Another shot at the pre-first assignment.
Shannon
After 3 failed attempts to post this, I am going to try again. The blog site keeps telling me that it posts successfully, and then later emails me that I am not a member. Hopefully this works.
I chose this photo after not being able to locate a specific picture of my great-grandfather at his home in Ireland. This Irish home, near Killarney (in the south of Ireland), reminds me very much of the picture. The house and landscape are simple, clean, and beautiful.
Part 2:
An Irish Airman Forsees His Death
by William Butler Yeats
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My county is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
This poem by William Butler Yeats is about an Irish Airmen in WW1. Yeats has always been one of my favorite poets, though I am generally not a fan of poetry. The emotion and nationalism evident in the poem is something I find fascinating, particularly the lines "My county is Kiltartan Cross,/My countrymen Kiltartan's poor," one of Yeat's most famous quotes.
Part 3:
Why am I in this class? Well, I am nearly a quarter Irish (And come from family with several Irish names; my mother is Kelly, and my brother and sister are Sean and Sheridan). All of the stories I have heard from family about Ireland are that it is a warm (not physically), comforting place that seems significantly less stressful than life in America. Aside from genealogical reasons, I've always been fascinated with Irish culture, particularly music. I would like to gain a better understanding of the culture and eliminate any stereotypes I may have developed.
posted by Anonymous @ 12:27 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Nice. Killarney (in Cork, in the south of the country) is now a favorite tourist spot, as the town has preserved much of the older ways of building and finishing houses. In this image, you can see the use of oat thatch for roofing. There is a very interesting discussion in "Passing the Time" (a whole chapter, in fact) in which Glassie discusses the ways in which thatch, which could be grown locally at no cost, but required a good deal of effort every 3-5 years to be replaced, was gradually supplanted by iron, which was much more durable, but required people to work outside the community in order to earn cash to buy it.
The "Irish Airman" is a very famous Yeat s poem, and it gets at something difficult and deep in Ireland's relation to England. Despite the fact that the English colonized Ireland (in an often exploitative and brutal way), many Irish nationals fought on the side of England in the First and Second World Wars. I think Yeats is alluding to that irony: that a young Irishman who in other circumstances might very well have been serving in a violent rebellion against England instead is fighting on her side against a foreign foe.
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