Kilmainham Gaol (Jail)

The damp seeps into your lungs, into your bones, and creeps slowly into your mind. The light from a nearby window provides the only illumination. The musty smell of weather-worn limestone tempts your lungs to restrict or be subject to the heavy air and moldy breath of the Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, Ireland.

I listen as the tour guide explains the situation for the unfortunate denizens of this Victorian age jail. The thinking of the day regarded sin as sin and crime as crime so that a boy of 7 served a term with 'equal' treatment for riding a bus without a ticket alongside other more sinister criminals. Additionally, the three S's were developed as a formula for reforming criminals into law-abiding, God-fearing citizens. Solitude. Silence. Surveillance. These three factors guaranteed that in every moment of every day, each prisoner (men, women, children) was under the never-sleeping 'eye' of the guards, required to remain perfectly silent, and work, sleep, pray and eat in specially constructed isolation boxes or by the use of specially designed hats to discourage wandering eyes.

Until, of course, the jail became full and they had to put 5 men to a one-man room. The rooms are empty, save a bucket which is used for obvious reasons but then dumped and re-used for the less obvious reason of carrying food for the prisoners back to the cell. The reality of the circumstance hits home as I imagine how the prisoners had to lie on the cold limestone floor in the dead of an Irish winter for a night's rest and wake up to the dismal walls and the ever-watchful eye of the guards. How resilient is humankind? How is such misery tolerated?

Famous for housing the Irish Republican prisoners of the Easter rising, this jail is also credited by many as the birthplace of the Republic of Ireland. A few men and women in the early 20th century felt that Ireland should be free of British rule altogether and not merely given autonomy. They were not terribly popular in Dublin. They staged a week-long assault in Dublin, called the Easter Rising, read the newly drafted Irish constitution, and made a plea to the Irish people to join the cause. They were subsequently overtaken by the British forces, sentenced to Kilmainham until their execution for high treason.


14 of them were executed by firing squad in the stone-yard of Kilmainham. Well-known Irish heros such as James Connolly, Patrick Pearse, Joseph Plunkett, Thomas Clarke, and others. Connolly, unable to walk due to an infected injury, was brought to the yard by ambulance, tied to a chair and shot. The crosses in these yards mark the spots where they fell. After word got out about their executions, the public opinion turned in their favor and the Irish Republican movement caught fire. Eventually, the Anglo-Irish agreement was signed, giving 26 out of 32 (yep, the 6 counties not included are now Northern Ireland) relative freedom. The movement split...did they die for partial freedom and a partial Ireland? But did so many more have to die-- and could not a solution be eventually found through peace? So went the arguments.

The 26 counties did become what they are today through relatively peaceful and political means. The debates continue about what kind of Ireland the visionaries fought for, through violent or nonviolent means, as it is important that both were always present. Some of the men condemned to die for their part in the Easter Rising were pardoned and freed. Men like De Valera famously continued on in politics.

In an interview with a less well-known Irish Republican, the reporter asked, "What did you feel after you were pardoned and freed?" He responded, "Somewhat disappointed. I know that may sound strange, but I was never more prepared to meet my Maker as I was then." I was not expecting that but after thinking about it, I suppose it makes sense. Those who participated in the Easter Rising knew and fully believed that they would either die on that day or be executed shortly after. They were committed to die for the cause and to live to see it continue? Well, that was not expected either.

As for the jail, it was closed down in 1924 and left for ruin. Some of the former prisoners organized a restoration society and preserved it as an important site for Ireland for generations to come. You may recognize the jail, as it has been used in several movies, including In the Name of Our Father starring Daniel Day Lewis. I recommend that you see the film, but also drop by the dreary Kilmainham Gaol if you ever find yourself in Dublin.

Engaging

I took the train out of Derry for the first time today. It was a really lovely one-hour jaunt up to the North Coast to attend a seminar in Coleraine on 'Globalising Higher Education.' The first part of the formal conference was a seminar on Universities 'engaging' (one of the infamous education buzz words) with students and the community. Before the formal bit started we all had lunch together, which was grand. I noticed all our tendencies to do the thing that academics and professionals do at conferences. So what it is that you do? What are you researching? Oh very interesting. And it is interesting. The room was full of highly educated and successful people completing PhD's, advocating for progressive higher education policy, and producing reports on groundbreaking research projects.

Still, I felt the need to initiate normal speak and started asking the woman beside me about her brothers and sisters in Uganda. She has 10 of them. 2 of them are Catholic priests and all 5 of her sisters (6 including herself) are teachers. Her father is pushing 80 and she mentions her mother passed away at 50, and she says with a smile of acceptance that 11 kids was just too many. I don't remember now what she was researching.

The first speaker was a pretty down-to-earth guy. He gave a very nice presentation and I took a few notes. The second speaker also gave a presentation but I drifted away. I looked around the room. I'd say at least a fourth were definitely catching some shut-eye and I suspected the others in the room were drifting just like me. On and on about challenges and opportunities, institutional engagement, development, global citizenship and educational partnerships. Ear candy.

I wasn't feeling well, which in fairness had nothing to do with the people present or the presentations. I'm feeling a fairly acute back pain today and I'm hoping it is muscular and not pre-flu aches. Regardless, I found reception to call me a cab (noting the distinct and purposeful way that he translated the way I said Derry into Londonderry). He was very kind though called the railline twice to confirm the train times for the remainder of the day.

I settled into my seat on the train and pulled out some reading. A woman sat across from me and began talking with me as if we had known each other for simply years. I believe she has Down's syndrome and she wanted to have a chat about the people streaming into the train (Another one for Londonderry!) and the train itself and her job which involves selling birdfeed, I think. Sadly my first inclination was that I just wasn't in the mood to talk. I wasn't feeling well. I didn't have energy to hold new conversations with more new people. I wanted to be left alone.

She took out a stack of photos from her backpack and said, "I want to show you my pictures." In that moment, though I suspected it from her hello, it hit me that she wanted to engage with me. She wanted to tell me about her life and asked me where I was going. I flipped through pictures and asked some questions. This one is her boyfriend Jonathan and that's her dog Tommy. This one here is her holding her baby cousin and that's Josh, another baby cousin. I asked her name and she said Catherine.

Catherine spotted another train friend (one whom she knew by name though) and called her over to sit with us. The other woman flipped through her pictures, at one point commenting on the picture of "King Billy" on a horse at a festival. (A historic figure from the 17th century celebrated by Ulster Protestants only in this region.) Catherine says, "No, that's just a man dressed up as him."

Catherine got off at the next stop and the other woman and I continued on to Derry. She talked about her job and how she wanted to move and wanted to know if I voted in November's election. She used to work at the ballot box, you see. We parted at the train station.

I called a taxi though I'd normally walk. Today was not the day to walk. He was young, which is somewhat unusual for a cab driver in Derry. He had one of those deep deep Derry accents that requires you to pay extra attention and translate the local slang. He worked for a year in Boston on a fork lift, but Americans are too focused on their work, he says. He couldn't be bothered with it. He didn't want to always work overtime. So he came back to Derry.

And I am back home. I think about what it means to engage with each other. Not what it means by definition, but what it sounds like. What it feels like. What it smells like. The ways that I engaged with people today weren't really what the presenters were talking about. What they mean to get at and hope to inspire is the sense that in the 'ivory tower' and in our institutions of higher education that we don't have to be so structured, so distant, so isolated from the communities where we study and work. People do engage in higher education. But I'm not sure how much of it you can plan or really 'get people to get' when it comes to stopping what you are doing to look someone in the eye and ask them an honest question or listen to their story or just be present in the conversation. It can be a hard task especially if you're tired, or don't feel well, or just want a moment of quiet to yourself.

If we get past our own agenda, however, there is room for honest engagement every day in personal encounters. This includes professors and researchers and presenters. Just like it includes people you meet on the train or in the taxi. But it's not a matter of policy or theory. It's a practice. And no matter how many nice sounding terms we come up with to say "Talk to people. Listen to people. Work with people. Live beside people. Educate people." You and I either will or we won't.

Uptown Girl Living in a Small Town World

London. The city. The icon. The hub. There's something about a city of 10 million people that simultaneously entices and repulses me. For all intensive purposes, I am a country girl. Or at least a small town girl. Even though I've been to dozens of mega-metropolises, I still approach these cosmopolitan giants with a bit of awe as well as apprehension. And so, this past week was yet another peek into the life of an ultra urbanite.

What I did in London is less interesting to me than the way that I experienced it. I presume anyone who reads this will feel the same. Nevertheless, my week in London was not just a 'holiday' as such, but involved 4 days of fairly intense training for a summer job, then a meeting for my master's research, and a job interview on top of the normal sight seeing one would expect to happen for a London first-timer. Quite naturally, it also featured me walking about London and dashing for the tube with my backpacker's pack. The inevitable hiccups in housing transfers and transportation logistics usually guarantee that I will pay my dues to the travel gods in such a way. As expected, this time was no different.

The volume of the city overwhelms me. Whatever you want to do or see you can. And in fifty different ways and locations. The parks were fairly immaculate and filled with carefree pedestrians, students, and families. The Victorian architecture impressed me...even to the last day. There is a certain pomp and regalness that seeps from the core of London. Depending on the moment, I feel either charmed or annoyed by all the fuss. Names like "Kensington" and "Chelsea" and "Westminster" and "Covent Garden" with words like 'Royal' thrown in for good measure illude to poshness, but whether the posh followed the name or the names were given to posh is unknown to me. The classic sights that I had come to know so well through photographs and movies shocked me a bit in real life. For example, Big Ben was larger in life than expected and the Tower Bridge, though boring in pictures, is actually pretty neat.

Transportation...at the risk of hyberbolizing or romanticizing city life like a provincial girl tends to do, the timing and coordination of it all can indeed be likened to a ballet, or an orchestra. Color-coded and woven together in an underground maze, the tube swallows you up and spits you out just minutes away from your ultimate destination. It's dizzying and mad and confusing and exhausting even. The map of the London Underground has itself become an icon. I found myself thinking through all the different ways one could explore such a massive area with such an effcient transportation system. I also found myself feeling like a mole tunneling through endless underground channels wishing to escape the stale air and claustrophobic trains. Would I ever live in such a big city? Could this ever feel normal to me?

The draw of the city life is the hype, the zip, the spark and the buzz of the infinite ebb and flow of humans and the sense of possibility. The rich and fast, the chic and cool, the hip and trendy. It's attractive but I'm not quite convinced.

The repulsion flows from a feeling of disconnect from the simple, the pure, the less tainted quiet of a sleepy town or country home. But I'm also reminded of feeling closed in, trapped in the sameness of a small town, the usual way, the everyone-knows-everyone routine. At times, I find strange comfort in sitting in an airport or in the middle of a foreign city where not a soul within hundreds, or perhaps, thousands of miles knows who I am or expects anything of me. But this protection wears thin and a longing to be a part of something rather than the observer of something inevitably settles in as well.

So where does that leave me? Well, back in Derry for one thing. A small town with a good vibe. Upon arriving back in Ireland, I called a taxi to take me the short distance from the bus station to my house. The driver, Hugh, remembered me from some other time he picked me up. He apparently dropped off my friends from the States that visited me two weeks ago. He asked if they had a nice time and couldn't quite remember what state I was from, but oh yes, we had talked about that. Pennsylvania, aye, that's right. I was in Allentown once, Hugh said. We then had the chat about his two daughters and a hobby of his that turned into a business. Hugh raises doves and then takes them to weddings for that moment where the bride and groom release them. He knows all 40 of his bird by name and showed me a picture slideshow of them on his GPS attached to the dashboard.

After I got out of the cab and paid, I walked to my door thinking about the differences between the London life and the Derry life. Or the Lititz life or the Jacksonville life. Or the Columbia life or a big city life in my future... It's unlikely that I'd ever catch a cab in London and hear a story like Hugh's and I'd bet all my future travels that the driver wouldn't remember my name or where I am from. I'm not sure where the next step in life will take me, but I appreciated my escape into the big city and equally my return to the small town.