Teaching the Troubles at NHA: Dublin to Limerick

Easter 1916. It was one of several themes on day two. On day three, it was everything.

We started day three at the impressive GPO Museum at the General Post Office on O'Connell Street in Dublin (formerly Sackville Street, under British rule). The museum uses a mix of multi-media technologies and three dimensional displays to tell the story of the 1916 Easter Rising, especially as it relates to the GPO itself, the command center of the whole operation. When you first enter, you are greeted by a series of almost life-size posters, depicting the several "types" involved in the time period around the Rising. As you go deeper into the museum, you go deeper into the specifics.

Loyalist character type at the GPO Museum

Life-size displays depict both slum life and wealthy life in 1916 Dublin; video screens present scholars hashing out what it must have been like; a sort of dramatic re-enactor narrates certain events using the gathered ephemera for illustrations in his narrative; wall displays take you through the major players and certain artifacts from their lives; touch screens let you turn a map of O'Connell Street into images of the bombed-out looking destruction created by Dublin's six day guerrilla war; a film made of four or five giant panels envelopes you in the action of 1916 in a mix of reenactment and computer simulations. The various factions are very well handled, which built on the details that David Joyce had elucidated for us on the previous day.

After some excellent refreshment at the Museum Cafe (I've noticed that museum cafes have especially good food in this country), we headed over the O'Connell Street Bridge to the trendy and way-too-crowded Temple Bar neighborhood near Trinity College (it was a bank holiday Monday, and everyone and their sister were there). When that exhausted us, we returned to a favorite coffee shop at St. Stephen's Green and then wandered the Green itself. It is an extremely well landscaped park, where new surprises lurk just behind stands of trees that always obscure the next bit of park, and each little park inside the park seems to be more stunning than the last one. A grand arch leads to a green full of lounging young people, then to an ornate flower garden, then to a playground, then to two duck ponds, bandshells, more flower gardens and back around. One side of the green faces the luxury hotel, the Shelbourne--partially obscured by tall trees--where in 1916 British soldiers fired down upon the Irish volunteers inside the park except for the one hour of the day when all violence paused so the ducks could be fed.

We were in the mood for a long walk, so we miscalculated and decided to walk back to our hotel rather than hop on the tram. We got rained on something awful. We have been rained on quite a bit all week, so we are used to it, but this downpour was particularly hard. We got cleaned up and headed out for some live music that was alright, but not at the same level as the Cobblestone the night before.

This morning, I drove the 200 plus kilometers down to Limerick, a trip that started with me swearing I would never drive in this country again and ended with me feeling new confidence in the roundabout system, 120 km speed limits and left-side driving.

Limerick is a beautiful old city of stone and brick and lovely pedestrian only streets filled with cafes and pubs. The broad majestic Shannon River runs right through the center of town.

We came here to meet with James Lawlor, the Ireland regional director of Narrative 4, the storytelling and empathy organization founded by writing conference director Lisa Consiglio and novelist Colum McCann and helped along by poet and former Newtown high school teacher Lee Keylock, who became Director of International Programs after meeting McCann in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy.

N4 is doing excellent work all over the world by bringing together people from unlike communities to build empathy with one another through the sharing of stories. The Limerick branch has been especially successful in bringing the elderly community together with young people for story exchanges. James is a busy man. He has just completed his PhD in Irish Literature at the University of Limerick and, at 31, has become one of the most important leaders in the literary and cultural scene in this city (he would never agree with that, he's too humble), having edited a notable book of poetry in praise of Limerick poet Michael Hartnett and having caused a stir in the media through the attention N4 has been bringing to Limerick. Today, he had to squeeze several appointments at Narrative 4 in between bringing us to lunch at a local museum, having dinner with us at our hotel, and finally bringing us to Lough Gur to have a look around at the ancient ruins of a church, an ancient pagan stone structure, newer faerie villages, picturesque hills and a particularly peaceful graveyard. We instantly fell in love with Limerick; James' affection for the place is contagious.

Tomorrow, we will interview James about how he became involved with Narrative 4 and what his work looks like today.