusing on spirituality, bardic traditions, and gender issues. The second major segment dealt with the Christian and English presence in traditional Ireland, including a week on the Famine and the subsequent evictions and political unrest. The final three weeks of the program in the fall quarter dealt with the urbanized political chaos of early 20th century Dublin. In winter quarter the first segment of the program continued our work on early 20th century Ireland, followed by a segment on the Irish in America. The third segment of winter quarter examined the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland, and the final few weeks of the quarter dealt with the impact of the European Union and the contemporary cultural explosion taking place in the present, including the study of recent poetry by Irish authors. See spring quarter, below.
The program faculty were Sean Williams (ethnomusicology and Gaelic language), Patrick Hill (history, spirituality and philosophy), and Charles Teske (literature and linguistics). Lectures in fall quarter included such titles as “English and Irish Historiography of the Famine” (Hill), “Ancient Irish Music” (Williams), and “World Oral Narrative and Linguistic Ties” (Teske). In winter quarter, the faculty lectured on such topics as “Justice and Reconciliation” (Hill), “Irish-American Music” (Williams), and “Contemporary Irish Poetry” (Teske). Guest lecturer Simona Sharoni spoke about Northern Ireland as well.
Halfway through each quarter the students divided into teams to prepare for collaborative performances in the tenth week; it was the main expressive assignment of each quarter and required extensive creative work as the students developed performances reflecting important issues and themes from each quarter. The students also received a take-home examination in the latter half of each quarter requiring eleven typed pages of response on such problems as linking two or more concepts or names, contextualizing quotations from program materials, and answering essay questions. They worked collaboratively in small groups to integrate responses from a variety of program materials, then wrote their exams individually. At the end of winter quarter, the students were asked to create a poem focusing on themes brought up by the program materials, and to read that poem in seminar.
Each week featured two seminars: one on the book of the week (requiring a short written response), and one for the integration of the week’s work. Students created three substantial essays that were expected to be comprehensive, integrative, and personal about the three main periods of study each quarter. Program activities also included films, Gaelic lessons, poetry, music, and group discussion. All students maintained program portfolios containing notes of discussions, Gaelic language, films, poems, songs, and readings, all program materials, weekly papers, exams, integrative essays, and journal entries. Students were required to recite from memory a Gaelic poem (“Mise Rafteraí”) by Antony O’Rafteraí, and engage in Gaelic small talk for their final evaluations in fall quarter, and to recite a poem each by Seamus Heaney and Eavan Boland in winter.
The students used the following texts in fall quarter: Breandán Ó hEithir’s A Pocket History of Ireland, Charles Teske’s “Orality and Literacy,” “Notes on Poetry,” and “That Old Time Linguistics” articles, The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry, Kevin Collins’ The Cultural Conquest of Ireland, Thomas Kinsella’s translation of The Táin, Mary Condren’s The Serpent and the Goddess, Esther DeWaal’s Every Earthly Blessing, Thomas Gallagher’s Paddy’s Lament, Margaret Ward’s Unmanageable Revolutionaries, Seán O’Casey’s Three Plays, and James Joyce’s Dubliners. In winter quarter, they used James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Hasia Diner’s Erin’s Daughters in America, Noel Ignatiev’s How the Irish Became White, Padraig O’Malley’s Biting at the Grave, Richard Kearney’s Postnationalist Ireland, Seamus Heaney’s Selected Poems 1966-1987, and Eavan Boland’s An Origin Like Water.
Program films – discussed, and written about in papers and exams – included (in fall quarter) “The History of Ireland,” “Atlanteans,” “The Penal Days,” “The Curse of Cromwell,” “A Celtic Trilogy,” “St. Patrick: a Biography,” “A Guide to Celtic Monasteries,” “The Secret of Roan Inish,” “When Ireland Starved,” “Mother Ireland,” “Juno and the Paycock,” “The Informer,” and “The Dead.” In winter quarter, students viewed “The Field,” “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” “The Choice Not to Be Modern,” “The Treaty,” “The Molly Maguires,” “The Last Hurrah,” “Out of Ireland,” “Some Mother’s Son,” “Corrymeela,” “Understanding Northern Ireland,” “In the Name of the Father,” “Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?” “Sing the Dark Away,” “Into the West,” and “Riverdance – Live in New York.”Students also read, performed, or otherwise encountered plays such as “Molly Sweeney,” “Translations,” and “Philadelphia, Here I Come” (Brian Friel), “The Rising of the Moon” (Lady Gregory), and “The Famine” (Thomas Murphy).
And in spring:
This program was conceived as a continuation of the fall and winter “Awakening Ireland” program. Rather than concentrating primarily on studying about Ireland, however, the students went directly to Ireland to live, study, and build skills in language and culture. Program faculty members included Seán Williams, Patrick Hill, and Christopher Yates. Prior to their departure for Ireland, students were required to read and create written responses to two program texts: Occasions of Faith: an Anthropology of Catholic Ireland by Lawrence J. Taylor, and Father McDyer of Glencolumbkille: an Autobiography by Father James McDyer.
Students attended daily classes at Oideas Gael, an institute dedicated to the study and preservation of traditional language, arts, and crafts in Glencolumbkille, County Donegal. Every student participated in daily classes in the Gaelic language. The classes featured work on basic conversational skills, the use of possessives, prepositions, expression of likes and dislikes, and in-class improvised drills in Munster, Connemara, and Ulster dialects. Each student took four exams requiring translation from English into Gaelic; these exams focused on the students’ abilities in conjugating prepositions, sorting out difficult syntactical issues, and understanding the ways in which the Gaelic language reflects Gaelic ways of seeing the world.
The Gaelic class was one of two required credit-bearing activities; the other was the development of a significant integrative paper, in which each student was required to reflect on the experience of living in rural Ireland as the “practice” part of Evergreen’s blend of theory and practice. Beyond these two activities, students attended weekly seminars and engaged in close discussions with small groups.
The classes in the Glen were enriched by visiting lecturers (including theologian Mary Condren, singer/storyteller Gearoidín Breathnach, anthropologist Larry Taylor, poet Cathal O Searcaigh and ethnomusicologist Lillis O Laoire. Students also took field trips to Toraigh island, Sligo, the Strokestown Famine Museum, Derry, Letterkenny, and the Burren conference on ancient Irish law. In addition to the required classes, students were offered the choice of participating in a wide variety of classes (detailed below), led by program faculty and/or local artists, who evaluated each student’s performance. Student evaluations are, therefore, a compilation of multiple evaluations.