My original plan for the weekend of June 18-19 had been to drive to Dublin to do my workshop for the Storytellers of Ireland and then drive up to Liz Weir’s in Cushendall. Liz took Laura Rutherford and Andrea Robinson with her on Friday the 17th, and I thought I’d drive up for the Saturday night session and then bring them back on Sunday.
But as our very busy festival week wore on, the prospect of that many hours in my little blue Suzuki, the double motorcycle with a lid, seemed daunting. So, instead, I took the train to Dublin on Saturday morning. My colleague Bob Farwell and I left our apartments at 7:00 to catch the 7:30 express to Dublin from Athlone. I’d called Danielle Allison just before we left to tell her that we would meet her there and it’s a good thing I did. She was still in bed. By some miracle, she made it to the train. Right at 7:29:30 I saw her waving to us as she raced past the window and then slid into the seat beside me just as the train pulled out.
Jack Lynch picked us up at Heuston Station and drove us to the Flying Book Club. Set just south of St. Stephen’s Green in a Georgian town house on Leeson Street, the book club is a new venture by Eibhlin Evans, who was responsible for writing Dublin's successful application for status as a UNESCO City of Literature.
I fashioned the workshop on the ones Marilyn Torres and I have been doing for the Arizona Republic. European tellers in general don’t tell personal and family stories, but I’ve heard Irish tellers tell about themselves and others to give context to a story. I wrote the description to capitalize on that: The Architecture of an Anecdote: Tools for Constructing Short Fact-Based Stories. A collection of well-honed anecdotes can function like the mortar between the bricks of a storyteller’s repertoire. In this fast-paced workshop you’ll add some story structuring tools to your kit and then craft, rehearse, and tell a short 3-5 minute story from your own experience.
There were doubters and naysayers who opined that I would never get a group of Irish storytellers to stay within a 3-5 minute limit. They were wrong! The 12 participants more than rose to the challenge, and we heard as many tight, well-crafted and well told stories.
Jack Lynch told us about his stint as a nude model, during which he experienced “no personal growth at all, I’m glad to say.” Danielle Allison told us about heaving bosoms at the badminton club. Brendan Nolan described running on the tarmac to chase the plane that was to take him and his bride on their honeymoon. Seosamh O'Maolala enlightened us on marble season in Dublin. Adam told how he shaved his moustache in Portugal to escape a mad stalker. Catriona told us about the miraculous finding of her grandmother’s ring. Nuala Hayes asked us, “What is the truth?” to open her story from her childhood in Dublin. Philip gave us the beautiful image of him walking home from the hospital after the birth of his daughter. The full moon was shining on a blanket of snow. He heard the crunch, crunch of his footsteps, even though he was walking on air.
We were done right at the stroke of 1:00 p.m., as planned. Jack and Danielle cleaned up as the participants departed. A quick scan of the evaluations showed that most of them wished it could have been longer, a gratifying response. We went to Dunne and Crescenzi on Frederick Street for lunch, met Eibhlin at the gates of Trinity College to give her the key, and Jack got Danielle and me to Heuston Station for the 5:00 p.m. train back to Athlone.
The picture at the top, back row left to right: Mairin, Catriona, Seosamh,Nuala, Adam, me, Eleoore, Hillary and Brendan. Front row: Jack, Danielle, Nina and Philip. Below, we listen to Eleonore tell about "celebrating life and the magic in small things".
