Dublin’s overcast skies greeted some travel-weary journalists on our last morning in Ireland. Weary, maybe, but still humming melodies from last night’s spontaneous musical revelry at O’Donoghue’s pub on Merrion Row. Once the clock had struck midnight, Emma Goldman, our Manhattanite-cum-Dubliner starlet, sang the Irish under the table. From “Long Black Veil” to “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” her siren songs drew admiring crowds—though we can’t dismiss Niall O’Dowd’s rare talent for attracting passersby to our table. Whatever the method, the Columbia crew managed to round up a sizeable chorus of Irish balladeers, who joined us in song until the wee morning hours.
In the morning, students peeled themselves out of bed to eat a final Irish breakfast at the Camden Court Hotel. Robbie Corey-Boulet managed to attend an 8 a.m. Easter mass. Some stayed in the hotel to pack. An ambitious crew continued to the Irish Jewish Museum at 3 Walworth Road in the Portobello section of Dublin.
Raphael Siev, the museum’s curator, greeted Columbia students at 10 a.m. with some Irish-Jewish history and a tour of the museum. From Torah covers to Jewish business cards, the converted synagogue burst at the seams with seemingly arbitrary relics of Dublin’s Jewish memory.
“My first thought was New York apartment,” said Melanie Huff. “You got the feeling that if it was Jewish, it belonged.”
Six students explored the main room, which was lined with glass cases crammed with Jewish artifacts.
“For me it was going into the most interesting grandmother’s attic ever,” said Debra Katz. “It was a big dusty jumble of Jewish history.”
Siev explained that Russian Jews streamed into Ireland as they escaped pogroms. Jewish communities developed not just in Dublin, but also in other port towns around Ireland including Limerick, Cork, Waterford, Drogheda, Belfast, and Derry. Dublin’s Jewish population approximately doubled from 1,100 to 2,300 between 1881 and 1901, supporting more than nine synagogues. In the 1970s, Dublin’s Jewish families started to move to the suburbs, and older generations were dying out. The synagogue, which houses the museum, closed and remained locked until 1984 when the community decided to convert the building. Chaim Herzog, the Irish born former president of Israel and son to Ireland’s first chief rabbi, inaugurated the museum’s opening in June of 1985.
“It’s very inspiring that that Raphael is able to keep alive this little legacy of the Dublin Jewish community,” said Sharon Usadin. “It’s very important to Jewish people when there are so few left.”
The group reconvened with the remaining Columbia students at 12:30 to load our bags onto the C.I.E. tour bus. Professor Goldman bid us farewell—he plans to spend another night in Dublin to observe the Easter holiday—and sang one last round of “Boker,” his daily morning song. “Boker” means “morning” in Hebrew, and the song is a lasting tradition from his previous Covering Religion trip to Israel. “Boker” eventually morphed into “Maidin” which means “morning” in Irish by the end of the trip.
Goldman also reminded us of the looming “d” word: deadline. We’ll have one week to perform the alchemy of turning scribbled notes and reels of tape into journalism. After 10 days of dogged reporting, some students have managed to whip up an impressive number of stories with an Ireland dateline.
On our ride to the Dublin airport, we squeezed every last note from our resident singers. Emma Goldman agreed to an encore performance of “Long Black Veil.” John Byrne cleared his pipes for “On Raglan Road.” Only after persistence on the part of our intrepid reporters did he concede to a “blast of Lisdoonvarna,” his smash single. Jamie McGee and Eileen He treated us to their new hit “Conn Corrigan,” a tune that, much to Corrigan’s chagrin, will likely ring through the J-school’s halls upon our return.
We said our goodbyes to Byrne, who handed off the last of the articles he’d been clipping throughout the trip to his former passengers. We rolled and heaved luggage puffy with Aran Island sweaters to the check in. The group passed through security and dispersed to duty-free shops and snack bars.
In the moments before boarding, exhaustion triumphed over eloquence. Andrew Nusca felt the trip was “fab.” Other students reveled in glossy magazines and bags of candy. Many anticipate the New York homecoming, but Rachel King remained nostalgic: “Everyone here is so friendly and everything is so clean. But New York is an OK place to go back to.”
We endured over an hour on the plane before takeoff due to a computer shutdown in the terminal. But at 5:15 p.m. Aer Lingus flight 107 finally coasted down the runway. The patchwork of Ireland’s green fields shrank beneath us. It took just minutes to break through the clouds and leave our 10 days in Ireland behind.
