Category Archives: June 14

Lorcan Collins and the Rising

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Lorcan at Trinity

Lorcan Collins, one of the authors of The Easter Rising: A Guide to Dublin in 1916, leads us on a walking tour of Dublin, discussing significant places associated with the rising. We began at a pub just south of the Liffey. Collins has a big personality and a voice to match it. He tells the story of the rising and events leading up to it in a narrative that is intriguing and moving. He includes small anecdotes that relate to the places we inhabit. He takes us to Trinity College and explains the significance of it during the rising. We look across the street at the Parliament building—now converted into the Bank of Ireland.

Next, Collins takes us through the city to north of the Liffey to see bullets holes in a statue on O’Connell Street. By this time, the rain has begun to fall heavy. He talks to us about significant buildings, helping us understand how the rebels would have stood up to the British. We look across the river and imagine young, British soldiers posted high in buildings with sniper rifles, shooting statues in the distance to either sight their guns in or have target practice.
We eventually make our way to the GPO. He takes us inside to tell us some history, again placing us in the middle of the happenings of 1916.

Outside of the GPO, Collins pulls out bullets from his pocket. We all look at indentations in the columns outside. He conjectures what artillery the British would have used. Then, he physically places bullets into the holes. The likelihood of his explanation is undeniable. Through this, he is able to connect the two-dimensional narrative of his book to the three-dimensional spectrum of real life. Hearing the stories and history in the place it happened opens up new possibilities of understanding.

 

Lorcan with Group

Beckett Bridge, Poem, & Play

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A Samuel Beckett bridge, poem, and play,
that is how I spent my day.

Samuel Beckett’s works, especially early works, are greatly influence by Joyce; even in “Eneug II,” the poem I read for the reading in place assignment, we can see how Beckett uses Joycean phrases and techniques, like “feet in marmalade.” It is interesting how these authors interacted, reacted, and reinvented the literary styles of Ireland’s past writers and their own contemporaries.

On the Dubliners walking tour, the guide explained that Joyce added everything in his works where Beckett stripped everything away. The Beckett Bridge embodies this description with its minimalistic design of the harp, Ireland’s national symbol.

After seeing the Samuel Beckett Bridge, we went to a literary pub crawl. At the first stop, the actors performed a skit from Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: the two characters wait for Godot, but do not seemingly remember when or why they are supposed to meet Godot. While they are waiting (which may be in vain), they lose track of time, consider killing themselves, and fall asleep. As a part of Theatre of the Absurd, Beckett includes black humor and existentialist concepts, like what happens when human existence has no meaning or value. In some ways, I think these ideas can relate to some of the anxieties of the 1916 Easter Rising where the political leaders and poets did not know if their actions would be meaningful. Were they actually waiting for an Irish Republic? How long would they wait? What, or who, would be the final straw in gaining an independent Ireland?  image

The Irish Republic and Irish Sentiment

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group photoYesterday we went on a walking tour that focused on the events of the Easter Rising 1916.  Surprisingly, our tour guide was Lorcan Collins, the author of The Easter Rising: A Guide to Dublin 1916, which we had read for class.  Mr. Collins has done a lot of research and is very well informed on the subject, and he was the best tour guide one could hope to have.

What I found interesting and a little surprising was his support of the Irish Republican Army.  This, I have found, is not an uncommon sentiment here.  I was still young when the Troubles came to an official end in Ireland.  I didn’t really understand all that was taking place, but I remember having a sense of it and knew a little about the IRA.  What I remember knowing is that they were dangerous and scary.  They set off bombs.  I had the distinct impression that they were “bad people.”  This impression has continued into my adulthood through portrayals of the IRA in popular culture.  Never have they seemed to be on the right side.  Instead, they are seen in shows like Sons of Anarchy, smuggling weapons and drugs across the Atlantic and working alongside dangerous American gangs.  Gangs – that is the impression that I have always had of the IRA; it wasn’t of a group fighting for what they believed in, it was simply violence and illegal activity.  Even when we watched Michael Collins before leaving for this trip, the IRA was shown as being on thbullet holese wrong side.  Viewers are encouraged to side with the idea of the Irish Free State and interpret Eamon De Valera as the villain.

This was not Lorcan Collins’ position on the tour.  In his book, he presents a (more or less) objective presentation of the 1916 Easter Rising.  However, in the tour, Mr. Collins voiced much stronger opinions about the Rising and its aftermath.  In terms of the vote to accept the Irish Free State, Lorcan viewed the move as a mistake.  “It is tempting to choose peace,” he said.  He said that he did not blame those who voted for the Free State but that he did think it was the wrong decision.  He painted a new picture, for me, of the Irish Republican Army.  His energy for the cause, and the historical context into which he put the movement, helped me understand the complexity of the issue and some of the motivation.  It also seems that Lorcan Collins is not alone in these sentiments.  With the understanding that I had of the IRA before arriving, I thought that discussing the Troubles would be a taboo topic.  The IRA would be talked about the same way we talk about Americans who join ISIS.  But that’s not it at all.  Many people that I have talked to support the ideas of the IRA, if not all of their actions.  Many of the people here still believe in an Irish Republic and still seem to believe in the importance of taking action to make that a reality.  (I have a feeling, though, that we may see something very different on this subject when we get to Belfast.)

The Pirates of the Liffy

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kids

A group of kids probably around twelve were jumping off of a tower on a ship docked at the Liffy. They were very obviously not supposed to be there, cheering each other on to jump off of each level of the tower. We all sat and watched them for a bit, wondering what they were even doing there and where their parents were. But they were seemingly only with each other, and they looked like they were having the time of their lives. They even scaled the side of a restaurant by the river and got onto the roof before running and making the jump off of it, too.

When we’re doing tours and riding the bus through the city, sometimes it’s easy to forget that I’m in someone’s home and not just a place here for me to look at. I’m walking the streets where kids go to school. I’m crossing bridges they jump off of in the summer for fun. I’m drinking in pubs families have owned and loved for generations. I loved seeing these kids all run around in their wetsuits, jumping off of any elevated surface close enough to the water that they could find, screaming and laughing with each other. I captured this photo of two of the boys walking with their arms around one another to another bridge to jump from. They were smiling and laughing, and they looked so happy to be there. Experiences like this are such valuable ways to see the city beyond history or buildings. It seemed so authentic, like we were catching a glimpse of something exclusive.

Leap of DOOOOOOOOOM

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image

 

When I graduated highschool, I went on a trip to the American Southwest. On that trip, I went on a hiking expedition through the river canyons of Zion National Park. The hike was an incredible, revelatory experience, and it opened me up to new perspectives on my role in the natural world. For the purposes of this blog, I won’t be focusing on my experiences with nature, however. Instead, I will be considering the actions of certain individuals I observed in Zion National Park and contrasting them with the actions of some children I observed in Dublin today.

 

In the picture above you can see a child suspended in mid fall from the mast of a replica coffin boat in the River Liffey. This boat has been used for some time as a museum and the children have clearly snuck their way on board.

 

Whatever you might say of the foolhardiness of their adventure (and it IS foolhardy), you can’t deny the symbolic power of their actions. The boat they have commandeered represents the wound inflicted on the Irish people by the British Empire during the potato famine and, by taking control of that representation and refiguring it as a tool for their own enjoyment, the children here have transformed the coffin boat into a symbol of healing.

 

that said, this scene still conjures up an event that occurred while I was in Zion nearly a decade ago. Hiking through the river canyons, I came upon a group of college students jumping into a deep part of the ri we from the top of one of the curling canyon walls. Much like I was struck by the children on the coffin boat, I was struck by the figure of slender, tan figures tumbling down the canyon into the dark river. On my way back from my hike, however, a helicopter hurtled past my head moving toward the heart of the park. I would later discover that one of the students had landed in the shallowest part of that stretch of river, shattering both her legs.

Stilettos, ghettos and rapscallions

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Despite today not being ideal for an outdoor walking tour of historical Dublin, our tour guide made sure it was an enjoyable experience. I had no idea we would be meeting the author of The 1916 Easter Rising text, and I am very glad we were able to. He was humorously informative and so far is in my top Irishmen who showed our group the sites. Following his tour was an even more startling experience. As we headed toward Beckett Bridge we stumbled upon a mass group of wetsuit clad hooligans. They began to leap from the top of an old boat resting in the river and it became apparent this was against the rules as an alarm sounded and a woman wielding a walkie-talkie came rushing out. What was most startling to me about this impromptu daredevil show was not the act itself, but the reaction (or lack thereof) from any authoritative figure. When the clan of rapscallions descended their reign on the roof of a nearby restaurant I thought For certain a policeman, security guard or even employee of the restaurant was going to intervene. To my amazement a man who appeared to have some sort of authoritative power proceeded to photograph the group and allow them to carry on there way. In America we are quick to scold, punish or imprison individuals for minor crimes. For example if this group had been skateboarders in downtown Atlanta you can be certain a security guard would show up in a matter of minutes to shoo away such an “unsightly” group. In Ireland it seems as though there is a much more lenient level of authority and the society of a whole is much more tolerant of rambunctious behavior. Such tolerance is definitely quite a change a pace from any place I’ve ever been in America.

#dubbelgsu