Seven Days

“That American Professor” gave his final exams today! The school year for the Irish ends with a bang this week, culminating with the annual migration of twenty-thousand out of co-eds Galway. Paul shall refrain from writing a dissertation on higher education in Ireland at this point, but his impressions wouldn’t be a surprise to or much different from those of any of his Irish colleagues. The Dean and Department Heads in the School of Life Science at GMIT have been very interested in his impressions of the place, and asked that he be straight and blunt with them about it. Sue cautioned Paul to be ‘Irish blunt’, not ‘American blunt,’ forgetting that he is a consummate a professional.

In local news, we had a great time at a small dinner party that Rick and Deirbhile (don’t even attempt to pronounce her name, folks) threw for us in their Oranmore home. Rick and Paul taught together this spring. He’s an Aussie who married into Ireland, and shares Paul’s dismay at this wonderful country’s higher education system. Deirbhile is a red-headed native of Wicklow and looks every bit Maureen O’Hara. She’d have taken John Wayne to the cleaners, however, had he tried any of that Quiet Man crap on her! The duo have been wonderful friends of ours here, and their children get along well with ours.

We’ll be blogging a bit more over next few days, but we’ve only a week left in Ireland. It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for nearly five months. This is a bittersweet week for all of us, wishing we could stay for the warm months and the blossoming relationships, while longing for the baseball fields, warmth, and circle of friends and family in Minnesota.

Tomorrow morning we’re off to the wilds of the Connemara for one last time. We’ll end up in north County Mayo tomorrow night, fulfilling a promise we made to Theo a year ago. Sleep in an Irish castle.