July 1-The Irish 4th of July

In a strange turn of scheduling events, I did not have any classes today. I did wind up at the university anyway, since we have our assessments this coming Tuesday. I did a little studying, which was mostly a gathering of notes in anticipation of studying at a later date. I also went to another interdisciplinary seminar. This one was on Northern Ireland and featured my history professor and an expert in Irish folk music. My history professor was fun to listen to--he grew up in Belfast during the 80's, so he told stories about going into the city center and seeing armored trucks and armed soldiers patrolling the streets. I really like his lectures, since they have the perspective of the part of Ireland still connected to England as well as objective facts about the conflict in general. Plus, he has a great Irish accent, which explains why my notes contain a few scattered reference to the "valence" during Cromwell's campaign in Ireland. Anyway, the second professor was supposed to talk about how the Northern Ireland conflict was portrayed through folk music, but he ended up telling us his life story. Not only were the nuances of folk music lost somewhere between his days as an amateur mountaineer and the conception of his first child, but he read the entire thing off of a Powerpoint. So the seminar started well and then went down a very steep hill.
After the lecture, the summer program had set up a little Independence Day barbeque for the American students missing all the fireworks and cookouts back home. The food wasn't anything to write home about, but it was a free meal, so no real complaints. It was a nice gathering for the entire program, and even Dr. Murphy made a guest appearance. The 2011 Villanova Heimbold Chair was also there, as well as the children of Louie, the director of our program known for his rather wild red hair (he resembles one of those cartoon renditions of Viking marauders, I kid thee not). A good time was had by all, so of course the fun couldn't stop there. A group of us headed out to the Salthouse, a bar in town famous for its inventory of beers from around the world. Apparently it is worth a trip if you happen to be a beer enthusiast visiting Galway--I, however, am not a fan of beer, but can affirm that the Salthouse has a fabulous Scrabble set. There was also a trip to the Hole in the Wall for some late night dancing (and like most of Galway, "late night" is over at 12:30)