Other differences also became readily apparent: The average age of the students gathered in Kennedy Park, some with backpacking travel gear and instruments in tow, fell far below that of the 80-year-old monks at Mount St. Joseph Abbey. And individual stores seemed tailored to the Columbia demographic: A boutique named Brooklyn Jam advertised "unisex urban streetwear," while a nearby eatery promised New York-style pizza. Before the bus had come to a full stop, Jamie McGee looked out her window and, taking it all in, proclaimed, "I like Galway a lot!"
Shortly after we left the bus and took our first steps along Shop Street, bells rang out from the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, the largest medieval church in Ireland, located in the heart of Galway City. The gesture — intended to express solidarity with victims of the recent violence in Lhasa, Tibet — offered evidence of the church's heightened awareness of and respect for other cultures and religions.
Though a member of the Anglican Communion, the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas is interdenominational, meaning that it welcomes worshipers from all Christian denominations. Canon Maureen Ryan said the church attracts many "transients" – when the students leave for the summer, the tourists begin arriving en masse.
Being both students and tourists (and journalists, pilgrims, etc., etc.), we took our seats in the nave for the 11 a.m. Palm Sunday Eucharist. The service featured a dramatic rendering of The Passion of Christ according to St. Matthew. Members of the choir assumed all the key roles – Jesus, Judas, Matthew and Pilate, to name a handful – and worked their way through nine pages of dialogue, forgoing the traditional stand-and-deliver reading method in an effort to make the nuances of the verses more palpable.
The choir also performed a stirring rendition of Psalm 22. The male and female singers stood across from each other at the head of the nave and sang verses in a call-and-response sequence.
While the psalm's opening words — "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint" — encouraged worshipers to ponder the abstract, issues raised during the concurrent children's service tended toward the practical. Zach Goelman ducked into this service, which took place in the adjacent north transept and included eight or so youngsters. As the instructor reviewed the Palm Sunday liturgy, several of the children seemed perplexed as to how Jesus could possibly have ridden a donkey all the way from Bethany and Bethpage to Jerusalem. One child mistook the word "prophecy" for "Pharisees," which prompted the following explanation: "The Pharisees didn't like Jesus because he was too popular."
"It was very adorable, actually," Zach said. "They sat on the floor and fluttered about, and it wasn't too organized."
After the Eucharist, Deborah Lee-Hjelle stayed in the church to see two Nigerian immigrants baptize their son. Assorted relatives and friends — including Catholics and Pentecostal Evangelicals — gathered around the stone baptismal font in the back of the nave to witness the ritual. The parents wore blue-and-white garments with African prints, while the little boy wore a white christening gown. To conclude the ceremony, the worshippers lit candles and sang "This Little Light of Mine."
"I thought a baptism was sitting in the pews and watching a kid get baptized up front," Deborah said. "Instead it was clustered. It wasn't organized like I pictured."
Deborah noted the communal nature of the service, which enabled Christians from a wide range of denominations to come together and mark an important step in the life of a child.
The Rev. Patrick Towers, who performed the ceremony, said the open nature of the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, which was founded in 1320, reflects an acknowledgment that other Christian faiths can be just as valid as Anglicanism. To say that only one approach can lead to salvation, he said, would be presumptuous and potentially misguided. Anglican churches, he said, "are not at the top of any moral or ethical mountain. We're all on a pilgrimage. There is no revelation from God that says, 'You are right.'"
In the spirit of Palm Sunday as moveable feast, some of us grabbed lunch on the go at a street fair and wandered around Galway. Because tomorrow is a bank holiday, the crowd included just as many – if not more – tourists than Galway residents. At one busy pedestrian intersection, four travelers from Seattle serenaded passersby with, among other hits, Outkast's "Hey Ya." I can only speak for myself, but I took great comfort in the knowledge that Big Boi and Andre 3000 can have a hand in bolstering America's image abroad.
In the afternoon, most of us left Galway and traveled to County Clare, where we toured the Cliffs of Moher. Although the site is bustling with tourists, the cliffs are undeniably impressive. There was little time for a tour of the exhibit, but I'm confident that John, our tour guide who drives as steadily as he talks, can fill us in on their geological history.
In the evening, we arrived at the Ardilaun Hotel in time for dinner with Cormac McConnell, an arts and culture columnist for The Irish Voice. And now, fully liberated from the monastery's curfew, we head for a night out in Galway.
By Robbie Corey-Boulet
