Since I last wrote, the classes have gotten even better. We had some people move up and down so now we’re a much more manageable size. There are the perfect amount of people to do activities and to practice speaking. We’ve been working a lot on the direct and indirect clauses, as well as new vocabulary. Today, we reviewed the conditional tense, which is notoriously every Irish students’ least favorite topic. It wasn’t too bad though! I feel like everyone is getting more comfortable with the structure and the pronunciation. We have been practicing a lot of pronunciations. It’s really interesting how letters can be pronounced so differently between English and Irish. For example, it’s important in Irish to pronounce the ‘d’ and ‘t’ at the very front of your mouth. The sound ‘dh’ makes before a broad vowel is something close to a growl. My struggle with it has definitely made for some laughs in class!
On Saturday, we all piled into a bus and drove to a nearby town to take the ferry to Inis Oírr. The ferry was amazing. We stood at the top and could see everything. The water was so blue and you could see green cliffs in the distance. Inis Oírr is the smallest Aran island but the second most populated. I can’t imagine how few people live on Inis Meáin after seeing how uninhabited Inis Oírr was! Even though there wasn’t a bustling city, I still had so much fun. We arrived on the island and were immediately greeted by the town dolphin. Apparently, this dolphin frequently swims very close to the shore and is very playful with the people! The scene of the dolphin in the bright blue water was surprisingly tropical. We slowly made our way to one of the few pubs on the island for lunch. They served us soup, sandwiches, and tea. It perfectly warmed us up after a bit of a chilly ferry ride. After lunch, we started on a walking tour of the island. We started by visiting the most beautiful graveyard I have ever seen. It sat alone in a green field with sea grass blowing, overlooking the sea. In the distance, you could see the Cliffs of Moher. In the center of the graveyard were the ruins of a very old chapel, halfway underground. The inscriptions on the tombstones were written in Irish. I even found one with the name Delia on it! We continued walking after a while and made our way up the big hill that sits in the center of the island. The island is so small that you can see the ocean wherever you look. It simply has a large hill overlooking a Gaelic football field and a few dozen houses. On the top of the hill were the ruins of a castle. You could see absolutely everything. It was surreal. There was every shade of green in the grass and every shade of blue in the ocean and the sky. The houses were white and there were lots of gray stone structures. I can’t imagine living in such a simple and beautiful place. We came down from the hill and explored a bit on our own. We found the one craft shop on the island and admired all the sweaters they had. I can’t wait to bring mine back to the cold South Bend winter!
We continued to walk around for a while and then got on the ferry to return home. The ferry ride home was just as stunning as the way there. By that time, it had gotten chillier so I was glad to have my new sweater. Lucy, our bean an tí, had a delicious warm Irish stew ready for us when we walked in the door!
