The Homes of Donegal

This is one of the moments in my life I will always remember: riding in a silver minivan with two other women, watching a gold and blue morning erupt over the passing green mountains of Donegal and the glistening sea, with Paul Brady blasting from the dashboard. We laughed as we drove, past the boats crammed into Killybegs harbor, past the curly-haired, red-painted sheep, past the man piling stacks of bagged peat in his field. The week in Donegal was behind us, but the land was open to us and the sun and everything to come was in front of us. 

Top to bottom: Donegal Town main street, houses, and Donegal Castle

Killybegs Harbor

Exactly one week before, I had met one of the women as we waited for a bus in Donegal Town and discovered we were both headed for the same place: Oideas Gael and the Language and Culture Summer School in Glencolumbkille, Donegal. It took us another two busses, each successively smaller, to reach the Glen. Once we arrived, we found our assigned housing, met our classmates, and began our course. For the next week, we spent the morning studying the Irish language, the afternoon in arts workshops, and the evenings in concerts and impromptu sessions in the local pub. 

First walks in Glencolumbkille

I was so excited to meet my classmates, and to discover the myriad reasons they had for studying Irish. One of my housemates had done graduate work at a university in Ireland and was a traditional fiddler who felt connected to Ireland through her music; she plays in sessions in her hometown in the Netherlands. Another housemate, from Switzerland, had come to Ireland with her husband and fallen in love with the landscape and songs of the country. She was an incredible singer herself and had some gorgeous Irish songs up her sleeve! And another housemate, the joyful driver of our silver minivan and a talented tin whistle player herself, was inspired to study Irish when her children began to study it at school. These various motivations intrigued and inspired me.

Folk Village and Museum - but there was at least one family house in the village that looked just like this! 

Port

During my coursework, I was amazed at how much I learned and how easily our teacher elicited conversation from us. As my classmates and I shared questions and stories, we were teaching one another. I felt challenged as I realized I had a lot to learn, but I also felt reassured as I saw that I had knowledge to share with others. 

Beachy lunch break

 More walks round Glencolumbkille

Last day at the Silver Strand - Mailin Beag 

I delighted in what I was learning, but I delighted just as much in seeing my classmates learn, too. It wasn't just the language classes, but also the arts workshops and the music sessions in the pubs, where we learned and, even more, where we came alive. It was a privilege to spend my week with such curious, smart, creative, and joyful people! 

There were many times during this week when I felt like pinching myself: walking through the glen on my way to class, surrounded by heather and flowers dropping from hedgerows; smelling curls of peat in the air on the way home from the pub; gathering outdoors for our opening concert, with our songs echoing from the glen. But the beautiful thing to me, and the thing that I'll hold onto, is the feeling of pure joy as we drove away from Donegal, knowing that together we had faced our challenges and embraced our gifts.

A classmate practices tin whistle on the bluff. Yes, this picturesque scene really happened.

Our opening concert in the glen. Yes, this really happened too.