HFB in Northern Ireland 2023

               On the last day of February, we rushed to Oakgrove’s Tuesday morning assembly in our five taxis—well, six, because the first driver wouldn’t clear his newspaper for a fourth passenger, so we had to wait an extra forty minutes for another cab—most of us arriving just in time to see John honored before the gathered body with a congratulatory cake and speech for becoming the permanent principal.               Over and over again, our students were awed by his care and laughter and enormous kindness, and wondered what it would be like to have such a principal. We would see this in full force over the course of the day, especially in the evening, when John would juggle between playing the generous host to our students, confronting a student, his parents, and the police in his office for a full hour, guiding staff through various other emergencies that had occurred thro...

                 Yesterday ended in the upstairs sitting room of St. Columb’s House, everyone crying, one after the other launching into more. It’s that time in the trip, feeling close, getting moved, missing home but also not wanting to leave.               And today was the day we met with Ann and Kathleen, an event we knew in advance would greatly affect us all. Students had seen a ten minute Ann and Kathleen's Theater of Witness  video , knew how they had collaborated with an American to create a narrative of their experiences to be staged, knew that Ann was with the IRA the same time the IRA had killed Kathleen’s husband, and that night after night they nevertheless shared the stage to tell of it.               But it was one thing to see segments of their performance on Youtube (here's the full 1:22 show...

We left Derry after tearful farewell to our host John Harkin (who brought a huge bag of sweets as a farewell gift) and headed off on a bus to the coast. First stop was Dunluis Castle, a medieval era castle on the very edge of the sea. There were enough ruins left to walk around, climb up and look down at the crags below.  Then we headed off for the famous Giant's Causeway -- one of the most visited landmarks in the whole of Ireland/Northern Ireland.   The story of this World Heritage site phenomena from our trusty Wikipedia entry😅: Around 50 to 60 million years ago,  during the  Paleocene  Epoch, the coast of Antrim was subject to intense volcanic activity, when highly fluid molten  basalt  intruded through  chalk  beds to form an extensive  volcanic plateau . As the lava cooled,  contraction  occurred. Horizontal contraction  fractured  in a similar way to drying mud, with the cracks propagating down as the mas...

Couldn't resist posting one of these glowy moments when the 4 schools -- Roosevelt, Oak Grove, and the two primary schools --  managed to sing together at the end of their morning of activities and games. As John Harkin said, "something got in our eye" when we heard these kids joining in so enthusiastically. Here is another one.