Adventures in Ireland

Surrounded by white walls and stillness, I take a deep breath; the smell of leftover donuts and bath gel hanging in the air. It was naive of me to think an ocean could separate me from myself. Breathe in, breathe out. Sitting in the middle of my unmade bed, I reach for my computer. The blank page stares at me, waiting for me to make the first move. Somewhere on this block is a party I wasn’t invited to, but that doesn’t stop my window from vibrating along to the music. I hear passersby on the street below and briefly wonder where they are headed. A pub? The bus station? Home? Home. I think of the people waiting for me back home and my mouth goes dry. The empty page becomes a blur behind the tears that have started to form. Fingers on the keys, I ignore the racing of my heart as I try to type my way through this panic attack, but nothing comes. Breathe in, breathe out. I close my eyes and count to ten. Think of something, anything. “Did you know that Ireland is home to the black headed ...

For our partnership with O Bheal I was a part of the group that led a poetry workshop with high school students (Group 4). Leading up to the workshop was a lot of collaboration and planning to make sure that we had a schedule that was both exciting and interactive. Collaborating with three of my classmates and Dr. Leon was fun. We each brought a level of excitement and creativity that made me feel comfortable stepping into the classroom. When the day came for the workshop, I felt a little nervous. I work with preschoolers part time back in the states, so the idea of facilitating a workshop with high school students was quite daunting. However, all the nerves went away after introductions. The energy room was great, fueled by the laughter and enthusiasm of the girls, I immediately felt relaxed and ready to engage with them. The activities I was responsible for were Myth Poetry and Spoken Word. The myth poetry was centered around myths and was co-facilitated by Rachel and me. It was...

If you had asked me a month ago what arts administration was, I would have shrugged my shoulders and said I didn’t know. However, after spending a month not only practicing various types of arts, but working within the various nooks and crannies of the art world, I not only know what it is but how important it is to artists and non artists alike. (Arts administration is business aspect of an art organization, by the way). Arts administration is just as important to a resistance movement as the product of art itself. Without the administration, access and attention toward art would be harder to get. With art, you are responding directly to a movement, with arts administration, you are facilitating the opportunity for such art to be received. After hearing Paul Casey talk about his work with O Bheal, I am left feeling interested and excited about the possibility of working in arts administration. There is something intriguing about not only being surrounded by art in its various forms, b...

Artist: Kathy D'Arcy The very first time I met Kathy D’Arcy was at the Guest House here in Cork. She was walking downstairs to get some hot water and I was walking upstairs to get settled for our workshop. As we passed each other I told her that I like her sweater (it said REPEAL) and she said “Thank you, I do to.” The next time I met Kathy D’Arcy was at a small vegetarian cafe called Quay Co-op. Along with a group of 6 other classmates, I got to sit down with her as she wore her REPEAL sweater (accessorized with a red Repeal necklace) and drank a cup of tea while telling us more about her journey as an artist as well as issues that she is passionate about (spoiler alert: it has to do with REPEAL). D’Arcy has been writing poetry since she was 8 years old. “As soon as I could write, I wrote poetry.” she says with a laugh. Her poems started out as odes to springtime, getting more and more emotional as she transitioned through adolescence. It wasn’t until she was in her 20s and...

Activist: Karl Kitching Reading Karl’s biography on the University College Cork website, it is easy to see that he has a passion for education. He has conducted his research around racism in Ireland (specifically with the school districts) and has published books relaying such information. I sat down with Karl and a classmate over video chat to talk about his work as well as how he sees the arts fitting into his activism. Kitching started out as an elementary school teacher in Dublin where there was a huge amount of inward migration. The area hadn’t had such a level of migration before that there was no infrastructure to understand minority groups. “There was a lot of people really not knowing what to do… a lot of the time having good intentions but really not doing the right thing for being inclusive for different student communities.” This got Kitching thinking. “I was interested in how students who were learning English as an additional language were learning to read.” At t...

Activist: Karl Kitching Reading Karl’s biography on the University College Cork website, it is easy to see that he has a passion for education. He has conducted his research around racism in Ireland (specifically with the school districts) and has published books relaying such information. I sat down with Karl and a classmate over video chat to talk about his work as well as how he sees the arts fitting into his activism. What do you do in the education field? → lecturer/asst. Prof. in education at UCC for 8-9 years; before that elementary school teacher; new job: Director of Equality, Diversity, and [...]. He has spent the past 10 years researching topics like racism within the Ireland school sector and students of migrant background. How did you become involved in this type of work? → elementary school teacher in suburban Dublin. Huge amount of inward migration. They hadn’t had such a level of migration before. There was no infrastructure to understand minority groups. “Th...

Artist: Kathy D’Arcy The very first time I met Kathy D’Arcy was at the Guest House here in Cork. She was walking downstairs to get some hot water and I was walking upstairs to get settled for our workshop. As we passed each other I told her that I like her sweater (it said REPEAL) and she said “Thank you, I do to.” The next time I met Kathy D’Arcy was at a small vegetarian cafe called Quay Co-op. Along with a group of 6 other classmates, I got to sit down with her as she wore her REPEAL sweater (accessorized with a red Repeal necklace) and drank a cup of tea while telling us more about her journey as an artist as well as issues that she is passionate about (spoiler alert: it has to do with REPEAL). Interview Notes: How did you get started? → been writing since she was 8, “As soon as I could write, I wrote poetry”. It started out as poems about the springtime and got more emotional as she transitioned through adolescence. In her 20s and 30s she learned “control release”. ...

Reading Rites: Passenger by Kathy D’Arcy Interpret: Passenger, to me, is about the different relationships one has with control. First, is being controlled by an impulse. The imagery of the male figure sitting in the driver’s seat scraping at something with a credit card paints me a picture of drugs and addiction. In addition to this, the lines, “He alternates; rhythmic, frantic” emphasizes the power and ritual-like behaviors addiction can have over a person. The second relationship with control is being controlled by a person. The female in this work seems to be trying to keep herself in check. Lines like, “Arranges her face.” and “Her lips stuck together.” make me feel as if she is acting in a certain way in order to please someone else- maybe the male- which suggests that one character holds control over the other. The third relationship with control in this poem is told through the idea of home. Home is usually where one feels safe and secure. However, it can also be obligat...

Artist Statement      Education has always been a big deal to me. Coming from a family of athletes, I never felt like I had much in common with anyone. When all my cousins had baseball games over the weekend, I would be laying on the couch reading a book. School was the only place where I felt like I was good at something. I was excelling in all my classes so much so that school became my new identity. Everything I did and accomplished was attributed to how “smart” I was and after a while it became what was expected of me. Regardless of whatever was going on in my life, school was always my constant.      When I was in high school my US History textbook dedicated one paragraph to Guam. It said that we were occupied by the Japanese during World War II and then liberated by the United States. Were they wrong? No. But what my high school US History textbook failed to mention was the number of lives lost during those years of occupation. The fo...