The Emerald Isle

Hello, all! I assume if you're reading this, you are either family or a bored friend. I have now been in Ireland for one week, and so much has happened. I finally figured out how to create a blog. The hardest part is coming up with a URL that isn't already taken. Fortunately, my recent visit to the grave of W.B. Yeats inspired me. The inscription on his stone reads:
"Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by!"
Feel free to make whatever you'd like of that, but to me, it suggests a response to an attitude that prevails in Ireland. I read a quotation by Daniel Moynihan that states: "To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart." I've seen The Wind that Shakes the Barley and Michael Collins in the last week. I have to say, Ireland is a beautifully melancholy place, still deeply shaken from years of oppression. The command Yeats has left on his gravestone seems to suggest one take a more apathetic view on existence. How fun!
Anyways, I will be posting several more times today, hoping to catch up on everything that has happened so far! But before that can happen, I must get through The Telemachiad in Ulysses.