The Flight from Frankfurt was unexceptional. Fortuitously, we managed to be upgraded to business class for the Singapore leg, which meant that we could stretch out and sleep on the first leg (thankyou Qantas!).
We arrived in Melbourne a couple of hours late due to the need to divert around the Merapi colcano plume. We managed to get through customs without any dramas, and after a short wait found ourtselves home in what seemed like very strange but familiar surroundings.
This morning, we were awake at four thirty am, and so took ourselves off ofr a walk up Mount AInslie's slopes - part of our regular routine. It is very very green, many birds (magpies, kookaburras on the wing), not so many kangaroos evident as their silver'grey fur is well camouflaged in the lush vegetation. Boronia was looking for orchids and found a few yelow donkey orchids without too much trouble. Yellow hibercia, dianella, and swards fo silver grass seeds covering the hillsides like a rolling mist reminded us, not that we needed it, that we were home. The air is fresh, filled with familiar birdsongs, the temperature crisp yet mild. We didnt climb too high, as we walked from Downer, but the views over black mountain and O'Connor were beautiful. All in all, wonderful to be here, clothed in the the familiarity and memories of home!
Am not sure if I will update this blog further. At best, it will be much less regular. I will try to get Boronia to upload some photos in due course.
Au revoir mike
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
heading home
Am posting this from the airport lounge in Frankfurt.
From Scarrif, we headed to Dublin, returned the hire car and readied ourselves for the trip home. I managed to fit in a seminar on some theoretical aspects of international relations at Trinity; much went over my head, but was worth the time just to remind myself what I have been missing (for those of you who dont know, one of my hobbies -neglected in the past few years - is attending seminars at the ANU mainly in the social sciences. We also took in a movie and a couple of enjoyable meals.
We flew to Frankfurt early Saturday morning, and have been pleasantly surprised at what is on offer. Today Sunday was spent in two of the major galleries, one focussed on photography, the other with a major exhibition on Courbet. Both exhibitions were very good, providing plenty of great works, and much to enjoy and think about.
I wont try to sum up our two months away just yet; suffice to say we have enjoyed ourselves immensely, we have probably regained the weight we lost walking, and we have certainly appreciated the terrific scenery in France and Ireland. Nevertheless, we will return to Australia with an increased respect for its many virtues. There is nothing like 'home'!
We will be back in Canberra on Tuesday.
mike
From Scarrif, we headed to Dublin, returned the hire car and readied ourselves for the trip home. I managed to fit in a seminar on some theoretical aspects of international relations at Trinity; much went over my head, but was worth the time just to remind myself what I have been missing (for those of you who dont know, one of my hobbies -neglected in the past few years - is attending seminars at the ANU mainly in the social sciences. We also took in a movie and a couple of enjoyable meals.
We flew to Frankfurt early Saturday morning, and have been pleasantly surprised at what is on offer. Today Sunday was spent in two of the major galleries, one focussed on photography, the other with a major exhibition on Courbet. Both exhibitions were very good, providing plenty of great works, and much to enjoy and think about.
I wont try to sum up our two months away just yet; suffice to say we have enjoyed ourselves immensely, we have probably regained the weight we lost walking, and we have certainly appreciated the terrific scenery in France and Ireland. Nevertheless, we will return to Australia with an increased respect for its many virtues. There is nothing like 'home'!
We will be back in Canberra on Tuesday.
mike
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Family history in Scarrif
By rights I shouldnt be writing this post as all the action concerns Boronia's side of the family.
On Tuesday (yesterday) we departed Killarney in pouring rain. The forecast for the week is essentially rain and more rain. We headed north towards Scarrif a small town where Boronia's great grandmother Anne Farrell was born. She and five of her siblings emigrated to Victoria in the last half of the 1800s, probably as a result of the Irish famine and the social consequences arising from changes in the inheritance of land. One of Anne's brothers, Michael, stayed on the small leased family farm; Anne and four other siblings all left. Boronia is yet to make contact with any of his descendants. The names Michael and Patrick recur down the family tree. Consequently it seems unsurprising and somehow rather appropriate that one of my sons should be named Patrick Michael.
We found the farm and its original stone cottage, three windows, three rooms and a slate roof. It is currently a cow shed on a road two kilometres out of Scarrif. Boronia's brother Tom had commissioned a report from the Clare Historical Society which laid out quite a lot of the family's basic history. We also found a number of graves in the local burial ground next to the church, with a sign telling us that it is Ireland's oldest catholic church still in regular use.
Boronia is out at the library here in Ennis doing some more basic research for her brother who is the keeper of the |Halstead family's geneaological records. Some of the papers she has already dug up on the history of the famine in the Scarrif region make scarifying reading, with tales of cemetries overflowing, workhouses full and overflowing, cholera and malaria rampant. That and the weather makes anyone's decision to emigrate understandable. The added prospect of actually owning land in Australia proved irresistable. It helps ot explain Australians focus on actually owning a quarter acre!
For my part, I have resisted the temptation to ring my sister Cathy and seek out what information she has on the origins of the Dillons in Ireland. It is enough for me to get a sense of the history, the geography, and the culture. I have come to realise how much Irish culture - accounts of Irish myths, Irish history, a bastardised version of the Irish sense of humour, and a scepticism for authority, particularly English authority was imparted by family and the very Irish De La Salle brothers who taught me in Armidale. While I dont feel Irish, I certainly feel an affinity. Of course, all of this is perhaps counteracted by my birth order (first) and perhaps more potently by the German genes on my father's mother's side. These reinforce my authoritarian tendencies and also scepticism of the English. Of course, the Halsteads are also a very English family....perhaps marriage to Boronia has forged me into the balanced individual I am today!
We have decided to spend another day here in Ennis some thirty kilometres from Scarrif, then we drive to Dublin on Thursday and essentially begin to wend our way home, via Frankfurt where we spend a couple of days in a classy hotel and living it up before the stringencies of unemployment take hold of me.
We havent managed to see much of Ennis itself. Its winding central streets have been full of cars, wind and rain. Its central square sports a monument some ten metres high of Daniel O'Connall, an Irish patriot, so high above us we can barely make him out. The people we have met and spoken with have been uniformly polite and friendly, but this has been not enough to make us prefer the delights of O'Connall's gaze here to those of the ACT. We have been away so long that the joys of the ACT are beginning to become a dim memory.....we are both looking forward to getting home!
mike
On Tuesday (yesterday) we departed Killarney in pouring rain. The forecast for the week is essentially rain and more rain. We headed north towards Scarrif a small town where Boronia's great grandmother Anne Farrell was born. She and five of her siblings emigrated to Victoria in the last half of the 1800s, probably as a result of the Irish famine and the social consequences arising from changes in the inheritance of land. One of Anne's brothers, Michael, stayed on the small leased family farm; Anne and four other siblings all left. Boronia is yet to make contact with any of his descendants. The names Michael and Patrick recur down the family tree. Consequently it seems unsurprising and somehow rather appropriate that one of my sons should be named Patrick Michael.
We found the farm and its original stone cottage, three windows, three rooms and a slate roof. It is currently a cow shed on a road two kilometres out of Scarrif. Boronia's brother Tom had commissioned a report from the Clare Historical Society which laid out quite a lot of the family's basic history. We also found a number of graves in the local burial ground next to the church, with a sign telling us that it is Ireland's oldest catholic church still in regular use.
Boronia is out at the library here in Ennis doing some more basic research for her brother who is the keeper of the |Halstead family's geneaological records. Some of the papers she has already dug up on the history of the famine in the Scarrif region make scarifying reading, with tales of cemetries overflowing, workhouses full and overflowing, cholera and malaria rampant. That and the weather makes anyone's decision to emigrate understandable. The added prospect of actually owning land in Australia proved irresistable. It helps ot explain Australians focus on actually owning a quarter acre!
For my part, I have resisted the temptation to ring my sister Cathy and seek out what information she has on the origins of the Dillons in Ireland. It is enough for me to get a sense of the history, the geography, and the culture. I have come to realise how much Irish culture - accounts of Irish myths, Irish history, a bastardised version of the Irish sense of humour, and a scepticism for authority, particularly English authority was imparted by family and the very Irish De La Salle brothers who taught me in Armidale. While I dont feel Irish, I certainly feel an affinity. Of course, all of this is perhaps counteracted by my birth order (first) and perhaps more potently by the German genes on my father's mother's side. These reinforce my authoritarian tendencies and also scepticism of the English. Of course, the Halsteads are also a very English family....perhaps marriage to Boronia has forged me into the balanced individual I am today!
We have decided to spend another day here in Ennis some thirty kilometres from Scarrif, then we drive to Dublin on Thursday and essentially begin to wend our way home, via Frankfurt where we spend a couple of days in a classy hotel and living it up before the stringencies of unemployment take hold of me.
We havent managed to see much of Ennis itself. Its winding central streets have been full of cars, wind and rain. Its central square sports a monument some ten metres high of Daniel O'Connall, an Irish patriot, so high above us we can barely make him out. The people we have met and spoken with have been uniformly polite and friendly, but this has been not enough to make us prefer the delights of O'Connall's gaze here to those of the ACT. We have been away so long that the joys of the ACT are beginning to become a dim memory.....we are both looking forward to getting home!
mike
Monday, November 1, 2010
Killarney
Just a quick update. We left Schull on Saturday bound for Dingle peninsula, but after passing through Killarney, with its fabulous scenery, oak forests, and potential walking we turned back and have holed up here instead.
Sunday saw us visit the national park's major drawcard, Muckross house and its gardens. As it was pretty wet, we decided to take a tour of the house, which was quite enlightening, particularly in terms of the class based nature of irish society right through the 19th century (and beyond?). Reminded me of the Robert Altman film Grafton House (I think that was the title?). Then for a walk around the estate, out onto a peninsula into the lakes, wonderful oak and yew forests (some of the last remaining in Ireland), moss covered forest glades, green swardes, lake and mountain views, all under a leaden grey sky, misty, damp and windy...we managed to enjoy ourselves immensely...
Today, we planned to climb a small mountain in the park, Mount Torc, and gave it a pretty good shot....it is only around a 300 metre climb and the path is largely made, but the wind and rain forced us back about two thirds of the way to the summit. Boronia managed to wear the chaps she had bought to keep her trousers dry, I stubbornly didnt put mine on as it would have meant removing my boots in the rain. As a result, we both ended up damp, me somewhat wetter than Boronia. Still, a bracing three hour walk through forest, along rivers, besides waterfalls, and onto hill sides in wind and sleet was just the thing to make us feel like we are confronting the elements and not allowing the weather to determine everything we do!
Not much more to report!
best wishes to all our readers
mike
Sunday saw us visit the national park's major drawcard, Muckross house and its gardens. As it was pretty wet, we decided to take a tour of the house, which was quite enlightening, particularly in terms of the class based nature of irish society right through the 19th century (and beyond?). Reminded me of the Robert Altman film Grafton House (I think that was the title?). Then for a walk around the estate, out onto a peninsula into the lakes, wonderful oak and yew forests (some of the last remaining in Ireland), moss covered forest glades, green swardes, lake and mountain views, all under a leaden grey sky, misty, damp and windy...we managed to enjoy ourselves immensely...
Today, we planned to climb a small mountain in the park, Mount Torc, and gave it a pretty good shot....it is only around a 300 metre climb and the path is largely made, but the wind and rain forced us back about two thirds of the way to the summit. Boronia managed to wear the chaps she had bought to keep her trousers dry, I stubbornly didnt put mine on as it would have meant removing my boots in the rain. As a result, we both ended up damp, me somewhat wetter than Boronia. Still, a bracing three hour walk through forest, along rivers, besides waterfalls, and onto hill sides in wind and sleet was just the thing to make us feel like we are confronting the elements and not allowing the weather to determine everything we do!
Not much more to report!
best wishes to all our readers
mike
Friday, October 29, 2010
Schull and Bantry
Its Thursday morning here in Bantry, a delightful little town with a wide selection of shops all living in what appear to be gingerbread cottages painted bright colours. We are exploring the local area, and on our way to the Beara Peninsula, one of three or four which extend out into the atlantic off the south west coast of Ireland. Next stop is a coffee shop and then on into the wind, rain and fog which seems ubiquitous and ever-present here. Hopefully the conditions will jsut add to the scenery.
We are staying in a wonderful cottage overlooking the atlantic ocean just ourside the town of Schull, which the maritime charts list as Skull. Unfortunately, I am sick with the flu, so have not been able to get out and about as much as we would like.
One compensation has been that I can get some reading done. Highlight has been Marilynne Robinson's extraordinarily moving novel Home, but have also been delving into a couple of Ian Rankin crime books.
Next step is not clear. We head off from Schull on Saturday, maybe towards the Dingle Peninsula. General direction is to head north along Ireland's western coast. While we may not be living dangerously, we are gradually coming to rely more on serendipity as a guiding principle.
Apologies for the brevity, but I am not up to a longer account!
mike
We are staying in a wonderful cottage overlooking the atlantic ocean just ourside the town of Schull, which the maritime charts list as Skull. Unfortunately, I am sick with the flu, so have not been able to get out and about as much as we would like.
One compensation has been that I can get some reading done. Highlight has been Marilynne Robinson's extraordinarily moving novel Home, but have also been delving into a couple of Ian Rankin crime books.
Next step is not clear. We head off from Schull on Saturday, maybe towards the Dingle Peninsula. General direction is to head north along Ireland's western coast. While we may not be living dangerously, we are gradually coming to rely more on serendipity as a guiding principle.
Apologies for the brevity, but I am not up to a longer account!
mike
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
short update from Kinsale
W have been busy, and have not had much access to the internet, so apologies for the lack of updates
Our last day in Dublin was terrific, we walked to the docklands, a sort of mini darling harbour which was pleasant, and good excercise, then to the national gallery which was unexpectedly terrific, with a great selectin of renaissanace paintings: Bosch, Velasquez, Titian and Caraveggio amongst many others, yet not overwhleming like the Prado or Louvre. Next on the list was a visit to the National Library, and a splendid exhibition of W.B.Yeats manuscripts, photographs, films, and poetry readings. The day finished with a guided Literary Pub Crawl, which was both highly amusing and entertaining, and informative to boot.
Friday saw us driving to Cork, the main attraction being the Cork Jazz Festival. Boronia had amazingly booked us last minute accommodation in the very centre of Cork, it was almost too good to be true, and after an hours fruitless searching, we discovered it was too good to be true, and was in fact in Ballycotton, a mere 42 kms away. In Boronia's defence, the google map on the booking confirmation was highly misleading! Nevertheness, the Bayview Hotel in Ballycotton was four stars, had great views over the bay and the atlantic, a cliff walk and enabled us to explore the surrrounding area and have a great time. Serendipity at work!
We still managed to take in a fair bit of the jazz festival and to explore Cork. The highlights were a concert by the Tord Gustavsen ensemble - I have three CDs, but the live performance was extraordinary. Also a more energetic, but less nuanced concert by the Omar Sosa quartet, afro-latin jazz in extremis! I highly recommend Tord Gustavsen for anyone looking for some laid back and very svelte scandinavian jazz.
We are now heading to Ireland's wild south west. We have only managed an hour's driving before Boronia was diverted by a market day in Kinsale, the gourmet capital of Ireland according tothe various brochures and guide books we have managed to get our hands on. Sounds like a good place for lunch!
So we are surviving! We managed to walk ten kms yesterday, and have done a fair bit of walking around Cork, but the waist lines must be expanding!...the next week should offer plenty of oportunities to remedy this. All I am missing is the New Yorker, a regular hit of Australian newsprint, and my own home made meusli....otherwise, life is perfect! I cant help thinking the good times are bound to end soon!
Top of the day to all our readers
mike
Our last day in Dublin was terrific, we walked to the docklands, a sort of mini darling harbour which was pleasant, and good excercise, then to the national gallery which was unexpectedly terrific, with a great selectin of renaissanace paintings: Bosch, Velasquez, Titian and Caraveggio amongst many others, yet not overwhleming like the Prado or Louvre. Next on the list was a visit to the National Library, and a splendid exhibition of W.B.Yeats manuscripts, photographs, films, and poetry readings. The day finished with a guided Literary Pub Crawl, which was both highly amusing and entertaining, and informative to boot.
Friday saw us driving to Cork, the main attraction being the Cork Jazz Festival. Boronia had amazingly booked us last minute accommodation in the very centre of Cork, it was almost too good to be true, and after an hours fruitless searching, we discovered it was too good to be true, and was in fact in Ballycotton, a mere 42 kms away. In Boronia's defence, the google map on the booking confirmation was highly misleading! Nevertheness, the Bayview Hotel in Ballycotton was four stars, had great views over the bay and the atlantic, a cliff walk and enabled us to explore the surrrounding area and have a great time. Serendipity at work!
We still managed to take in a fair bit of the jazz festival and to explore Cork. The highlights were a concert by the Tord Gustavsen ensemble - I have three CDs, but the live performance was extraordinary. Also a more energetic, but less nuanced concert by the Omar Sosa quartet, afro-latin jazz in extremis! I highly recommend Tord Gustavsen for anyone looking for some laid back and very svelte scandinavian jazz.
We are now heading to Ireland's wild south west. We have only managed an hour's driving before Boronia was diverted by a market day in Kinsale, the gourmet capital of Ireland according tothe various brochures and guide books we have managed to get our hands on. Sounds like a good place for lunch!
So we are surviving! We managed to walk ten kms yesterday, and have done a fair bit of walking around Cork, but the waist lines must be expanding!...the next week should offer plenty of oportunities to remedy this. All I am missing is the New Yorker, a regular hit of Australian newsprint, and my own home made meusli....otherwise, life is perfect! I cant help thinking the good times are bound to end soon!
Top of the day to all our readers
mike
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Deliberative democracy in Dublin
I wont comment on the defamations in the previous post.
We have been exploring the city on foot, always a pleasant experience. Unfortunately, I doubt that the excercise involved will offset the calories we are taking on board as we go. Highlights have included the Dublin City gallery, with an interesting exhibition which includes the entire contents of Francis Bacon's studio, transported from London after his death; the Chester Beatty Library which houses a terrific collection of Islamic, East Asian and Christian art and artefacts - reminiscent of the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon; and the Gallery of Photography with an excellent exhibiiton of early Irish photographs from a private collector's collection. Disappointments were the Irish Museum of Modern Art, for which I had high expectations, and the Trinity College art collection for which I didn't expect too much. Of course, there are no highs without the lows, and even the mediocre galleries incude the odd gem.
I also managed to attend a lecture at Trinity College by a Canadian academic, Prfessor Carty, on a citizens' assembly process undertaken in British Columbia in around 2004 to assess BC's First Past the Post electoral system. The lecture was quite straightforward, delivered well, and enjoyable, essentially arguing that the randomly selected citizens' assembly process worked very well, even though the subsequent referendum failed. The key points made were that there had been increasing frustration with politics and politicians in BC, and the then Opposition committed to the process as part of its then election platform.
When it won Government, the process was initiated along with a commitment to implement whatever the Assembly proposed should it pass at a Referendum. The bar was set at 60%, and more than 50% in a majority of districts. In the event, the Assembly recommended a Single Transferable Voting system over the status quo. At the subsequent referendum, the BC community voted in favour of the Assembly's recomendations with a 58% support level and a majority in 75 of 77 districts. As the previously set benchmark had not been met, the proposal failed. There was a subsequent referendum which also failed, though Prof Carty didnt go into why.The thought occurred to me that there was a paradox at the core of the process - it was built on voter dissatisfaction with politicians and politics, but was essentially aimed at finding a better way to elect politicians and determine politics. It didn't really question the underlying assumptions of the electoral system and politics generally.
I found the lecture quite stimulating, not so much for what it says about British Columbia or deliberative democracy, but because it highlights that the so called democratic deficit is widespread, even ubiquitous, in democratic societies. It seems to me that whatever the merits of citizens assemblies and deliberative democracy, our electoral systems are increasingly archaic and ill-suited to the the pace, demands and broad cultural ethos of modern societies. Our electoral systems are based on 17th and 18th century technology. Representative democracy no doubt will continue to have a place in democratic societies, but where in the political marketplace do voters and citizens have the purchasing power they have in commercial markets? Why can't we devise ways to allow for this? What might those ways be? I feel an essay coming on, so will spare you all.
Best wishes from Dublin
mike
We have been exploring the city on foot, always a pleasant experience. Unfortunately, I doubt that the excercise involved will offset the calories we are taking on board as we go. Highlights have included the Dublin City gallery, with an interesting exhibition which includes the entire contents of Francis Bacon's studio, transported from London after his death; the Chester Beatty Library which houses a terrific collection of Islamic, East Asian and Christian art and artefacts - reminiscent of the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon; and the Gallery of Photography with an excellent exhibiiton of early Irish photographs from a private collector's collection. Disappointments were the Irish Museum of Modern Art, for which I had high expectations, and the Trinity College art collection for which I didn't expect too much. Of course, there are no highs without the lows, and even the mediocre galleries incude the odd gem.
I also managed to attend a lecture at Trinity College by a Canadian academic, Prfessor Carty, on a citizens' assembly process undertaken in British Columbia in around 2004 to assess BC's First Past the Post electoral system. The lecture was quite straightforward, delivered well, and enjoyable, essentially arguing that the randomly selected citizens' assembly process worked very well, even though the subsequent referendum failed. The key points made were that there had been increasing frustration with politics and politicians in BC, and the then Opposition committed to the process as part of its then election platform.
When it won Government, the process was initiated along with a commitment to implement whatever the Assembly proposed should it pass at a Referendum. The bar was set at 60%, and more than 50% in a majority of districts. In the event, the Assembly recommended a Single Transferable Voting system over the status quo. At the subsequent referendum, the BC community voted in favour of the Assembly's recomendations with a 58% support level and a majority in 75 of 77 districts. As the previously set benchmark had not been met, the proposal failed. There was a subsequent referendum which also failed, though Prof Carty didnt go into why.The thought occurred to me that there was a paradox at the core of the process - it was built on voter dissatisfaction with politicians and politics, but was essentially aimed at finding a better way to elect politicians and determine politics. It didn't really question the underlying assumptions of the electoral system and politics generally.
I found the lecture quite stimulating, not so much for what it says about British Columbia or deliberative democracy, but because it highlights that the so called democratic deficit is widespread, even ubiquitous, in democratic societies. It seems to me that whatever the merits of citizens assemblies and deliberative democracy, our electoral systems are increasingly archaic and ill-suited to the the pace, demands and broad cultural ethos of modern societies. Our electoral systems are based on 17th and 18th century technology. Representative democracy no doubt will continue to have a place in democratic societies, but where in the political marketplace do voters and citizens have the purchasing power they have in commercial markets? Why can't we devise ways to allow for this? What might those ways be? I feel an essay coming on, so will spare you all.
Best wishes from Dublin
mike
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