UK (and Ireland) Diaries, Part 3: Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Wales

So, to make sure I start all UK diaries blog posts with the word “so,” let’s finish the diaries for now. I’ve had a lengthy trip to the UK and Ireland of over five weeks but am tomorrow heading to the Alps on the ferry from Dover to Calais. I’d visited the UK (and Ireland once) previously many times, including working as a waiter (no, I wasn’t well suited to it!) at a hotel in Walsall but hadn’t done such an extensive trip in a long time.

It’s been an altogether very good trip, both professionally and otherwise. I’ve gained new ideas for my teaching, got a close look at the state of the current climate in the UK, networked, and presented my research to good feedback. I’ve also ticked off things from my wish list on the UK mountains, first in Scotland and now in Wales.

After the conference in Aberdeen, I took the ferry over to Belfast. I only had a brief stay in the city but it was interesting to see sites like the Peace Wall and the Bobby Sands mural, as I grew up seeing the conflict in the news on a regular basis.

Northern Ireland obviously would have much more of interest but as time was short, I had to head towards Dublin. Interestingly, although there’s been much talk of Brexit and its effect on for example the border crossings between EU countries like Ireland and the UK, there were zero border formalities yet at least between Belfast and Dublin.

I hadn’t visited Dublin before and cities in general aren’t high on my travel wish list, but as a literature nerd, I couldn’t resist attending the Bloomsday Festival in celebration of James Joyce’s Dublin-based 1922 modernist masterpiece, Ulysses, when I was in the neighborhood at the right time. I had even prepared at home by rereading Ulysses, so it was fun to see the site of the novel and see enlightening performances based on it.

Above, Strolling Through Ulysses! by Robert Gogan was an excellent, fun and touching one-man show that recaps and comments on the story of Bloomsday and Ulysses. Bryan Murray reading from “Telemachus” at the Martello tower of Sandy Cove, the starting place of the novel, was also great.

I also couldn’t resist paying almost 20€ to have the exact same lunch as the novel’s “hero” Leopold Bloom, that is, a Gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of Burgundy at Davy Byrne’s pub. I know, what a tourist!

The documentary film Translating Ulysses, where the translator Kawa Nemir flees Turkey to Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam, by filmmakers Aylin Kuryel and Fırat Yücel, was also excellent.

From Dublin, I then took the ferry to Holyhead, Wales, and traveled to my destination, Llanberis, the classic climbers’ and outdoor folks’ village in Snowdonia National Park at the foot of the mighty Snowdon (or, Yr Wyddfa in Welsh). (By the way, here there were travel formalities like passport control.)

I’m sure no-one but me finds these things funny but again, like in the previous post, the English teacher in my couldn’t resist adding this little snippet from the Sherpa bus service that runs through North Wales and Snowdonia National Park. (And, my travel novel is George Eliot’s [i.e. Mary Ann Evans’s] Middlemarch, which I hadn’t to my shame read before.)

The weather was much more unsettled than in Scotland, but I nevertheless managed many fun days running and scrambling in the hills.

So, that’s about it for this trip! It’s time for me now to see the famed White Cliffs of Dover* and head home, well, via several weeks in the Alps. I may post more UK-related stuff in the future, though, for example related to my reserach and my upcoming UK society course, so stay tuned. Thanks all loyal readers for reading, and have a great summer!

*I know extremeresearcher perhaps doesn’t carry much weight as a music aficionado, but anyone wanting to hear more contemporary British music than for example Blur’s “Clover Over Dover”, I recommend YouTubing the Nottingham-based two-man band Sleaford Mods (be forewarned though, they might be a bit of an acquired taste).

Featured image from the ferry crossing from Stanraer, Scotland to Belfast, Northern Ireland.