Draft Schedule-Subject to Change
Draft Schedule-Subject to Change
Mount Mercy University
In the Footsteps of the Great Irish Writers
9 - 18 January 2014
‘I feel my country deepen beneath me, swell in the dark outside the window, its rich freight of memory, its sustaining music’. Theo Dorgan
Recently designated a UNESCO City of Literature, Dublin’s literary status needs no introduction. Dublin has produced four Nobel laureates and many more world-famous writers are associated with the city. The writing on Dublin is as varied as the fortunes and feelings of its inhabitants have been throughout the centuries.
Thurs 9 January Morning Arrival to Dublin airport and transfer to hotel.
Afternoon Take a guided coach journey around the centre of Dublin to see its historic, cultural and architectural highlights, The former House of Parliament at College Green; the Four Courts and the Custom House, the two Great neoclassical buildings designed by James Gandon; the elegant terraces of Georgian Dublin, St Stephen's Green, the Victorian enclosed park in the heart of Dublin, Christchurch Cathedral and Phoenix Park. Stop for a guided visit of St Patrick’s Cathedral.
Evening Welcome meeting and group dinner.
Fri 10 January Morning Lecture: The Birth of a Nation, The history of Irish Independence
Meet at Trinity College to commence 1916 Rebellion Walking Tour of Dublin city, visiting the relevant sites of the Rebellion in Dublin, including O'Connell St, Dublin's main thoroughfare with its landmark statue of Daniel O'Connell, the Great Liberator; The General Post Office (GPO, headquarters of the 1916 Rising) the Four Courts, Dublin’s City Hall and finishing at Dublin Castle. This engaging walking tour by a Dublin historian offers an understanding of the historic occasion which precipitated the formation of the Irish Republic.
Afternoon Depart for Kilmainham Gaol. Covering some of the most heroic and tragic events in Ireland's emergence as a modern nation from 1780s to the 1920’s, Draft Schedule-Subject to Change
Kilmainham Gaol is one of the largest unoccupied gaols in Europe and was where the leaders of the 1916 Rising were executed.
Visit the Guinness Storehouse, located in the heart of the St James's Gate Brewery, the Guinness Storehouse celebrates the fascinating industrial heritage and rich tradition of the Guinness brand in Dublin.
Evening Free
Sat 11 January Morning Talk: Multiculturalism & Immigration in Ireland Visit the Mercy International Centre.
Afternoon Guided walking tour of Historic Trinity College in the company of current undergraduates - Trinity College builds on its four-hundred-year-old tradition of scholarship to confirm its position as one of the great universities of the world. It has been the educator of many of Ireland's great writers from Swift to Wilde. Part of the tour will include Trinity College Library which houses 200,000 antique texts, marble busts of scholars and the oldest surviving harp in Ireland as well as the Book of Kells. This illuminated manuscript of the Gospels was created by Irish monks around the year 800.
Evening Group dinner & attend a performance at the Abbey, the National Theatre of Ireland, founded in 1903 by WB Yeats and Lady Gregory.
Sun 12 January Morning Guided Visit of the National Museum of Ireland Followed by guided visit of the National Gallery of Ireland.
Afternoon Gather at the James Joyce Centre to commence a Joyce Circular. In the company of a Joycean scholar, explore on foot the sights, sounds, streets and monuments that form the Dublin of the writings of James Joyce. The tour takes in North Earl Street and the ‘Prick with the Stick’; the house where Oliver ‘Buck Mulligan’ Gogarty was born; the setting of the Dubliners story ‘The Boarding House’; the house in which Sean O’Casey was born; the site of 7 Eccles Street, home of Leopold & Molly Bloom; and Belvedere College, which Joyce attended in the 1890s.
Evening Free
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Mon 13 January Morning Depart for Derry & Belfast. Derry (Londonderry) is the only remaining completely walled city in Ireland and one of the finest examples of Walled Cities in Europe.
Afternoon Arrive in Derry & settle into accommodation. Depart for walking field trip around Derry City, visiting the Walls, the Museum of Free Derry, the Bloody Sunday Memorial, the Bogside and Free Derry Corner.
Evening Free
Tues 14 January Morning Depart for Giants Causeway, A Unesco World Heritage site. A natural amphitheatre made up of hexagonal shaped basalt rock. Guided visit of the site by a National Trust expert, followed by free time to explore this breathtaking natural phenomenon.
Continue along the North Coast to the Carrick a Rede rope bridge. The bridge hangs some 30 metres above steep cliffs and crashing waves, spanning some 20 metres to the stack cliff of Carrick. Traditionally used by local fishermen, the bridge is renewed each year.
Afternoon Journey continues to Belfast city. Nestled on the coast below Cave Hill and the Black Mountain, Belfast is a vibrant city where the hospitality is legendary and the warmth of the people is genuine. More famous for its troubles than its beauty Belfast has been dramatically transformed in recent years with the dawn of lasting peace.
Evening Arrival & settle into accommodation Group dinner & welcome to Belfast
Wed 15 January Morning Take one of Belfast’s renowned ‘Black Taxi Tours’ to see the colourful and evocative murals of East and West Belfast, and learn about the rich legacy of the Harland & Wolff shipbuilders where the ‘Titanic’ was built. Continue on to Stormont, home to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Afternoon The Belfast Literary Tour will bring you through the literary city and the many shades of Belfast history, taking you from the splendour of City Hall or the lives commemorated in Writer’s Square to back alleys and quiet suburban streets across the city where the finest of our writers lived, walked and worked. Draft Schedule-Subject to Change
Many writers are featured during the tour including John Hewitt, Seamus Heaney, Glenn Patterson, Michael MacLaverty, Sinead Morrissey, Frank Ormsby, Kate O'Brien, Leontia Flynn, Brian Moore, Tom Paulin, EM Forster, Paul Theroux and Derek Mahon.
Evening Visit to the Gaeltacht Quarter for dinner at An Culturlann Centre on the Falls Road followed by a lesson in Irish Ceili Dancing.
Thurs 16 January Morning Depart Belfast for return to Dublin On route visit Brú na Bóinne which is also known as the Bend of the Boyne or the Boyne Valley, has been the focus of human settlement for at least 6,000 years. It comprises of the Neolithic age burial chambers of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. Their survival through more than 5,500 years reflects the sophistication of their design, and ingenuity of the Stone Age man, who constructed them.
Afternoon Arrive back in Dublin and settle into accommodation.
Evening Free
Fri17 January Morning Visit the GAA Museum at Croke, learn about the role of the Gaelic Athletic Association in the Cultural Revival and how Gaelic Games are the centre of Irish sporting and social life to this day.
Visit the Houses of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament).
Afternoon Free time in Dublin City centre.
Evening Gather at the pub for a traditional session of Irish Music.
Sat 18 January Morning Depart for Dublin airport for return flight to America.
EIL Intercultural Learning, 1 Empress Place, Summerhill North, Cork, Ireland telephone: +353 (0)21 4551535 lowcall: 1850 292939 fax: +353 (0)21 4551587