On Friday, June 21, we all took the train over to Dublin. Barry and I only stayed the day, and Bob came back on Saturday. All but two of the students stayed for the whole weekend and by all accounts they had a blast. The picture at the bottom is the group in front of Desmond Kinney’s magnificent ceramic mural of the life of Cuchulainn at the Setanta Carpark off Nassau Street.
We stopped first at the Abbey Court Hostel so the students could drop off their bags. Wendy Townsend took this picture of us there. Barry then took us all to the National Museum on Kildare Street,
and I wandered around there for an hour or so looking to see if they had any of
their sheela-na-gigs on display (they didn’t). Then I made my annual pilgrimage
to Hodges Figgis Bookstore on Dawson Street and made tribute.
The highlight of my day was meeting Jack Lynch (above) for lunch at Dunne and Crescenzi, a well-known Italian restaurant on Frederick Street. We were joined by his friend, Eibhlin Evans, a professor of literature for many years in England, and for the last four before she retired at University College Dublin. She operates the Flying Book Club, where the workshop that I did for the Storytellers of Ireland in 2011 was held.
Jack had just returned from attending the annual meeting of
FEST (the Federation for European Storytelling) in Rome. FEST is a relatively new organization, conceived of in 2001 with the first
conference in 2008, and it was fascinating to hear about some of the challenges
faced by the delegates in creating a multi-national organization. And, yes, it was even better to hear some of
the gossip.
I caught the 5:10 train out of Heuston Station and was back in Athlone by 7:00. At the Tullamore Station there was a full pipe band playing for some unknown person or reason!