Ireland - County Clare - 2003

Wife Patricia had visited Ireland for the first time only a few months earlier in 2003. When a University of Chicago "Alumni College Abroad" opportunity presented itself for August, we quickly signed up. The group was small and very congenial, our lecturers excellent, and our UofC faculty companion and lecturer, Rory Childers, was not only highly valuable for his knowledge but a perfectly charming individual to boot. As a bonus, he is the grandson of Robert Erskine Childers (1870-1922), Irish patriot and writer (he wrote The Riddle of the Sands), who was executed in 1922 (during the Irish Civil War), and the son of Erskine Hamilton Childers (1905-1974), fourth (and much beloved) President of the Republic of Ireland.

I tried to limit myself to "art" photographs, which of course was impossible, but what you see below is a culling of a large number of photographs, evocative at least a bit of Ireland.

Once, a score journeyed to Clare,

Where sodden is usually the air.

The sun, it was shinin',

But no one was pinin',

For Ireland to be any less fair.

As this simple limerick suggests, we had seven days of virtually uninterrupted sunshine, unusual under any circumstances but definitely welcomed (by us and especially by the Irish, who had suffered seven days of downpours just the week previous).