While in Dublin waiting for
Roja and Joel’s wedding,
I visited Dublin Castle with
Tricia, Bruce, Nancy.
There I discovered,
artfully disguised as
miniature purple rabbits,
the guards who stand watch
over the Dubhlinn Gardens.
27 April 2012
Dubhlinn Gardens, Dublin Castle
Ireland
Behind Dublin Castle
lie the Dubhlinn Gardens.
In the Castle’s shadow,
by the Chester Beatty Library,
eels entwine:
Veronica Guerin is remembered;
members of An Garda Síochána
killed in the service of the people are honored;
and purple flowers grow.
27 April 2012
Dubhlinn Gardens, Dublin Castle
Ireland
Remembering the trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland from earlier this year.
Revisiting the photos.
Still amazed by the Giant’s Causeway.
02 May 2012
Giant’s Causeway
Our quest to hear traditional music took us to several stops. The first evening we heard but two songs. The second, in Belfast, we heard a duo. They covered a number of songs by Christy Moore. They covered Dylan. They played well. We enjoyed the music. But it did not fit the bill of traditional.
On our final evening in Dublin, our final evening in Ireland, Tricia and I ventured to the Cobblestone with Joel and Roja. We talked. We consumed Guinness. We laughed. After a while, we said farewell as Roja and Joel left for a family dinner.
Tricia and I had another round as we waited. And the music began. Traditional. Soft. Sweet. Wondrous. We listened for an hour or so before we decided that the time had come for us to return to our hotel. I made a trip to the men’s room before we did so. On my way back, I looked above our seats. There I saw, present all the time but unnoticed until that moment, an expression of solidarity:
See you along the Trail.
I like to eat. I do it well. I like it too much and do it to well according to most doctors. Perhaps that is why the idea of a hunger strike carries such a fascination for me. Putting one’s body and life on the line by refusing to eat is an incredible nonviolent witness that has been used by many people through the years.
During a recent trip to Belfast, I recalled the example of Bobby Sands MP and the nine others who died in Northern Ireland on hunger strike in 1981. As expected, I saw murals of Sands and the Republicans. What I had not expected to find among the murals was this expression of solidarity:
This image stayed with me all day as I thought and wrote about the Palestinians on hunger strike today.
Amnesty International has issued a call for urgent action that asks people around the world to contact Israeli authorities on behalf of Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla, two Palestinian men who are at risk of death as they engage in the nonviolent action of a hunger strike. Both are being held without charge or trial by Israel.
They are not alone. Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons are staging a mass hunger strike to protest prison conditions and the practice of administrative detention. According to prison officials, at least 1,600 of the 4,600 Palestinians held by Israel are refusing food. Palestinians say about 2,500 strikers are striking.
The hunger strike calls for an end to administrative detention (a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold prisoners indefinitely on secret information without charging them or allowing them to stand trial). Additional demands are:
General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are among those who have called for an end to the use of administrative detention and who have urged the use of nonviolence as the way to pursue peace.
I pray for those who place their lives on the line through their refusal. I pray for those who are held in prisons. I pray for those who imprison others. I pray for those who manage prisons. I pray that human rights are honored, justice is done, and peace rolls down for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
See you along the Trail.
Filed under Current Events, Human Rights, Ireland
Roja and Joel invited me.
The Presbytery of New York City vouched for me.
The Presbyterian Church of Ireland processed the paperwork for me.
The Republic of Ireland granted permission to me.
Thus it came to pass, on 28 April 2012, the immense pleasure of solemnising the wedding of Joel and Roja came to me.
And our mutual friend Joe photographed Roja and Joel …
… and me.
See you along the Trail.
The Trail has recently taken Tricia and me on a quick trip to Dublin, other parts of Ireland, Belfast, and some of the region around that city. Perhaps quick is not the right word to use, the trip did last most of ten days. But many places remain unseen, calling for a return visit.
The wedding of two friends led to this trip. I have already posted about that joy-filled event: a reflection on a party before the wedding and some notes on the sermon. Here’s one more. Others may follow. This picture of my friends with her mother and sister has received many positive comments on Facebook:
See you along the Trail.
Ahead lies the Shannon,
behind lies the sea;
ahead lies the Shannon,
beyond lies the sea;
now we cross the Shannon,
tomorrow, the sea.
30 April 2012
07:30 hours train from Heuston Station to Galway
Did he find what
he sought when
all those years ago,
he left home behind
and journeyed across the
sea?
Does his spirit
somehow linger
waiting to greet the
son of the
daughter of the
son
who returned
to his native land,
journeying
in hours, not days,
by air, not sea,
to celebrate the present
and seek something of the
past?
26 April 2012
DL 92
A large Celtic cross stands on the edge of old quarry near the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in County Wicklow, Ireland. The cross itself comes as no surprise, such crosses are found across Ireland. What makes this cross worth a comment is what lies below.
Below the cross, at the foot of the rock wall, is the German Military Cemetery. Here lie the remains of fifty-three German air and naval service men killed during the Second World War. Some fell into Ireland from the sky when their planes went down. The sea deposited others on the Irish coast.
Forty-six German civilians rest with them – detainees being shipped from England to Canada upon a ship torpedoed by a German U-boat. Six soldiers from the First World War are also buried there. They died while prisoners in a British prisoner of war camp in Ireland. One person has an individual memorial – Hermann Gortz, who served as a spy in Ireland and committed suicide after the war to avoid deportation that he feared would put him in Soviet hands.
Smaller crosses and gravestones fill the cemetery itself. A “Hall of Honour” provides a place for reflection and prayer.
The cemetery’s stark simplicity combines with its beauty to provide much to ponder about the human cost of war and the common humanity of the men and women who serve in the military of every nation. As John McCutcheon puts it in his song, “Christmas in the Trenches“:
the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we’re the same.
See you along the Trail.
Along the Graybeard Trail 