Dennis Deery

Our 11-year old niece Heather has been playing violin professionally with The Clauson Family Music Show for the past couple of years. Quite an accomplishment for such a young lady, but this past weekend she topped it. Heather, along with dad Steve and mom Vicky went to the Country USA Music Festival in Oshkosh. They got to see Alan Jackson, Carrie Underwood and a number of other big name performers. But Steve emailed the highlight of the weekend:

One of the things we had to adjust to when we moved to Ireland was taking our own cloth shopping bags to the grocery store. Why? Well, Ireland levies a €0.15 tax on plastic grocery bags, so every time we forgot to take our own (a lot, at first), we had to spend 30 or 45 cents to buy plastic bags. We’ve since gotten in the habit, and so no longer have to buy plastic bags, and thus no longer consume more scarce natural resources for both making the bags and then disposing of them.

This past weekend we made a visit to County Cork to check out the little village of Cobh. Kathleen has a group of students visiting, so her helper on the trip, Dana, joined us for the day. We had been to Cobh for a brief visit shortly after we moved here, but decided it was worth checking out again. We’re glad we did, as we found much more to see on this visit than the last one.

A few weeks ago I was contacted by the editor of Start magazine, a free arts and culture monthly published here in southeast Ireland. He was doing a story on a series of lunchtime concerts being held in St. Iberius Church in Wexford, a beautiful 300-year old church. He searched online and found the photo above that I had taken on a visit to the church, and contacted me to ask if he could use it.

This past weekend Kathleen and I were in Dublin for a couple of events. We managed a short visit to the Street Performance World Championship in Merrion Square. Though we didn’t get to see much of the show, we did see part of the final performance by the Space Cowboy, who won the competition for the second year in a row. The Space Cowboy is from Australia and actually earns a living as a street performer.

The Wisconsin Arts Board has come out with a new study showing the impact the arts have on local economies. According to the report, “in 2005, Wisconsin’s non-profit arts industry generated over 15,000 full-time jobs and $61,840,000 in state and local government revenue. Cumulatively, the arts contributed $418,055,786 in total economic activity.” The Wisconsin Arts Board hopes to use the report’s findings to improve public funding for the arts in Wisconsin.

http://www.dataplace.org/

[ Click to buy from Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416534652/irishroseconsult) A couple of months ago we stopped in the town of Wexford on a Saturday when their book festival was being held. Author Colm Tóibín was doing a reading, but we were unable to stick around until he was up. I found a couple of his non-fiction books, Bad Blood and Sign of the Cross, purchased them and left them to be signed and mailed to us.

Wired magazine’s web site has an illustration showing gas prices around the world. From a low of $0.17 in Venezuela to a high of $6.65 in London, there’s quite a range. Gas prices are always a hot topic for us here in Ireland - we’re currently sitting at $5.92 after a recent rise. Thank god the island is so small, we don’t do nearly the driving we did in Wisconsin!

Last night we were treated to a tour of one of three working oats mills in Ireland, Flahavan’s in Kilmacthomas, about 20 miles from Tramore. The mill has been in the same location, owned by the same family, for over 200 years, though none of the original buildings survive. Flahavan’s own about 56% of the market for porridge oats in Ireland. Their staff of around 45 people produces rolled oats, cereals, flour and snack products, turning out 2-3 tons of product per hour.

I must say, one of the things I really enjoy in Ireland is the many foggy days we get. True, after 4 straight months of rain this winter, it did get a bit old. But nothing beats a good foggy day for picture taking, especially in an ancient landscape. Click here for slideshow

469 candidates vying for 165 seats - wow! Candidates don’t have to live in the constituency (district) where they’re running for office. So, some candidates can’t even vote for themselves - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is one example. There has been no television advertising during this race - I’m assuming it’s against the law. The signs - man, it’s hard to describe how many signs are up around this country.

Today was election day in Ireland for national offices. People are headed to the polls to elect their local Teachta Dail (similar to U.S. Representatives). Because Ireland has a parliamentary system, this election will also decide, somewhat indirectly, who will run the country for the next few years. Citizens will elect the members of the Dail Eireann, the national parliament. Members elected to the Dail will then caucus to determine which parties will control the government.

U.S. News & World Report has published a listing of the favorite books of several of today’s business leaders. Lots of good stuff here. Read the story.

This past weekend Kath and I went exploring an area called The Burren in the western part of Ireland. The Burren is named from an Irish word that means “stone place”, and that’s what it is - mile after mile of stone-covered landscape. It’s really an interesting place, and contains a lot of different plant types. I’ll let the pictures speak their thousands of words on this one, rather than trying to describe it.

Our month-o-visitors continued with my sister Kathy, her husband Tim and my two nieces Caitlin and Brianna coming to Ireland. Our timing was just about as good as you could get it. I dropped the Peltons off on the departures level of Dublin Airport, went downstairs to the arrivals level and met the new arrivals just a few minutes later, while Kathleen scurried home to Tramore to ready the guest rooms.

So it seems that the first of March kicked off tourist season here at the Deery getaway in Ireland. Our first visitors were friends Mark and Shaun Pelton from Reedsburg, Wisconsin. We’ve learned from our own experience, and that of visitors, that when folks arrive first thing in the morning, it’s best if we can keep them up most of the day. With that in mind, we ran some errands in Dublin before heading out to take the long way home to Tramore.

Centuries of hatred give you ears that cannot hear An eye for an eye, that was all that filled their minds Another eye for another eye, til everyone is blind* There Were Roses, by Tommy Sands So a few weeks ago we decided to head for Brussels for the weekend. Instead we ended up in Belfast - ask Kathleen… We’d (okay, I’d) been wanting to get to Belfast since we got to Ireland.

The day we flew home from our Christmas visit to Wisconsin, we had the pleasure of meeting my niece Meghan coming in from her short visit to Germany. On break from school at UW-Platteville, she of course had to take advantage of the chance to visit Uncle Dennis and Aunt Kathleen while we’re overseas (just as I visited her mother in Germany when I was in college!). We were happy to have more company as it gives us the perfect excuse to get out and do more exploring here.

Last weekend we headed for Kildare, a town about three hours north of here, near Dublin, for the Féile Bríde, the Feast of St. Brigid. St. Brigid is often called the female St. Patrick, she is the second patron saint of Ireland. Brigid lived in Kildare in the 4th century, and the Brigidine Sisters this year celebrate 200 years since the founding of their order. We learned about the festival late in the week, and so missed several of the events.