back from Irlanda

I spent the long weekend in Ireland (Andalucía had a holiday weekend -- funny that all the English speakers fly the coop, then)! My Irish family made contact relatively recently -- Bernadette, my cousin, already met several of my second cousins, some whom I still have never met in my life, for some reason. Probably has to do with the distance issue, being that we left Illinois in 1988. I can't remember who, exactly, made it to my Grandma and Grandpa Catanzaros' 50th wedding anniversary in 2004, either.

Woops on the tangent.

Ireland was incredible. And the saying is that the place is immaterial without the its inhabitants is true. Everyone was warm, welcoming and eager to meet more of their American family. I learned more about my Great, Great Grandma Moriarity and her reasons for leaving Ireland. It had to do with the Potato Famine (An Gorta Mór) which still managed to ravage the country decades afterward. Bridget was born in 1875 and I'm not entirely sure of the circumstances surrounding her departure and whether it was her idea or her husband's, really. Also, it seems like it must have been a miracle that they survived what was probably a horrendous journey by boat, for weeks, probably eating possibly rancid food and living in squalor, with nothing and nowhere to go, I'm sure.
Makes me wonder if they thought they had made a big mistake.

I read The Gravedigger's Daughter which is about a German family who emigrated to the states in the 1930s and the prejudice they endure about being Jews and, paradoxically, being looked down upon for Nazism. Anyway, the whole immigrant issue is fascinating to me. The fact that I could've ended up in Ireland, too, blows my mind. But I'm not only Irish, so I suppose I wouldn't have been born at all, since I'm such a mixture of the meetings of fellow immigrants, all milling about Chicago and building a new foundation.


The majority of my weekend was spent in County Kerry, or with the family in Cahersiveen, a cute, small town in the Ring of Kerry. I keep thinking about how I'll have to translate my trip into Spanish for my coworkers, tomorrow, and I'm curious to see their reactions. They were worried I was going off half-cocked and maybe my family wasn't sure if they wanted me there, but I can safely assure them I was prepared by my Great Aunt Liz's advice and her stories about Ireland and our family there. They really were fantastic, very accommodating, unwilling to take a quid from me, it seemed, which racked me with guilt. I spent 10 euro as a donation to Mary Daly's Special Olympics fund and I gave 20 p to the church to light a candle, a family tradition, and then I put some loose change in the collection basket and later in a cancer hospice care collection.

Mary Daly -- I can't say enough about her kindness, bubbly personality and active lifestyle. She is bursting with activity and life and is up for a good card game, chat, meal or hike at any given moment. She cooked for us (Cabbage and "bacon," which looked to me more like a ham and pork hybrid, to me -- the tenderness of good pork and a slight salty flavor of ham -- my favorite...it wasn't fried). She made tea and coffee (in a French press, too!) and also had tea biscuits. She has an infectious smile, too. She has had a very full life with a good deal of green pastures with the ocassional flood -- one would imagine that would be the case, what with 9 children. Oh, and 14 grandchildren. And the occasional visitor from the USA -- descendents of her own aunt, Bridget Moriarity.

Enjoy these videos -- more are on the way. Keep in mind, this is raw footage. I'll be putting up an edited video ASAP.





....Now I'm back to the grind. Here's some stuff I have coming up to do presentations about and so forth, and there will be comprehension exercises. We'll be chugging forth with present simple irregulars (barely right now, more in the future). Also, I like asking questions that will generate a negative response, because the kids have to think about it slightly more. And I don't take monosyllabic answers for it, they have to conjugate the verb and make sure the person is correct. Also, I have one student read the question then another respond. I have plenty of opportunities to fine tune (sometimes overhaul) pronunciation problems, which are generally predictable at this stage. My students really need to get to the point where they relinquish their idea that English is a phonetic language, because it isn't even a relative of the completely phonetic Spanish language.