What follows is a crude draft of a planned trip to Ireland with our students in June 2013...suggestions etc welcome...nothing is set in stone but generally this is what we'll be doing....
“The
way that I went,” wrote Robert Lloyd Praeger in 1937 “was an Irish way, with
extraorbital aberrations, especially in later years, to the extent of a
thousand or fifteen hundred miles. It
was from the beginning a way of flowers and stones and beasts.” Seventy-five years after the publication of
his classic account of Irish natural history we are proposing to follow after
Praeger in a study abroad trip to Ireland’s wildest places.
We
will follow Praeger to four distinct regions: the Wicklow Highlands, Connemara,
the Burren, and the Kerry Highlands.
Each area is ecologically distinct exemplifying a particular aspect of
Ireland’s natural legacy, and each is the location of a National Park which
form the focal points of the study-abroad trip.
In addition to their unique natural history, the three regions are also culturally distinct, presenting opportunities for students to appreciate both
the history and the contemporary situation of Ireland.
The
overarching theme for our study will be an examination of the Irish landscape
as a co-production of nature and culture.
Drawing upon the long tradition of Irish archaeology, landscape
interpretation, and historical botany in which Ireland’s ecosystems have been
investigated in order to understand both the ecological and human-historical
factors that shaped them, we will create case studies assessing issues
pertinent to each location we visit. The
theme of co-production is, in turn, relevant, for an assessment of
environmental issues elsewhere in the world: how does one think ecologically about cultural landscapes,
and how does one manage a
relationship with environments which have historically been influenced by
cultural factors? Ireland has not been a
wilderness in the sense used in the
writings of the American tradition for almost 10,000 years. As ecologists increasingly appreciate that we
live on a humanized globe, well characterized case studies of ecologically valuable
cultural landscapes, such as are found in the Irish National Parks, will be
helpful in developing sustainability models.
That being said, many problems beset Irish landscapes: tensions stemming
from very recent economic development as well as from the range of ecological
pressures arising from global change: modified climates, invasive species,
atmospheric pollution, and so forth. We
shall comprehensively analyze and learn from these. Students will be explicitly invited to apply
what they learn in Ireland to the situation in the American Midwest.
We
will fly from Chicago to Dublin on June 16th (Bloomsday!) and will
base ourselves there for four subsequent days.
On the first of these days we will tour of north Dublin, exploring areas
of great recreational and conservation importance including North
Bull Island and the charming fishing
town (and suburb) of Howth. On the 18th
June we will visit the National Museum (including the Natural
History Museum) after which students
can sightsee in Dublin for part of the day, followed by a cultural event that
evening (either a traditional Irish music “seisún” or an Irish dancing “céile”). The following day we will visit Wicklow
Mountains National Park and the old
monastic settlement of Glendalough, which is located in a spectacular glaciated
valley in Co. Wicklow. On the 20th
June we will visit Newgrange, a
prehistoric monument located in County Meath, a bus ride away from Dublin,
dating to the Irish Neolithic (3200 BC).
The
next day, the 21st June, we will leave for the west of Ireland, with
Connemara as our destination. Along the
way we stop at the Bog of Allen, a raised bog of
exceptional cultural and ecological interest.
We will stay initially in the village of Roundstone, where we will walk out on Roundstone bog. This bog is part of the Connemara National
Park. It is a blanket bog and therefore
forms a nice contrast with the Bog of Allen.
On the 23rd we move on to Letterfrack, the official centre of
the National Park
and will spend the day hiking around the “Twelve
Bens” with a local guide paying
special attention to the geology of this region. The day after, we travel a little south to
the Burren of Co
Clare. The Burren is a karst landscape –
one of the large such landscapes in Europe – and is of exceptional interest to
botanists and students of Irish culture, home of the West Clare Style of
traditional music. We will stay in Doolin – the epicenter of traditional Irish music in the
West of Ireland.
On
the 25th June we continue south to Killarney where we will spend
time in Killarney National Park. On the 26th We will tour
the Lakes of Killarney and hike in the park through some of the last remaining
large stands of oak woodland on the island and to see a habitat of exceptional
rarity – a yew woodland. This is one of
only three remaining yew woodlands in Europe.
On the 27th we will take a bus tour of the Ring
of Kerry passing through areas of
Irish cultural interest. Parts of this
region are official Gaeltacht
where the Irish language is spoken.
After
a free day in Killarney we will return to Dublin on the 29th. The following day we will have several
optional trips, including a hiking trip to the Dublin Mountains, before
returning to Chicago on the 1st of July.
Well.. looks like this is approved! So...Randall Honold et moi will be tramping around with 20 youth next year.
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