Week 6.1: Museum of Country Life and Reconnecting

There was a lot going on in the backrooms of the Cafe this past week and we ended up needing to leave Westport a week early and go to Alberta.  But I still want to finish up the blog so I'll be posting new entries over the next few days.

Wednesday was the day the weather really started to turn around.  It was still a little chilly but the beautiful sunshine was such a treat.  Our kind friend D had once again offered to take us out to the Museum of Country Life outside of Castlebar and so we set out there in the morning.  The Irish museums we've been to have all been fantastic-- interesting spaces, fascinating content, and well curated.  

One of the first things you see when you start walking through is a collection of images that remind you of the differences between reality and romanticization of Irish history.  That seemed to be a theme throughout the museum.  This exhibit-- along with all the other things we've seen on this trip-- was a stark reminder of some of the realities that inform (and continue to inform) this country and its people.  It's the vital context between statistics like this one: in 1841, the population of Ireland was 8,175, 124 and in 1861 it was 5,798,967.  As I heard elsewhere, over a million Irish went to the New World and a million went to the Next World.  The more I read about this, the more stunned and appalled I am that the Irish famine rarely emerged in my studies of the 19th century.  I'll be working on redressing that.  I am not sure how my education missed that.
Our kind friend D picked us up and we went for lunch and while there, we got an email from the lovely man who drove us around Ireland a year and a half ago saying he was going to be in Westport that evening.  We met him at a pub we suggested (where the lovely J works) and then went for dinner.  It was so wonderful to see him, especially since it was he showed us the country we all fell in love with.   He joked to J that he thought it was funny that the visitors had suggested the pub but J smiled and said "No, they're locals now."  It did my heart good to have lovely friends from both trips in the same place.  Dinner was wonderful and M offered to drive us around to see some more sights on the Thursday.  Thinking back on that night, I'm struck by the memory of how at home I felt there and how it all feels like a dream right now.  A dream "that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.”