Luncheon Reflections

Through my window, I can see a school bus passing by. School starts any day now for the high schools in my area, and my college friends are either already back to school or about to move into the dorms.

The sun is golden outside, and I know that there won’t be many days left where I can look out the window and see the sun reflected everywhere. In only seventeen days Hannah and I will be on a plane heading for Northern Ireland, where it rains. And rains. And pours.  

“You better enjoy it now, girls,” Professor O’Dowd told us today, “There isn’t much sun where you’re going.”

I was up in Livonia to see Professor Andonian, who runs the study abroad programs at Madonna University, and go to lunch with Professor O’Dowd and Dr. Vint, faculty members who have been to Ireland and had advice for Hannah and I. That was where Professor O’Dowd passed on her wisdom about the sun as we stood outside of the Claddagh Irish Pub and admired how nice the weather has been lately.

Claddagh Irish Pub is the closest you can really get to Ireland in Livonia. And when I say Ireland, I mean the Republic of Ireland—not Northern Ireland, where Hannah and I are going. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom, along with Wales, England, and Scotland. The Republic of Ireland is its own country, and while the two countries may stem from the same island, there are very subtle differences between the two. Ever since I was told I was going to Northern Ireland, people have been confusing it with the Republic of Ireland.

Walking into Claddagh, you see the Irish flag hanging over a fireplace, with quotes by famous Irishmen carved into the wooden beams above our heads—“I can resist everything, except temptation,” from my beloved Oscar Wilde, and “Old fiddles play the sweetest music.” It is the Ireland that Americans think of first, the country that fought for their own independence just as we Americans did in the 1770’s.

“Remind me,” Professor Andonian said once we got settled in across from a window pane advertising Oberon beer, “What university are you girls going to, again?”

“Queen's University Belfast,” Hannah and I said. QUB, as it’s abbreviated, was founded by Queen Victoria—hence the name—and is one of the largest and best schools in Northern Ireland, in my humble and uneducated opinion, consisting of almost 25,000 students (Madonna only has 5,000!).

Dr. Vint nodded slowly when she heard the name. “That’s a good school,” she said. “All of the schools in Northern Ireland are good. The students put forth a lot of effort, but the focus is on the good subjects: philosophy, writing, reading. You really learn in these schools.”

Of all of us at Claddagh today, Dr. Vint was the most experienced. Kathleen O’Dowd, the head of the English department, has only been to the Republic, and the rest of us have never been at all. But Dr. Vint’s parents were born in Ulster, and she was able to take us back to the history of Belfast.

Many of you may remember the controversial Northern Ireland, where Protestants and Catholics were divided to streets and neighborhoods, and fights would break out. This was the age of the IRA. Both sides provoked arguments, and Belfast was a dangerous place to be. It was about this time that Pat’s parents were sent to Canada. Life was hard for a Catholic in Orangeman Ireland, and they wanted to get out. While in Canada, Dr. Vint’s father became an engineer, and Henry Ford invited him to come to the States and work for the company. That was how her parents ended up here in Michigan.

All of this is not reassuring to tell two young girls about to leave America for the first time. It’s certainly not reassuring for my parents, who are nervous enough about their oldest daughter taking a plane across the ocean. But times have changed, and Belfast is actually one of the safest cities in the world—and the people, Professor O’Dowd and Dr. Vint reassured us, are beautiful and incredibly helpful, giving you directions, remembering your names, and helping you figure out how the money works.

“You better learn an Irish song,” Professor O’Dowd told us. “If you can sing an Irish song, you’re golden. 'When Irish Eyes are Smiling', or 'Danny Boy'.”

“Rebekah knows 'Danny Boy',” Hannah said. “I think I know the other one.”

“And you better learn an American song, too. They’ll ask you to sing!”

“I can’t sing,” I said, my brow furrowing at the thought of an audience of expectant Irish waiting for me to carry a tune.

“That won’t matter. They’ll be half-drunk anyhow.”

Conversation wore on, and soon our lunch came to the table. I had decided to be adventurous, and ordered what the menu called an “Irish Breakfast,” consisting of two pieces of oddly flavoured bread, four baby tomatoes, two eggs, black and white pudding (which was a lie), rashers, and bashers. Rashers, I discovered, are pieces of ham, and bashers are sausages. The pudding wasn’t pudding at all, but pieces of meat whose origin was never discerned, even when I bullied Hannah into taking a bite, hoping she would be able to figure it out.

I’m home now, enjoying the sunshine, and thinking about all of the things I still need to do before I leave. I have a truckload of laundry to sort out, and a pile of library books to get through, besides my Joyce book—which Professor O’Dowd told me was absolutely necessary to read, along with Yeats. I still haven’t figured Joyce out, and at nineteen, I’m beginning to wonder if books are the same as languages; if once you hit a certain age, it’s lost to you forever.

But this is not the time to be sad. I’m going to miss Madonna University, but I am going to Northern Ireland, and before I go there, I get to go to the Renaissance Faire with all of my friends on Sunday for the Highland Festival. By the time I get to Belfast, this displaced feeling will pass, and it will be time to throw myself into a different culture, relearn history, and do my homework.

Pfft. And my dad thinks this is a vacation.

Slán go foill!