The first day of the course. I met Áine, who was staying in the room next to mine, in the dining room for breakfast. (that's her on the right in the photo, me on the left.) We sat together every day for breakfast, speaking Irish and eating our meals. She was very kind and offered me a ride almost every time. Even after i told her i had rented a bike she always asked when it was looking like rain! Very nice person.
Off on my bike with me after breakfast to the first class, or the first meeting or what have you which was held in the primary school in Ballyferriter. That's a strange building! But we got the general idea of what to expect from the week and we got our class assignments and were told how to find our classrooms. The classes were spread out all over the village, which isn't big. It was no more than a 2 minute walk to even the most remote class. Mine at first was in one of the boarding houses—a small room at the front of the house. Bríd Úna was my teacher. I liked her—she was a fast talker, very animated and it seemed like the class was going to be fun. She asked us at one point to say a few words about what we hoped to get from the course. When it was my turn i said something like “to push the limits of my fluency by engaging in conversation with people who are a bit more fluent than myself!” right. I think that’s pretty much what everyone wanted, i just put it in those really blunt terms. I mean, you don't learn much from people who are LESS fluent than yourself, so the remedy is obvious.
At lunchtime i was approached by the indefatigable Máire Uí Shíthigh, the queen bee of the program. She's the one who organized the whole affair. I'm sure she had lots of help, but frankly, without her it wouldn't have been nearly as good. Anyway she said she'd like to put me in a class one level higher because Bríd Úna mentioned to her what i said and she thought i'd benefit from going up a level. Wow. They really have it all together, these people from an Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne! They were really listening to what the students were saying, apparently! So i moved up to the next level for the afternoon and proceeded to flounder for the rest of the day. It was Tough! Very hard. The first day is always hard but i just sealed it by being a loudmouth!
The one thing that worried me was that there wasn't much conversation in that first class. My teacher's name was Róisín Ní Gairbhí, and she was super smart. I kept thinking how small her head was to hold all that knowledge! She had poems, songs, idioms coming out of her ears. So much wonderful knowledge. So in the end, actually, well before the end, i was enjoying the class immensely because her teaching style suited me quite well.
So my head was reeling by dinner time. But i had made a few friends—Fergal, Sinéad, and a couple people whose names I've forgotten, though i mention Máirtín in my diary. I forget who he was though. Anyway i think we went down to the pub at the hotel later on—Óstán an Bhuailtín i think was the name if it. Not really a traditional pub atmosphere, actually more for the folks who like a little tacky elegance. But the Guinness was good and we had a right nice time talking it up.
Earlier, though, i should mention, we had a break from about 3:30 on to about 8. this gave us a good chance to rest or in my case to head out on the bike to explore the immediate area a bit. Directly across the road from Tigh Bhric was a small road that led off to Trá an Fhíonna--Wine Strand they call it in English. It’s a very popular swimming and camping destination for a good number of folks. I rode over and took a few pictures. It’s a lovely beach, actually just one in a set of beaches that stretch for a few miles on Smerwick harbour. There's a lot of really thick tufty grass up higher above the beach, and that's where i found myself when i came across the first ogham stone i've ever seen. These stones were erected, they say, to mark territory, generally. I got a nice little book detailing the location and inscriptions of all the known ogham stones on the dingle peninsula. Anyway it was pretty nice, covered in yellow lichen and little yellowish snails. The writing was pretty worn, but still fairly visible. And the setting really gets your imagination going.
A bit later i saw some folks down on the beach, one of which was a topless little 11 or 12 year old girl playing with her equally topless brother. Hmmm, i thought. There was no one else around except a woman who was maybe 100 yards down the beach, slowly making her way toward them with her arms outstretched as if she were pretending to fly.Well that was day one at the course—a very satisfying one overall. I was extremely glad that it had begun and that i had some structure to my days for awhile. It helped me familiarize myself with the area so later in the week when the course was over i knew better what i wanted to do with myself.
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