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Update 18: Ireland 2025

Some notes on my recent trip back to Ireland

A lovely “Welcome home” on the door for me in Salthill
I used my Canadian passport for the first time. It was quite odd to be stamped into Ireland like a tourist, but then again…
I went back to our old house, the one I grew up in, as a part of my “memory lane” tour.

Weather

I enjoyed the most wonderful weather for almost all of my visit (though I did get drenched a few times, so I still had an authentic experience!)

Blue skies, above Timoleague Friary
(Established c.1240)
Salthill (where I grew up) was dubh le daoine. A lovely trio of flags on display here.
  • Aspiring Gaeilgeoirí take note:
    • (July 13, 2021) Blue no longer: ‘person of colour’ added to Irish lexicon
      • For generations, Irish speakers used…duine gorm (blue person), to indicate people who were not white. Others used duine daite (coloured person).
      • Now the guardians of the Irish language have entered a new term in the National Terminology Database: duine de dhath (person of colour).

People

Alas, because my visit was short, I didn’t want to overextend myself as I have done previously and try to see everyone. Instead, I spent more time with my folks, my brother and his wife, some aunts & uncles, and some friends. If I missed you this time, I hope to catch you next time.

The Galway International Arts Festival [Website] kicked off while I was back and there was also the usual wonderful variety of art on display around the city

A piece by David Mach, “coat hanger cricifixtion”, made entirely from coat hangers

On the wall at Merchants Road Lower, outside Galway Pottery Classes
I wonder how many Irish people would be able to put names to these faces
Sinead, Rory, Luke, Delores, Phil
Some classy Galway graffiti

Gaeilge

At the top of the page, you can see the “Welcome home” sign my Mum wrote in Irish.

During my visit, I was conscious of where / how I encountered the Irish language. For example,

Someone graffitied out the English word “Information“, leaving only the Irish equivalent, “Eolas“, visible.
On the wall, you can see “do rogha, do theanga“: “your choice; your language“
Not too far away, the same person (presumably), has graffitied out the English name for this causeway
One of Galway’s bespoke “smart’ benches on The Prom. They are solar powered and “In addition to free WiFi, the benches provide wired and wireless charging for devices with USB charging or capable of wireless charging.”
At my friends house, I spotted a “pas obair bhaile“, a “homework pass” that reads: “You don’t have any homework tonight“
‘Margadh’, by Máire Holmes beside St. Nicholas’s Church
“Tragedy” – I will return to write about this

(Sept 15, 2025) The Tragedy
https://kieranfor.de/2025/09/15/the-tragedy/

Curriculum

Likely the first day I started carrying a backpack with books in it.
Something I have done most days since!
My old primary (elementary) school. It was boys-only in my time, all but a few white Irish-heritage Catholics. The images of the students speak to the changes that have taken place in Ireland over the last few decades.
The first day of my final year at elementary school (1992).
Note that I was rocking the Canadian Tuxedo way back then!

∞

My old secondary (high) school

On a wall inside, my father’s graduating class photo from 1967

On another wall inside, my own class graduation photo from 30 years later

The list of principals (from Bro., to Mr., to Ms. tells a story)

∞

A stone in Quincentennial Park from the Irish College in Leuven.
The inscription reads: “The European stone from the historic Irish College in Louven, Belgium. Established by the Franciscan Order in 1607, represents advancements in the fields of education and learning“

∞

I was struck by this opt-out form on my friend’s fridge relating to a talk on “relationships & sexuality education), part of the SPHE (Social, Personal, and Health Education) curriculum. I recall our class receiving such instruction very differently.

Pilgrimage, reorientation, reconciliation

I submitted my PhD dissertation in the week before I returned to Ireland. It’s entitled “Pilgrimage, reorientation, and reconciliation: Teacher inquiry and the curriculum of the self“. The defence is scheduled for August 27. Here’s the lay summary:

This dissertation is a narrative inquiry into the nature of being in the world as an educator. It is based on the understanding that a range of apparent dualities might be more beneficially conceived of as mutually supporting aspects where each relies on and enables the other. Such instances occur in education in the inextricably linked relationships between teaching/learning, personal/professional, theory/practice, being/becoming, and the interplay between self/Other. As a form of teacher inquiry, the narrative represents an example of the transformative power of curriculum when it is conceived of as a simultaneous personal and relational endeavor through which we might iteratively consider how we have become the way we are, who we are at a particular juncture, and who we might yet become. This exercise of attending to the curriculum of the self is a form of self-work that can assist us in finding connection and purpose in our lives.

During my time back in Ireland, I was intentionally taking a break from thinking about the dissertation but, of course, everywhere I went, there it was.

My aunt Therese and I visited the grotto at Ballinspittle where, 40 years ago this month, “The Moving Statues Phenomenon” began in the summer of 1985 [Watch / Read].

(July 2025) ‘I had faith and I was swept up in the excitement’: Ballinspittle and the rainy summer of the moving statues

https://archive.ph/4VWoY


Confessional at Catholic Church of the Nativity of Our Lady, Chapel Hill, Timoleague, Cork.
There’s beautiful stained glass work by Harry Clarke in this church

(August 15, 2025) How the Irish Changed Penance: The History of a Sacrament

  • “Most Catholics are probably unaware that what we today call the Sacrament of Reconciliation existed in a completely different form during the early Christian era…”
Mobius strips are everywhere, if you’re looking for them!
The re-branded “sacrament of penance”, now the “sacrament of reconciliation”. A very positive change.

Kinvarra

En route to Lahinch, I was fortunate to have spent a morning with musician, craftsman, scholar, sailor, and raconteur, Eugene Lambe.

The visit was interesting for many reasons, but encountering Escher’s “Moebius Strip II” in Eugene’s kitchen stands out as a most unusual coincidence.

Eugene was kind enough to sow me around his shop, where he makes different instruments (Uilleann pipes and flutes mainly, AFAIK). I also got to hold this flute cane. I’d seen the picture on the left online and I took the picture on the right myself. The barley twist segment is stunning and the piece as a whole is a masterpiece.

“Marquetry on the North Sea“: I learned a little about marquetry at BCIT so I could identify the above as such when I saw it on the wall. Eugene explained that he did this in the North Sea when he was working there as a diver.
Head, heart, hands: https://kieranfor.de/make/