Ulster American Folk Park - Omagh, Ireland

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

As I type my entry for today’s blog posting I do so from a hostel in Omagh, Ireland. (And I am typing in Word, not online.) The fact that we are in the middle of nowhere, with no connection to the outside world, makes tonight a very difficult night. I can handle sleeping in a room with four cinder block walls and few amenities (think freshman year, Harner Hall). But what is most difficult is the fact that I cannot watch what could be the last game of the Phillies 2009 season. It is my deepest hope that they live for another day, but I will not know that until tomorrow morning. We tried a few different ways of getting the internet, but to no avail. John’s brother, who lives in Florida, will text the results to John and he will then text to me to the phone he gave me for my visit. I am in the room next door and the text will arrive very early for us. I would be praying for rain in NY, but I would prefer not to give Andy Pettite another day of rest. I do hope they get to game 7, and I do hope tomorrow night we have internet access.

Today we began our four day trek to northern Ireland. I already posted our itinerary so you can see what we are doing and where we are going. I was picked up at 6:20 and the bus left Delaney’s at 7. After about a two hour drive we stopped at Sam’s Diner for an Irish breakfast. We then proceeded to the Ulster American Folk Park (www.folkpark.com). According to their map and guide, “The Ulster American Park is an open air museum which tells the story of emigration from Ulster to North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Old World and New World layout illustrates the various aspects of emigrant life on both sides of the Atlantic.” The museum had 30 buildings in the park and we visited about half of them each with a guide in character, and walked past the others. We saw the Mellon Homestead (the birthplace of the patriarch of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh), a single room cabin, the weaver’s cabin, and the ship that brought the emigrants to America. We also saw the Samuel Fulton Stone House found in Lancaster County, PA and also a log cabin built by young Thomas Mellon when they first arrived in America. It was quite interesting and very remarkable how they recreated all of these structures. The drizzle that persisted all morning changed to a steady shower just about the time we finished for lunch. It was a pretty miserable day, weather wise. We had a light lunch of either stuffed chicken breast wrapped in bacon with mashed potatoes, or lasagna with chips (French fries). The afternoon consisted of a presentation in the Center for Migration Studies/Library by Dr. Patrick (Paddy) Fitzgerald regarding the history of emigration in Ireland found in the art of the time. We then went through the Emigrants Exhibition which told the story of over 200 years of emigration and was divided into four sections: people and players, failure and opportunity, transport and migration, and survival and prosperity. There was also a wonderful boxing display, as the Irish are quite proud of their strong boxing heritage and their champion boxers.

We had about an hour until dinner so most of the group went back to the library where we were permitted to get online on one of the four computers available. The students rotated through to check email, facebook, or make a posting on their blog. Some students do not have the internet at their host families so they were anxious to get online. I taught the student blogging in our last meeting together before departing the states, and I believe there are quite a few that are using a blog to keep in touch with friends and family back home. One student is using it to keep in touch with sixth graders that she had in class during her first nine weeks of student teaching. They are reading her blog and making comments of her adventures. I was pleased when I heard that many were exploring blogging.

Our dinner was another light meal of chicken fingers (or hamburger) with mashed potatoes, carrots, macaroni and cheese and salad. We had chocolate sponge cake with custard for dessert. We are certainly not going hungry on this trip. After dinner we had a lecture by a local teacher on Irish history. It was over an hour long and very interesting, but again, a lecture after such a heavy meal is tough! We then had tea and cookies. None of us were hungry, but that didn’t keep us from enjoying the vfery tasty chocolate chip cookies that were provided for us.

The students are trying to keep themselves busy with no TV, internet or nightlife to entertain them. There is nowhere for them to go and we are the only group in the hostel so I don’t have to worry about them disturbing anyone. I trust they will head to bed eventually and I will see them all at breakfast at 8am. It will be another busy day in Northern Ireland. Since I have no ball game to watch and no internet to explore, I will be calling it a day much earlier than normal. Until tomorrow…