Leprechauns, Fairies and Wishing Wells

By Sinead Hultman

I recently got an e-mail from the scholarship coordinator of the College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin saying I was to receive two scholarships. My first thought was, “Awesome, now I can spend more money while I’m in Ireland.” My second thought was, “How am I going to turn in all the paperwork while I’m abroad?”

I only had a few weeks to make the deadline, so I decided to use the scanner at the University College Dublin international student lounge. While I was locked in a battle of wits with the printer, one of the students working in the lounge, Jessica, started talking to me.

“Are you with the group of students from Texas?” she asked. I replied in the affirmative.

“I was hoping you all would have left by now. I didn’t want you to think that the weather was always like this,” she said, noting that I trudged through rain and puddles to reach the office.

After surprising her by saying I actually liked the weather, we got to talking about ourselves. I came to discover that she was majoring in Irish folklore, and that she would have great job security in the future.

As I finished up what I needed to do, thanked her and left. I still found it odd that folklore was a legitimate major offered at a legitimate university. You certainly can’t major in American folklore at UT.

However, after a three-day trip to southern Ireland, I realized maybe it wasn’t so odd. On our tour we passed a fairy tree, threw coins into a leprechaun wishing well, trotted by a leprechaun castle in a horse-drawn carriage, and kissed the Blarney Stone.

The history and legend behind all these mystical spots run deep through the Irish culture. If you tie something to the fairy tree and make an unselfish wish, your wish will come true when whatever you tied to the tree falls off. If you threw a coin over your left should with your right hand and it landed in the water of the well, your wish would be granted. If you kissed the Blarney Stone, you would receive the gift of gab.

So maybe the Irish find it odd we don’t offer folklore as a major. Now that I have been exposed to all this tradition and mysticism, it feels like America’s culture is missing out on something grand. I suppose I will just have to return to the land of my ancestors once again so I can fill in that missing piece.

Milk and Cookies

By Sinead Hultman

Storytelling has always played an important role in my family’s gatherings. I was lucky enough to grow up with four of my great-grandparents, and their long lives provided rich source material. They certainly had no shortage of stories—I have heard everything from my great-grandfather Philip’s time in Pearl Harbor as a sergeant to my great-grandmother Helen’s mischievous childhood.

Her husband, Vern, had a deep baritone voice and his tales usually transitioned into songs. My elders were always the center of our get-togethers and I always looked forward to being regaled with descriptions of pre-Depression era life in America.

To me, storytelling is a grand way to pass down traditions and heritage from one generation to the next. Unfortunately, it seems as though the spoken word suffering at the hands of new technology. So, the idea of the Milk and Cookies storytelling night really appealed to me.

Milk and Cookies is a monthly event, so the timing was perfect. We went on Tuesday, the 14. It started at 6:30 p.m., but it was so crowded we had to wait until intermission to get seats. We nabbed a few chairs towards the back, behind the futons and couches piled with pillows and blankets.

The event was held in a collective arts center called The Exchange, which is located in Temple Bar. We were provided with free milk, tea and cookies, as well as entertainment. Some of the stories were fact and some were fiction but they all allowed the speakers to share a bit of themselves with us.

As Kyle, one of the storytellers, says, voice is important. I think that is true, whether it is your physical voice or the voice that you have in your writing. Your voice is part of who you are, and hopefully we won’t let technology take that away from us. However, technology can help us spread our voice, as this blog is allowing me to share my stories about Ireland. I suppose we just have to adapt and hope technology will help us make our voices stronger.

The True Meaning of the Color Orange

By Sinead Hultman

I am not sure when or where I learned about the Troubles, I just know the strife between the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland has always been a part of my bank of knowledge. Maybe I learned it from Bono—The Joshua Tree was my favorite album growing up.

Either way, I grew up with a sense that Northern Ireland was best to be avoided. I knew that on St. Patrick’s Day I was to wear orange like a good little Protestant—my father’s side lost their religion sometime after they came to America, and my mother’s side was Presbyterian. As a child, I never fully understood the conflict, I just knew I was going to be subjected to lots of pinching once a year.

As a history nerd, I knew I had to make the day trip to Belfast. I couldn’t miss an opportunity to explore and area rife with cultural and historical value, and it would be neat to see where the Titanic was built, too.

Driving in to the city, our tour guide pointed out a mural that served as a warning to Catholic citizens. My eye was immediately drawn to a masked figure with a machine gun, which contrasted so violently with the cheery blue background.

We took a Black Taxi Tour through the segregated Protestant and Catholic areas of the city, and our local guide provided us with insight into the situation. Each area seemed depressed and slummy and the tension was palpable.

Our driver explained that there was a push for peace, starting with less political and religious murals. However as we drove past what he dubbed the Irish Berlin Wall, it did not seem like a realistic goal.

Overall, I am glad I made the trip to Belfast. I am still quite shocked at what I found there though. In my mind, conflict such as this makes sense in the Middle East and not in the United Kingdom. Our driver’s comparison of the situation to Israel and Palestine did not seem far off.

I suppose such sweeping generalizations have never led to anything good, though. If I want to become a true world traveler, I need to learn to keep a more open mind.

The Seeds of Curiosity Have Been Planted

By Sinead Hultman

When I was in elementary school, I silently hated my parents for giving me such a hard-to-pronounce and foreign name. Every adult I met butchered it and all my peers called me Sha-nay-nay. For years I yearned to change my name to something boring and common like Chelsea. I dreaded the days when we had substitute teachers because I always knew I would have to correct them and it was just such an ordeal. I just wanted to blend in.

Now my name is a strong connection to my heritage. I know people say that everyone in America can claim at least some sort of Irish ancestry, but I feel as though I am a little more Irish than average. After all, my friends are so concerned for my pale complexion they insist I wear sunscreen indoors and at night.

I always knew my paternal great-grandparents immigrated to America in the early 1900s. However it was my grandfather’s ever-so-interesting hobby of genealogy that allowed my family to discover how far our family tree’s roots extend into the Emerald Isle.

I may be equal parts Irish and German, but I have always identified more with my Irish side. So when I discovered I could study in Dublin for a semester, I was ecstatic. Sure, there were programs that were going to places that might be considered more glamorous but this was my chance to learn about my family’s history.

I have been in Dublin for less than a week but I already know coming here was one of the best decisions I have ever made. And when strangers on the street hug me for having such an Irish name, I feel like I have found my long lost home.