Mitchell Scholar Blogs

Sitting in a café one Saturday afternoon, I watched as a tall, imposing man wearing a silver and black Oakland Raiders bomber jacket entered with his wife. An Irish woman with a fabulous curler-finished blow out, she dawned a beautiful, colorful scarf and several necklaces. Feeling a bit homesick for the first time since moving to Dublin, I immediately took note of the man, who was probably American. The Raiders are Las Vegas’s new American football team, where I am from.

Working on my coursework for my MSc in Digital Policy, I overheard the duo joke to another pair about being an American-Irish couple. In hopes of making some new acquaintances, I introduced myself, another American transplant to Dublin. They immediately struck up conversation with me, talking about American sports, pawn shops in Las Vegas, Irish newspapers, Mohair scarves, and the impending Irish winter. They were immensely warm to me when they didn’t need to be, a kindness I appreciated that day as I missed my family and friends in the States.

My encounter with the American-Irish pair is emblematic of something I’ve experienced throughout my time here in Dublin: an undeserved and extremely generous kindness. This, combined with the stunning beauty of the island, has made Dublin one of my favorite places in the world in just a few short months.

When I arrived in Dublin in August, I almost immediately fell in love with the city. From the colorful doors and small antique shops in the city center, to the beautiful cliffs of Howth and the seaside cafes in Blackrock, Dublin’s beauty is undeniable. From what I’ve seen of Northern Ireland in Belfast, Derry, and Donegal, the country has an impressive natural beauty. For a few weeks in September, we were also blessed with some very sunny and dry weather. This helped me to adjust to the climate from my summer spent in the very hot Las Vegas desert.

But while I adjusted to the city quite quickly, it took more time for me to build connections with people living here. I have always struggled to build community in times of transition, and was nervous that my time here would be marked by loneliness. Yet encounters like those I had in the coffee shop quickly diminished my fears. My conversations with the lively couple were just some of many random meetings I’d have with extremely kind people throughout the city. These people, ultimately, are what have made Dublin one of my favorite places in the world. I’ve met people in Howth who offered to help me in times of crisis, I’ve met students curious about how American football works, and I’ve met women in pilates classes also learning to navigate Dublin in their 20s. And of course, the Mitchells have become my home base. They are absolutely wonderful people, and I’m so excited we get to experience this year together!

In addition to making friends, however, I am here to learn. I feel immensely fortunate to have been introduced to people working in industry, civil society, and government to ensure Europeans have safe and positive experiences in digital spaces. Learning from the expertise of people from the Irish Data Protection Commission (the lead enforcer of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation), Reddit, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, and Digital Rights Ireland, I feel extraordinarily thankful that these people are willing to spare some of their time to talk with me about their work. Perhaps what I’ve been most impressed with surrounding my encounters with these experts has been the way in which they treat me as their equal (I am by no means their equal). Curious about my beliefs, experiences, and expertise, they have engaged in conversation with me as if I could teach them something meaningful, when I only thought I could learn from them. These interactions have given me confidence in my own ability to take on challenges in the digital space, and I’m grateful to them for it.

All in all, I feel so lucky to be in a place like this, and grateful to the Mitchell Scholarship for making it possible. I’m looking forward to many more adventures over the next several months!

Of all the many pieces of advice I received before moving to Ireland, the most common refrain involved weather: be prepared for rain. So perhaps it was preordained that when I arrived in Limerick, on a gray, brooding afternoon in early September, it would be amid a proper Irish downpour.

Still in a bit of a daze after overnight travel and two flight transfers, I hauled my two hulking black suitcases off the bus and lurched into my taxi. My driver, Philip, a chipper man in his 60s, greeted me with a friendliness and curiosity that I would soon recognize as characteristic of many Irish people. Over the next twenty minutes, he peppered me with questions and proceeded to give me a tour of the University of Limerick’s campus, jabbing a finger at various buildings and explaining to me the quickest way to navigate from dorm to classroom. I remember being awed by the beauty of the campus: the lush, expansive lawns, the forest that lined the roads and intermingled with university buildings, or the “living bridge” that arched over the river Shannon.

In the two months since that taxi ride, that initial wonder has remained, but it has also evolved into something more domestic — an appreciation for small moments of beauty and for the pockets of campus that have become familiar, like the ten minute walk along the wooded trail that snakes between my apartment and the gym, or the cotton-candy sunsets I’ve taken in from my balcony.

I’ve also ventured further afield in search of Ireland’s natural beauty. Limerick is a gateway to the Wild Atlantic Way, and many bus tours begin at my campus, allowing me to easily travel to some of the country’s most scenic spots. I’ve climbed in a rusty shipwreck on one of the Arran Islands and watched waves thrash the cliffs of Moher. At Killarney National Park, I caught a glimpse of Ireland’s elusive red deer, and at Muckross Abbey, I admired a 400-year-old yew tree. Our tour guide shared a local legend: they say that touching the tree gifts you greater artistic creativity, causing many writers to journey to the abbey in search of inspiration.

Like all myths, this one is probably rooted in truth. Art, creativity, clear thinking, self-knowledge — all such things flourish when nurtured by silence and space, two commodities that become more plentiful with proximity to natural beauty and are increasingly scarce in our frenzied, urban lives.

I felt that scarcity last year when living and working in Manhattan as a journalist. I love New York and its people; I hope to return after this year. Still, there was something about the city’s unrelenting pace, sheer noisiness and constant professional and social demands on my time that cannibalized my attention and scattered my thoughts. In a city of many extraordinary luxuries, silence and solitude were the two that felt most out of reach.

Not so in Limerick. Now, when I look out my window, instead of seeing a stream of honking taxis on First Ave, I see trees, flush with their fall foliage, and a field that flows into the Shannon. I have space to think more deeply about myself and my place in the world.

And, of course, I’ve had many more rainy days since that first one when I stepped bleary-eyed off my bus; on those days, I’ll look out this window, a book in hand, and watch the storms come and go. If I’m patient, I’ll often glimpse a rainbow as well. Occasionally — call it the luck of the Irish — I’ll even see two.

I’m writing this just after getting back home from Mitchells group trip to Derry. It’s been a thought-provoking few days, with a range of themes and moods. We went up mainly to participate in Derry’s Halloween festival, which, with the >45,000 people it draws, is the largest Halloween event in Europe. While the ghoulish festivities related to the 3-day long affair were a big part of our experience, we were also fortunate enough to explore the North Coast, making stops at Giant’s Causeway, Ballycastle, and some Donegal beaches. We also were able to learn more about the history of Ireland from museums such as the Museum of Free Derry and the Siege Museum. Most of all, though, we were so lucky to engage in conversation with locals who have lived through instrumental years of change. Michael, a Derry local who was showing us around the North Coast, grew up during the Troubles and spoke with us transparently and honestly about the dynamics in his hometown. While divides are still apparent, he said, there is much more open discourse between both sides of the conflict about the future of the city as a place where both populations thrive. It requires acknowledging the past, but it also requires a willingness to accept that wrongdoings that have happened in the past cannot be undone, and that healing comes from looking forward.

Overall, I have noticed a general culture of inclusion and forward-facing amongst the Dubliners whom I’ve met. Despite only having been here for two months, I’ve had several run-ins with Dubliners who have gone out of their way to help me out. Just the other day, I was visiting the Irish Museum of Modern Art and wasn’t able to finish viewing a few wings. A museum guard then offered to unlock the Baroque Chapel, one of the Museum’s wings, and ended up walking me and my friend through the Chapel’s history, up to the restorations done in the past few years, including a fantastic papier-mâché reconstruction of the ornate baroque ceiling. Another time, a young woman who was on the same late-night flight as I offered to give me a lift back to the center of the city, where she was also headed. We ended up stopping at McDonalds and chatting for an hour—and realizing that we live quite close to each other! Since this serendipitous meeting, we’ve stayed in touch. These are just two examples of some of the everyday kindnesses I’ve experienced, actions whose generosity I never would have expected, given the general “stranger danger” mentality in Japan and the US. This generosity is apparent everywhere I look, from a Dunnes store clerk going out of his way to swap out a shopper’s bag of potatoes for a fresher set, or strangers readily giving up their seats so families can sit together on the Luas. I wonder how this sense of community and solidarity can be cultivated in other cities, and because my field of study here at Trinity College is urban- and energy-system planning, these reflections are shaping how I’m defining and measuring the improvement of public infrastructure to include these intangible aspects of urban life.

At Trinity, I can’t help but notice how vibrant the culture surrounding student organizations are—there are several clubs holding educational meetings, guest lectures, debates, relaxed socials, or pub crawls every day of the week, and it seems that every event is buzzing with club members. I myself followed suit and signed up for several clubs, including the Sub-Aqua Club, which organizes scuba dive training and trips around the island, the Harriers and Track Club (the term here for cross country running, which took me a while to realize), the Visual Arts Society, which hosts tours of exhibitions and art workshops, and the Hiking Society!

It’s wonderful meeting so many students who are all equally eager to lean into life in Dublin. Most weekends start with my idea of perfection, a destination run with some friends to/around various smaller towns just outside of Dublin, after which we’ll walk around a farmer’s market, explore some local businesses, and maybe even check out a museum. I’ve been able to visit Howth, Dún Laoghaire, Bray/Greystones, Rathmines, and Castleknock this way. A highlight was visiting the James Joyce Museum at the Martello Tower in Dún Laoghaire with a few other Mitchells and nerd out together over being in the room where Buck Mulligan and Daedalus start their morning in Telemachus. I’m planning to make it up to Malahide to run along the beautiful coastline and visit Malahide Castle next!

My semifinalist interview for the Mitchell Scholarship took place on October 30, 2023, less than a month after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War. Unsurprisingly, the conflict was one of the topics we discussed. Given the political context of the United States, I voiced my surprise at the widespread support Palestinians had received from Irish civilians and, to some extent, government officials. I recall making an offhand comment about the potential affinities between two peoples who had historically been subject to violent dispossession of land and life at the hands a powerful neighboring state.

Since arriving in Belfast nearly two months ago, I have come to see how much I underestimated the salience of the Israel-Palestine conflict on the island. To take a walk down Falls Road is to realize that, in the minds of many Irish people, it is not merely that there exists a symbolic link between Ireland and Palestine; rather, as they see it, Palestine is the most important theater in an ongoing global struggle against modern-day imperialism.

This perspective enjoys enough support that pro-Palestinian discourse is now even part of the academic mainstream in Belfast. Queen’s University regularly hosts pro-Palestine events and lectures, including, most recently, a multi-day conference. At the opening panel, the theme of which was finding a “roadmap to liberation,” speakers inveighed not only against Israel, but also against the United States government for perceived inaction and complicity in tens of thousands of needless deaths. It’s fair to say that such an event would be more or less unimaginable at most U.S. universities.

Of course, Belfast is not unified in its stance. Turn off the Falls toward the Shankhill, and you’ll be greeted by a large portrait of Benjamin Netanyahu and an endless display of Israeli flags. In March of this year, Jane Ohlmeyer, a history professor at Trinity College Dublin, stated that “there can be a tendency — and we see this, for example, in the street murals in Belfast — to see the conflict through the prism of Northern Ireland, where republican nationalists sympathize with Palestine and loyalists, unionists with Israel.” I wonder if it might be more accurate, or at least equally so, to invert the formulation. Perhaps it is Israel-Palestine that is the prism for sectarian divisions in Belfast—divisions which bubble under the surface in search of new outlets, less visible since the peace process but keenly felt by locals in a way they cannot be by an outsider.

Even though this may be the end of the Mitchell program, it’s only the beginning of my new journey. I’m immensely grateful for the opportunity to pursue my passion in Ireland and mold it into my guiding purpose.

August 28th was the day I initially arrived in Dublin. Now I sit here, 296 days later, tasked with reflecting on this journey.

It’s hard to put it into words, so instead I’m just going to show you all.

One picture from each week from the last 42 weeks (with description). Enjoy!

Week 1: So many pictures to choose from during my first week here, so I went with something basic and cliche.

Week 2: Barely a week here and I’m already in the tattoo studio, par for the course I guess

Week 3: NUT HOT!!!

Week 4: Vivek and I went to Gaol

Week 5: Alexa and I got trashed (literally)

Week 6: The first of many nights out with my new friends

Week 7: My class has our first (and only) study session (the rest were just parties)

Week 8: My classmates hosted the first class dinner. On the menu: biryani and panipuri

Week 9: I climb a cliff (and survive)

Week 10: I met the Mayor of Galway, who endured a grueling 2 minute pitch on hydroponic grocery stores from yours truly (our team didn’t win the competition)

Week 11: I experienced the worst bus ride ever and then Zoha convinced me to get launched in the air

Week 12: Who let this guy in the lab?????

Week 13: My classmates surprised me for my birthday (everyone thought it was a hen)

Week 14: Surprised my mom for my birthday

Week 15: Alexa and I tried to adopt a cat

Week 16: COP28 live coverage (pls don’t look for it online)

Week 17: Undoubtably Turnpike Troubadours was playing during this pic, I’m back stateside

Week 18: Holidays with my family

Week 19: Nick’s first taste of his new home (NYC)

Week 20: Spending my last few days back in the US with my first love

Week 21: The Boys are Back in Town (Cork)

Week 22: Never in a million years did I think I would be excited to see a machine that tracks cow burps but such is the consequence of my actions (Ag masters)

Week 23: They made my tattoo into a painting

Week 24: Pancake Tuesday!! (I taught my irish friend how to make real pancakes)

Week 25: Sam and I’s final ascent

Week 26: Vivek and I in Gaol (again)

Week 27: My brother experiences a night out with my friends!!

Week 28: Angela’s birthday (afrobeats at the club until 3 am not pictured)

Week 29: Final class field trip

Week 30: I was pink(er than usual) for like weeks after Holi

Week 31: Beach day with the program (my tattoos shouldnt be in the sun)

Week 32: First client for the start-up!

Week 33: Propa Irish swim ey

Week 34: The plate I had at this party was unlike anything I;ve eaten before. unreal.

Week 35: My first solo concert (could do a whole post on this). Over the course of my now 120 concerts, I’ve always been in attendance with family/friends/etc. This was my first concert alone and it was one of the most empowering things I’ve ever done.

Week 36: Me & my dog (back in the US)

Week 37: Wouldn’t miss it for the world, love y’all

Week 38: Made a friend on the plane to Ireland and she introduced me to her dog (and let me drive her car) (mistake)

Week 39: Updated my LinkedIn tagline to “Investor”

Week 40: Changed it to “Founder”

Week 41: Blessed to be surrounded by success

Week 42: I’ve spent my last few weeks in Galway being present, knowing this place will always be special

If you made it this far, just know I love and appreciate you for the support and friendship you’ve blessed me with over the past 426,240 minutes. <3

Last September, one week after arriving in Galway, I wrote a note to myself and stuck it in the depths of my 300-something page scrapbook. I’d completely forgotten about it until a few nights ago, when I was sorting through the book to find a home for the miscellaneous paper junk I’ve acquired over the year. The letter reads:

—-

September 3rd, 2023

Hiii—I’m writing this letter from my new room in Galway! Ahh! Everything feels so strange and weird and wonderful. I was up until 3 AM last night unpacking the last of my suitcases, and the room is beginning to feel familiar. I can see the ocean from my room’s window, and I just came back from a sunny, 79-degree weather day reading on the beach (wild, right?). The September Summer is real, and I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to experience it.

I don’t have anything specific to say. I just want take note of how I’m feeling before I forget. Grandma and Mom went home several days ago, and I’ve felt a bit anxious since they’ve left. Everything is new and stimulating, and it’s all so exciting, but I feel a bit out of my depth. Perhaps my anxieties will dissipate once classes start—I imagine that they will. 

I want to learn a new creative skill while I’m here (maybe bodhrán? pastels?) and take full advantage of my proximity to the sea. I plan to write a lot of letters (this is me practicing my cursive), take as many long walks on the prom as I can, and become a regular somewhere. TBD where that place will be. In the meantime, I’m going to stop by Secret Garden to get a pastry and buy some stamps so that I can send my first round of postcards. I wrote a few on that grassy patch along River Corrib yesterday and it helped to calm me down, so maybe I’ll do that again. I hate to end this so abruptly, but the weather outside is too good to miss! Till later…

—

Reading the letter back, I realize that I had completely forgotten about my feelings of apprehension at the start of the year. In the weeks after, I became close friends with the girls I met through my course, and we spent the next eight months hosting weeknight dinners, gossiping during lunch between our classes, going for morning swims, exchanging family recipes, frequenting the monthly drag shows at the Róisín Dubh, and spending more time in the Secret Garden than I’m willing to admit. I bought a set of oil pastels, filled an entire sketchbook with drawings from my travels in Ireland, and spent my Thursday nights in the Galway Pottery studio learning to never attach myself to a pottery creation, because it will inevitably fly off of the wheel and morph into an unrecognizable vessel that I’ll say is intentional.

In the spring, I went hiking in Connemara with the university’s mountaineering club, and enjoyed dozens of morning and night walks along the promenade. These walks particularly humored me when the weather broke 50 degrees and I saw the masses flocking to the Creamery for a 99. Ali introduced me to the finest wine bars that Galway has to offer, and never ceased to amaze me with her graciousness, humility, and ability to light up a room, no matter who’s in it. Rabhya generously hosted me for wonderful sleepovers, which made the long nights feel cozy, not oppressive, and Zoha always had the perfect book/song/TV recommendation that I didn’t know I needed. Alex and Sam provided first-class entertainment whenever I was cooking, and Vikram made me laugh often about philosophy, of all things. 

In such a short time, my apprehension about moving to Galway disappeared and was replaced by the fear of ever having to leave. As I write this from the Dublin airport waiting for my return flight to Chicago, I am immensely grateful for the Mitchell Scholarship and all of the people who made this year the most enjoyable and memorable year yet. Till later, Galway.

My mom, who rather coincidentally also studied abroad in Ireland, insists that Ulysses is the best book ever written.  Despite books being woefully inefficient in packing space to entertainment quantity ratio, I wasn’t allowed to leave America without a copy. It’s taken me until a few weeks ago (and ironically a trip to Croatia) to actually crack the thing open, but I think I see where she’s coming from. To be clear, I only just have an idea of what’s going on. That will take a lot more time and a lot more RTE companion podcasts. But with every page I begin to understand what makes Ulysses such a classic – at its core it’s an ode to Ireland and to Dublin. The joy of reading it has been discovering that, after all of my time here, on some small level I feel like I can relate to that. When the book opens at Sandycove Beach, I realise I’ve unknowingly stood in exactly that spot, looking out at Dalkey Island and the other very same landmarks admired by the characters.  I’ve watched the gulls in the Liffey, braved the winds of South Dublin’s beaches, and sprawled in the lush grass of Howth. When Leopold Bloom walks through the avenues of Dublin, I know the streets he takes, and I can envision how they intersect with my own habitual routes. There’s some essence of Dublin’s scrappy character that Joyce nails perfectly, and I would not have appreciated it without the months I’ve spent here. Of course, I don’t claim to have become Irish by any stretch of the imagination, nor really can I comprehend the Irish blood mixed with Joyce’s ink, but I can trace the silhouettes of roots I’ve planted here in his words. 

In admittedly quite the opposite vein, I’ve also found reflections in my favourite show, much of which was filmed in Northern Ireland. Though its similarities with Ulysses end at a penchant for gratuitous vulgarity, Game of Thrones epitomises the other side of my year on the Emerald Isle; the epic sprawl of the (in this case Northern) Irish landscape depicted on screen has been my primary reason for leaving Bloom’s blazed trails behind. Plus, it helps that I can visit The Wall or Winterfell on a day trip. While it sidesteps the culture and people that make Ireland and Northern Ireland what they are today, an imaginative vision of a land where armadas sail past cliffs and soldiers man hill-perched battlements has its merits. At the very least, it’s driven me to spend countless weekends exploring the furthest reaches from my home in Dublin. By my own measure my overarching quest to find the very best views has led me to explore this country quite thoroughly. Introspectively, I often find that the same dramatic flare of both Game of Thrones and the Irish landscape captures how I sometimes think about my own life. A career is a years-long campaign, an exam a siege to be plotted out and endured. There are battles to be won and ideals to be championed and grand strategies to play in the days to come. In other words, looking at landscapes all the time means you’re always zoomed out looking for the big features — quite the opposite from a single day packed into seven hundred pages.

What I’ve begun to realise about this year in Ireland is that I haven’t had to make a tradeoff between the sweeping sagas of Game of Thrones and the daily routines of Ulysses. I am so unbelievably fortunate that the simple moments of my day-to-day life have also been extraordinary. This is the unbelievable opportunity the Mitchell Scholarship has afforded me. No long haul flights, hardly any planning; I could wake up every morning beset by excitement and learning and places to explore. I’ve been living in the moment and living momentously at the same time. It’s the kind of thing that feels impossible to compress into words, but I’ll give it a try by tying together my past few months.

Perhaps my single greatest claim to fame is that a sheep finally let me pet it on the hike from Doolin to the Cliffs of Moher. (It turns out that neither offering grass, nor moving slowly, nor reducing your size, nor wearing white were more effective than simply finding sheep acclimated to tourism.) I visited the same pub in Killarney frequently enough that I established a regular seat (the two person booth beneath the stairs) that I shared on separate occasions with my best friend, my girlfriend, one of my college roommates, and my sisters. I got to hear from Geoff Hinton, “The Godfather of AI,” when he came to speak at UCD and hosted a private Q&A with the computer science students. I even spotted wild seals on my sixth hiking trip to Howth. On multiple occasions I accidentally walked in on pubs packed with screaming rugby fans (perhaps the only time the Irish are louder than Americans?), and I learned about how one of my Irish roommates ate baked potatoes with a side of chips at home in Donegal. On various bus or train journeys I got to soak in the lushness of Wicklow, the rapeseed fields of Trim, the wilderness of the Glens of Antrim, the crags of the Ring of Kerry, and the ruins of Kilkenny. Even as I write this the salty sea water from the Skelligs is finally drying out of my jeans.

For the longest time it felt like this year would go on forever until one day it started feeling like it would end tomorrow. I know when I return home in July that family and friends will ask me if I have any major takeaways from my time in Ireland, and I think first and foremost I’ll tell them this: I want to bring the epic adventures of the day to day back to the States with me. Being away has made me eager for my return to Atlanta, not just in that I miss it, but because I want to re-encounter it. Perhaps that is what I’ve learned from Ulysses too, in all its crudeness and minutiae: how to be present when walking the streets of home.

As it seems the end of my time in Ireland has no interest in getting any further away, I do feel the perennial nagging to be sappy for a few beats. For merely the idea of spending a funded year in Ireland I am eternally grateful; add to that the friends — new and old — who have shared in the adventures with me, the countless opportunities to explore corners of the world I never thought I would visit in my lifetime, and the astounding privilege of waking up each morning to a day that is exciting by default . . . I’m simply blown away. To everyone who played a part in that, many of whom are the only people who will ever read this: Thank you. 

A morning dip in Dingle.

As I write this last post, I’ve come home from a study day in the Dun Laoghaire library. It’s probably one of my favourite places in Dublin – you can see the seaside (and Howth, across Dublin Bay) from its massive windows. Today, there was a sailing race which was promptly interrupted by a thunderstorm. 

I’ve been preparing for my thesis, which will focus on Ireland’s 2017 climate assembly. Climate activists and deliberative democrats alike herald climate assemblies as the potential solution to break through political gridlock, leading to a proliferation of climate assemblies in Europe. Whether they actually enact said climate mitigation policies is another question. (It should be noted that Ireland’s climate assembly was the first in the world, making it a notable one to study.) Since coming to Dublin, I’ve been working as a research assistant for a multi-year project called “Communicative Deliberation for Climate Action,” or COMDEL, at DCU’s Future of Media, Journalism, and Democracy Institute. We’ve written several papers on climate assemblies and climate misinformation, and my thesis will serve as another paper for the project. 

Witnessing citizens’ assemblies in Ireland has been both inspiring and humbling. It’s still remarkable to me how mainstream politicians have bought into a fairly radical idea of representation; yet some of their shortcomings are also more visible to me now. I briefly mentioned this in my first blog post but in October, I got to see the last session of the Assembly on Drugs. I’d been warned that the session was going to be dry, as it was just voting on the proposed recommendations. My expectations couldn’t be more wrong. At a bleary 8 AM in Malahide, a woman stood up and declared that the assembly was rigged. She voiced her discontent with the voting process, saying that RTE had already predicted what the assembly would recommend. What was the point? 

A PhD student in COMDEL and I were talking about citizen accountability the other day. She proposed that citizens be involved in “meta deliberation,” or deliberating about what deliberations should take place and how. She cited the Ostbelgien Model in Belgium, where former assembly members serve on a Parliamentary committee and are tasked with both calling for new assemblies and setting their scope. In Ireland, politicians give assemblies wide mandates, but the specifics are drawn in by the civil servants running the assemblies. Of course, there could be a “turtles all the way down” problem: at what point do you stop deliberating about deliberations? But I understand her argument for more accountability. Without it, citizens’ assemblies are ineffective at solving issues and at worst, they risk becoming another instrumentalist tool for politicians. And agenda-setting powers matter: in the Drug Assembly, participants pointed out that the very mandate was about “stopping the harms of drugs” – which inherently pre-supposed that drugs have no medical benefits. 

Living in a country which regularly enacts citizens’ assemblies has refined my perspective on their role in society. My undergraduate studies were inherently theoretical; there are very few citizens’ assemblies in America. When my classmates and I debated their merits, we relied upon our intuitions – and as a result, I was enamoured with the idea of assemblies as a “fix all” for contemporary ills of democracy. Ireland’s successful assemblies have improved – but not transformed – its democracy. This year’s riots and rise of anti-immigrant Independent candidates, for example, reveal that Ireland is not immune to the global rise of right-wing populism. Of course, I would simply argue that these problems stem from a lack of democracy. We need meaningful inclusion of citizens in policy-making, especially on salient issues like the housing crisis. Simply put, deliberative “mini-publics” have yet to scale up and transform the larger “maxi public.” In undergrad, I read theorists like Christina LaFont who warned against the creation of yet another privileged few via citizens’ assembly. Now, I see what she means: enlightening a mini-public only goes so far if the larger population isn’t engaged or aware of these debates.

Moreover, I’ve also considered tailoring democratising reforms for different types of policy-making. In the Drug Assembly, I noted that a lot of the recommendations were garnering over 90% support – but they also lacked teeth. One recommendation, for example, advocated to make the drug issue in Ireland a priority; another recommendation urged for the budget to be increased. Yet neither addressed the real controversies: what political issues will be put aside when prioritising drug policy? Where will the money in the budget be coming from? Ireland’s success stories come from decisions that are less bureaucratic and more constitutional. Abortion and same-sex marriage don’t involve details of implementation and budgeting. Yet there is a need for democratic oversight over these more bureaucratic kinds of decisions, even if it’s not citizens’ assemblies.  I therefore no longer see assemblies as a “fix all,” but one part of a larger series of changes. 

Witnessing a different political system has also challenged many of my assumptions about democracy. America’s representational woes stem from a first-past-the-post system which which allow little room for alternatives to succeed to the two (increasingly polarized) main parties. In Ireland, the problem is opposite: both mainstream parties are rooted in a historical cleavage and therefore vary little on most policies. Understanding the different problems with existing representation has meant I’ve had to think about what goals I might pursue back in the States differently – we aim towards decreased polarization, but what happens when there is too much consensus?

Getting to think about these kinds of questions every day has been such a joy. I still get excited when I find a cool paper, or when I get to work with individuals who have literally created these assemblies. It’s a pleasure to be around other people who care so much about this topic as well. There was certainly a loyal community of students at Yale who cared about CAs – mostly the ones who took the same Open Democracy class I did – and we’ve all stayed in touch over the years. But I’ve really enjoyed meeting a larger community of PhD students and academics, both in Ireland and abroad, who have devoted their actual careers to CAs. I think I’ll be moving back to the States next year – I miss home too much – but this year has made a profound impact on me, both professionally and personally.

Oh, and it turns out Ireland’s quite stunning in the spring. Left to right: West Cork with Freya; Drumcondra in Dublin; Mitchells go boating in Dingle.

The pinnacle of the medieval Welsh narrative tradition is the Mabinogi. I mentioned it in my last blog post because it’s been on my mind quite a bit this year (and especially in the last few weeks). It is made up of four independent texts, called the “branches” of the Mabinogi. What connects these four stories is a single sentence that concludes each of the tales: “And so ends this branch of the Mabinogi.”

The reason I have been so drawn to labelling of these stories as branches is because it forms an interesting metaphor, painting the narrative as a tree. The story is not a single account but rather made up of independent branches, each growing and twisting in their own unique ways but all connected at their base to a shared trunk. The branches define the tree, and the tree is what connects each branch to each other.

I find this image so beautiful. Imagining a narrative as a tree—something which grows and changes, something which splits in half and twists in every which way, something which sprouts and flowers and withers and regrows—what a perfect picture for a story.  A story which can change, can be reinterpreted, can be lost and found, can be twisted and reworked, can spark new thoughts and ideas and traditions.

The Mabinogi‘s concluding sentence has been on my mind recently as my Mitchell year begins to come to a close. Like the stories of the Mabinogi, we often describe episodes of our lives as branches. Growing up Illinois, that’s one branch of my life. Going off to college, another branch. And this year—moving to Ireland, studying at UCC—has been a new branch slowly growing. Each discovery, each adventure creates a small knot in the wood.

As I begin to plan my plane ticket back to Chicago (one-way this time), I have been reflecting on those knots. While looking back at this past year, I have realized—in a contradictory way—how quickly it passed and how long it has been. It must only have been a few weeks ago that I arrived at Dublin Airport, hopped on the train to Cork, and walked to my apartment for the first time. I remember feeling uneasy walking down the street then, everything feeling just a little different than what I was used to: the cars drove on the left side of the road, the buses had two floors, and I didn’t even know where to buy a duvet. But this unease was replaced soon after with a new sense of comfort. I found my go-to coffeeshop, I knew to bring my umbrella everywhere, I met new friends (and I found a suitable duvet). Then in the blink of an eye, it’s time to leave this second home. And I expect I’ll feel a new unease as soon as I do leave.

But as I scroll through my camera roll, I realize how long ago it was that I first arrived. Not just in time—though nine months is not nothing—but in experience. My first photos are from the Mitchell trip to Dublin, really the first time we got to know each other. Then some pictures I took at the Cork Halloween parade and a Christmas party I went to with my roommates. I see photos from Killarney and Galway on my trip around Ireland with Shayna, and I remember getting soaked by the Irish rain (more than once). And then there are the pictures from the February trip to Cobh with Neel and Vivek. Jeez, these all feel so long ago.

Even the more recent adventures feel forever ago. My and Vikram’s trip to Athens—the perfect mix of history and philosophy between the two of us if I do say so myself—and a solo trip to Amsterdam and Brussels take up large chunks of my camera roll.

The capstone to this year, though, was the Mitchell trip to Dingle. All of us together, at the western edge of Ireland. There is no more fitting place to close out our Mitchell year than the place where the sun sets on the island. Hiking together, relaxing together, waking up early and polar plunging together. I can’t believe that was only a week ago.

To think I met the other Mitchells not even one year ago seems so surprising now. It feels like we’ve known each other for years. But I suppose that’s what happens when you pack several years’ worth of experiences together into nine months. 

I am not the same person who came here in September, and I must imagine this goes for all twelve of us. Through the experiences we had—the trips together, the hikes around Ireland, the adventures around Europe—and through our new relationships—with each other, with classmates, with roommates—we have grown and changed. A new branch has formed for each of us, and they have grown together, twisting around each other. 

I am so grateful for this year, and the weight of this experience is stressed by the pause in the Mitchell Scholarship. This has been so special and so unique, and I sincerely hope that the Scholarship continues, allowing future classes the same incredible opportunity as I have had.

Reflecting on these experiences, these relationships, this whole year… I can only say: thank goodness for my phone’s photo storage.

And so ends this branch of our lives. 

Try as I might, I find it difficult not to over-romanticize my time here in Ireland. This small island has a charm that simply cannot be shaken or overstated. It sounds trite, but it’s true that green is simply greener here (all that rain pays off in the end). My life in Belfast is dotted with small, everyday delights like the Queen’s Film Theatre, flowers in bloom on campus, and everyone gathering on the Botanic green on sunny days. The bigger delights of late include: seeing dolphins, a shark, some puffins, and seals with other Mitchell scholars on a boat tour; touring ruins of centuries-old castles; and witnessing huge moments for transitional justice and human rights activism across Northern Ireland.

I have been so grateful to work for the Committee on the Administration of Justice during my year in Belfast. My work with them has included legal research, putting together a few issues of their human-rights newsletter Just News, and attending conferences with other human rights organizations like ICCL, who do important civil liberties work in Ireland. I feel very proud to have contributed research to the recent report, ‘Bitter Legacy: State Impunity in the Northern Ireland Conflict,’ compiled by a panel of international experts. The report detailed a deliberate and systematic pattern of impunity perpetrated by the UK government during the Northern Ireland conflict, which resulted in an abject failure to investigate and prosecute human rights abuses perpetrated by state actors during the conflict, contrary to the UK government’s international and domestic human rights obligations.

My time in Belfast will continue to ground my views on transitional justice and my human rights research and advocacy. Transitional justice is a small field, but one that resonates deeply across all countries, and one which has been cast in stark relief by recent headlines: as the UK Legacy Act is challenged in domestic and international courts; as the ICC continues to issue arrest warrants for current state leaders in breach of international humanitarian law; and, closer to home, as former state leaders like Donald Trump are held liable in domestic courtrooms for criminal acts. While I always imagined pursuing a career in transitional justice abroad, my time in Belfast has made me consider how I can work on issues of accountability and rule of law back in the States.

I’ve been fortunate to find gems of friends here in Belfast from Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, and of course other Americans (can’t shake them). Many of my friends living in the States and other places in Europe have also come to visit me, which I’ve been so grateful for. I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday celebration, with my high school friends visiting and my new Belfast friends joining for pints at Kelly’s and The Sunflower, a drag show at The Maverick, and late-night dancing at Ulster Sports Club. It’s a birthday I’ll always remember. There are lows in living abroad, too – homesickness in particular, as expected – but my friends here soften the lows and make the highs even richer.

Much as Belfast has made me consider how to align my career goals with accountability and human rights in the States, it has also made me consider how to live more mindfully at home when I return back to D.C. in September. The affinity I’ve grown for Google Maps can surely help me explore my own home city and state, and the openness to new friendships I’ve adopted here may help me branch out more when I return, too. In other words, study abroad changed me and that is my truth.

Disclaimer: Some of the other Mitchells and I thought of making click-bait-style headlines for our last blog post!

An end of May trip to Dingle, County Kerry marked the official end of the 2024 Mitchell Scholarship and the last time I might expect to see the rest of the class for the near future. We broke up. But the trip was not even a little sad, and was instead a time of great appreciation towards Ireland. After a year, I’ve watched my friends and peers grow and mature as individuals. They continue to impress me with their accomplishments and passion. I am excited to hear what everyone has been working towards and moving on to in the coming year. My memories of Dingle seem magical: seeing dolphins and sharks in the Bay, running into the sea in the cold morning, and hiking through dense and shifting fog. 

Having this time to devote to study and think about my research and future has been invaluable. Recently, my work on statistical methodologies for measuring police discrimination was accepted into a conference taking place this summer in Philadelphia. I am also debating at the European Universities Debating Championship in Glasgow, Scotland this summer with the Phil. The Mitchell has also given me the opportunity to explore Ireland and beyond within Europe. 

The Mitchell is uniquely valuable, and I hope that it gains the funding it needs to exist in perpetuity. I believe in programs that allow young people with drive and potential the chance to focus on their research, personal development, and the nation of Ireland. I hold fond memories of Dublin and I know I will return.