Mitchell Scholar Blogs

Ice cream has always been a distant treat for me. One only enjoyed as a reward for a job well done, in celebration of a birthday, or for simply getting through the week. As a pick-me-up, treat, reward, side, dessert, or nightcap, it sure is a beautiful thing. I don’t know if you can tell, but I love ice cream…like seriously. Alas, its creamy, calorie-filled goodness was limited to me growing up and treated simply as a reward and not the food of gods necessary to my survival as I deemed it to be. T’was not easy abstaining from the love of my life for so long. I jest of course. And when I found out people in Ireland eat ice cream too (I know right, who would have thought!?), I knew it was meant to be!

During my time in Ireland, I promised myself I would live life to the fullest, pursue that which brings me joy, and chase after what I love. I am doing just that, in many ways, including testing out as many ice cream/gelato (not the same but similar) shops as I can. 

Ice cream hunting in Ireland has been more to me than meeting my sweet tooth. It has been an opportunity to gather with friends (safely of course), talk about our woes and triumphs, meet for study sessions, explore the city, and simply relax. Ice cream truly brings people together. 

Now you may be thinking ”……isn’t it cold in Ireland right now?” and you would be right in making such an assessment. Buuuuutttttt, the ice cream is colder sooooooo it balances itself out? Look I don’t make the rules, I just enjoy the creamy goodness and let the world continue spinning on its axis. C’est la vie and all that. Anyways it can’t ever be too cold for ice cream……right? 

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for……..the ice cream/Gelato(s) in question in its many shapes and colors:

Little tangent to Mary’s milk bar in Edinburgh, Scotland right below the castle!

Another pit stop to Zaandam, a city in the Netherlands!

Back to Ireland, we go!

As a very experienced, reputable, and professional connoisseur of ice cream, I obviously had to stop by the famous Murphy’s Ice Cream in Galway! It would be blasphemous to visit Ireland and not try Murphys, especially their Dingle Sea Salt ice cream which “comes straight from the Atlantic Ocean…from Dingle sea water [they] collect at Bín Bán beach.” (Murphys)

Oddly enough, one of my favorites so far, if not my favorite overall, has been from a random coffee cart at Kilkenny Castle in county Kilkenny. Perhaps the wind was hitting just right or some magic overtook my senses, but this chocolate and banana/strawberry mix utterly perplexed me. Like it was not supposed to be so good, but it was? There really is wonder, magic, and discovery in every corner of this country, you love to see it.

And last but not least, the excellent and reliable ice cream cones with sprinkles from Gino’s Gelatos. A staple I have at least 3 times a week!

Eating ice cream across Ireland has been quite an experience. It feels wholly nonjudgmental that I’m eating ice cream in the middle of winter and honestly makes it that much more enjoyable. The smiles of joyful families leaving the shop with handfuls of waffle cones in their hands bring me such a serene feeling. Not just because that means it’s my turn to order, but because it reminds me of the joy ice cream brought me as a child and knowing that it’s giving someone else that feeling. 

And I’m not done yet!! Still have to try out some spots in Northern Ireland, a few more Irish counties, possibly some more European countries (coming for you next Italy). Hope to share some of the other cool things I’ve been doing in Ireland soon. Till then, stay safe and keep eating ice cream, life’s too short to not be enjoying it (I’m looking at you €2 Ice cream Pints at Tesco)!

“When I’m no longer rapping, I want to open up an ice cream parlor and call myself Scoop Dogg.” – Snoop Dog

Same Snoop Dog, same. 

I requested exactly two extensions throughout four years of college, one of which I did not receive and one of which I received only after being chastised for asking (five days in advance, I might add). In my experience, students were often hesitant to even ask, worried that their reasoning wasn’t legitimate enough and/or that the professor would presume mal-intent from their request. 

Three days after I submitted my last blog post, I met my dad in Paris for a long weekend. As we walked to find lunch after dropping off our luggage at the hotel, he turned to me and said, “I need to tell you something: Grandpa has cancer.” He explained the rapid succession of events over the previous four days that had inspired concern, all of which had culminated in an MRI scan revealing a 6-centimeter glioblastoma during my dad’s layover in Miami just twelve hours earlier. 

A few days after hearing this news, I was struggling to finish an assignment, and I had to be gently reminded by an Irish classmate that it was perfectly reasonable to request an extension given the circumstances. I emailed the professor the night before the deadline asking for an extra 24 hours, and, within twenty minutes, he gave me his sincere condolences and an extra week. When I informed a different professor that I would be missing the last week of classes to extend a trip to the US to spend Thanksgiving with my grandparents in Wisconsin, she immediately offered me as much extra time as she could give on my final paper—without me bringing it up. I assured her there was no reason to believe he would pass in the next few weeks, and I fully anticipated being able to finish my work on time. She delicately responded, “he doesn’t have to have died for you to be grieving, and nobody can tell you the appropriate timeline for processing loss.”

I was reminded of these acts of kindness while perusing my spring syllabi. I’m taking a class titled Gender, Harm, and Justice, and my professor (Aisling Swaine) included a “note on our wellbeing” on the very first page of her syllabus. She emphasized that the focus of the module is violence, specifically sexual violence, and that the content is complicated, frustrating, and distressing. She then wrote, “I invite you to opt in and out of readings, and in and out of particular classes. You can alert me to this if you like, without any need for explanation.” 

The grace and benefit-of-the-doubt extended to students here is a sharp departure from many of my undergraduate experiences, and I often wonder whether these differences are reflective of the shift from undergraduate to graduate education or American to Irish culture. It’s probably a combination of both, but I imagine the latter shift carries more weight. Asking for help feels very different here—perhaps because, oftentimes, you don’t even need to ask. Everybody feels a bit more human; there’s no expectation that you are constantly consumed by work or that personal struggles be pushed aside in lieu of professional commitments. It seems to me that, at a very fundamental level, there is simply more trust placed in students. I’m grateful to be a beneficiary of that trust this year; it’s adjusted my expectations of myself, encouraged me to ask for help when I need it—without feeling shame or questioning the legitimacy of the request—and, hopefully, primed me to extend that same trust to others who may need it from me in the future.

It was Northern Ireland which revealed to me the inanity, the raw tedium of the American argument. There are outliers of course, but syntactically speaking, a dispute between two Americans will in the main have only three components: some accusation or criticism (“You always *insert criticism here*”), a vapid restatement of the original charge (“Are you saying I *insert criticism here*?!”), and a blunt, topical refutation (“That’s not true, I…”). The three steps cycle with stultifying regularity until the dispute is resolved through violence, distance, or compromise.

This sort of intellectual sloth, this cognitive slovenliness simply would not survive contact with the glimmering, abstract arguments of the six counties. Northern Ireland is a safe and happy place, but not for those without banter. One example should suffice, though I must confess my ear for the dialect is imperfect and some dialogue may therefore be rendered imperfectly:

I went recently with a few friends to Enniskillen, a big town with smiling people and at least 3.5 quality castles. On our way out, two of our eight started on each other ever so subtly. In fact, the initial accusation (“Think you know what I’d say to her”) and the response (“Aye, and I’d say to you”) landed so softly that I mistook the brewing contretemps for a heart-to-heart. One made fun of the other for having a huge wallet (it truly is jumbo) but no money; all tittered. The economical, remorseless retort was “aye, and you dress like marmalade” (he tends to wear a lot of orange). What seemed to be comedy continued at pace, but I began to realize that all my other friends were gradually taking steps back from the two locked in discussion, that every laugh seemed to end with a question mark. The, outrageously non-threatening, final sentence was “Have you over for dinner; bring a wee bottle, then?” At this point, I realized entirely too late that I was sandwiched between two lads set to tussle. I am told I looked like a “cat caught between sofa cushions,” but I did achieve the necessary separation and things wound down.

Back in Belfast, I had a chance to try out my own material only twenty-nine or so hours later. Trotting home in a cozy Ohio State sweatshirt near Unity Walk, I turned a corner and collided with a man accompanied by two women. He said something profane (though unthreatening) and I, fresh from the previous day’s events, replied with the cheeky “Easy big man; those are the steroids talking then?” I thought this a clever reference to his almost comically developed, potentially pharmaceutical musculature, and was ready to saunter away when one of the women devastated me with “Should be upset with Michigan, not us.” She was quite elegantly referencing OSU’s humiliating loss one week prior; my jaw dropped visibly. As they walked away, I heard the other woman laugh: “The coupon [that is, “face”] on him!”

Kiran’s six counties banter record: 0-1

The Irish Sea is the most complete form of emptiness I have ever witnessed. On the coast, the line between loneliness and solitude is thin and can shift quickly, like the tide. Everywhere I go, the sea is there, brushing the coasts of Belfast’s downtown, winding its way past my house camouflaged as the Lagan River. Sweeping up against the northern beaches of Derry and pushing the entire city of Dublin deeper into the Island. You can never travel more than a day, in a car or train, without finding it again.

The sea perforates the land, carving veins into the beating heart of Ireland. The River Shannon runs silver through Limerick toward the north. Just a few hours away, the River Liffey snakes its way through downtown Dublin. But the sea draws no lines between my Northern Irish home and the rest of the island. Instead, it is a thick, flat expanse on which the EU erects an invisible boundary, keeping the island whole for a little longer.

From Belfast, the sea is only an hour walk away or a 20-minute train ride. It reminds me of Lake Superior, the lake I grew up on in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. As the largest freshwater lake in the world, Superior often behaves somewhat like an ocean. My peninsula home is surrounded by water on three sides, and I feel safer, knowing the Irish isle is cradled by the sea, independent yet cared for.

Just like at home, the Northern Irish locals have built hobbies and honed crafts reliant on the water. A woman I met sells sea glass jewelry, exactly like the kind my sister makes. At Saint George’s Market, I see lines of fresh caught fish and I recall the scent of smoked fish along the Michigan harbors. A great tiled fish adorns the bank of Belfast’s River, and I am reminded of the decorated fish that pop up around town each year at the Marquette Art festival. It is heartwarming, to see how the sea connects my new community, just as it did for the one I grew up in.

Early one morning, I was able to explore the Cliffs of Moher on the western coast. Even in the depths of December, the grass was alive and warm in the setting sun. I wanted to bottle the air. Save it up and drink in great gulps of it. We hiked until we ran out of cliffs, until the land bled softly into the water in slow mounds of rolling green. These cliffs do not deal in the currency of hours and minutes, or even days. They barter eons and centuries, a constant war of wind and sun.

The sea draws us all in, at one time or another. I hear stories of saving a seal during the tide, kayaking on bumpy rivers, the Welsh side of the channel, rivers running in the meadow just outside the window, and the sea birds that will come to the island in April. The sea asks no questions, but gives us all so many answers.

One of the things I’ve loved most about my time in Ireland has been experiencing the island’s incredible landscapes and natural areas. Living in Dublin, I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the east coast, with its dramatic cliffs and views of the Irish Sea. Howth, Bray to Greystones, and the Wicklow Mountains have become some of my favorite places to explore after class or on the weekend. The wind-whipped coastline, the blue-green water, and the undulating rocky paths of County Dublin are harsh and gorgeous. 

Ever since the year began, it has struck me how much the look and layout of Dublin reminds me of my hometown of Boston, MA. Both are port cities, relatively flat, oriented around rivers that flow east toward the ocean. The similarities between the two cities’ urban cores struck me right away, and the similarities continue when I venture out into the more remote natural areas surrounding the cities. I’ve found it really interesting how both cities came to be primarily because of their proximity to the ocean, and the importance of their shipping and fishing industries, and today, that same proximity to the ocean makes them both especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Back home in Boston, I did a lot of work around coastal climate resilience and urban sustainability, and that’s something I hope to learn more about in Dublin in the coming semester as well. 

I’ve also gotten a chance to hike further south, in Counties Cork, Kerry, and Limerick, where I’ve explored some more mountainous terrain, including sections of the Ring of Kerry and seen amazing views from the tops of Mt. Strickeen and Cruach Mhór. On the west coast, near Galway, I hiked around Rosscahill Lake and the Ross Woods. The unique beauty of the Irish landscape never gets old and I’m so glad that I have the chance to explore more of it this year. At the top of my list for the springtime is Carrauntoohil, the highest peak in Ireland (I tried and failed to make it to the top when I was around 13 years old, and I’ve always wanted to try again!)

What started as a light breeze and pleasant sprinkle quickly transformed into 100 miles per hour winds as I attempted to walk across the octagonal rocks of the Giant’s Causeway. Unlike the mythical giants who built the Causeway to meet (or rather fight with) each other, I could barely hold my own against the thick Irish breeze; standing at only 5 feet and 10 inches, I was quite small when compared to a giant of any size and hardly stood a chance, to begin with. Like kids playing hopscotch, my group traversed the rocks of the Causeway one by one as we headed into the depths of the Irish Sea. Slow walking and carefully placed footing was essential in our endeavor, as the waves water of the Irish Sea had moistened the rocks of the Causeway

The others within my group, scared that they may never be heard from again as they were blown away like Mary Poppins or fell into the Irish Sea, turned back towards shore. I, nevertheless, the stinging sensation of the cold on the tips of my ear and my cheeks had inspired me to go on. I was determined to reach the edge. As such, I struggled for some 10 to 15 minutes until I reached the halfway mark of the rock cluster that was foremost into the Irish Sea. Just the end to the cluster was in sight, an employee of the National Trust informed me that I would have to turn around because there was now a wind advisory. My struggle to reach the end of the furthermost cluster and peer out into the Irish Sea like the Giant Fionn were dashed away in an instant and I headed back to the shore of Northern Ireland in utter defeat. 

Despite my inability to follow in the Giants’ footsteps, I could certainly see how the Giant’s Causeway was heralded as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Since coming to Ireland, and my last blog post, I have had the opportunity to travel around Ireland with family and friends to see the beauty of the island I now call home. From the Hill of Tara, Loughcrew Passage Tomb, Trim Castle, and Fore Abbey in the Celtic Boyne Valley to Belfast and the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, I has been able to see the rolling hills and the Celtic heritage of the emerald island I heard about so much growing up. On my most recent trip, to Galway and the Cliffs of Moher, I was even able to find a rival to the wind speeds of the Giant’s Causeway. While the historical and natural beauty of Ireland have been a highlight of my time here, I have also come to find amazing Irish friends who I spent the holiday season with and come to enjoy journeying to the Abbey Theatre to see plays (such as Faith Healer and the Long Christmas Dinner). I can wait to see what else in Ireland I can explore!

Something I have noticed (and very much liked, as a Northern Californian through and through): Irish people will get in the water even when it’s freezing. A few weeks ago, I walked to the Poolbeg Lighthouse, where I met a group of friendly elderly men who were part of the Half Moon Swimming and Water Polo Club, playing in the icy sea. Another day, I took the DART out to Killiney. The train flew along the coast, suspended above an ocean so vibrant and perfect. I looked out and saw surfers, slick and black like seals, in the weak green light. I climbed up Killiney Hill as night was falling down between the trees and borrowed a strangers’ binoculars to see if I could still spot them paddling into the bight. 

This DART ride reminded me very much of something I did often in my last year in Los Angeles: take the bus out to Malibu for an hour and a half, trundling along PCH, seeing truckloads of surfers bobbing in the waves as the sun came up. Actually, many things in Ireland remind me of Malibu, Los Angeles, California in general, despite the fact that the two landscapes are so fundamentally different. It’s not really that the two places look like each other, surfer example aside. Los Angeles is this big polluting city, situated in one of the most gorgeous places on the planet, in reach of the mountains and desert and the water all at once. Ireland, on the other hand, is a monotone fresh and green. Perhaps LA and Ireland’s only similarities are their extreme weather patterns (rain and wind, to me, is an extreme weather pattern, as are wildfires, of course). 

View out the DART window during the trip out to Killiney. 

Mainly, both places make me feel overwhelmed that they are so beautiful, and strange that they may be gone soon, and grateful I got to be alive to see them. In my poetry, I’ve been writing a lot about climate change and how it feels very mystic. One of my Irish friends told me about the disappearing beach on Achill Island. One day all the sand went away and then years later it came back all at once. Another Irish friend talked about how the Irish government is banning the burning of natural fuels such as peat; her grandparents have lived on a peat bog for years, drawing life from it, preserving food in it, bodies, harnessing its magics. I went to a Hist Debate called “This House Would Leave Space to the Aliens” and heard arguments about how we should not treat Earth as a back-up planet and should instead re-invest in it instead of flying Jeff Bezos into the stratosphere. At all these points, I was reminded of Los Angeles and having to have an evacuation bag packed, and seeing plumes of smoke in Malibu and helicopters carrying great gourds of water to them from a nearby lake, and hearing about my friend’s parents, who are veterinarians in the Central Valley, having to lead their horses into the trailer one by one, slowly and calmly, as fires were bearing down upon them. 

I feel that these Dublin/LA experiences are somehow connected, but I’m not quite sure how yet. What I can come up with right now is that I am encountering new kinds of weather to deal with, imagining new ways we might treat the Earth. Ireland is doing this work for me, as did Los Angeles, because they are both so heartbreakingly, brutally pretty. 

Photo of a wildfire that I took out the plane window during my flight from California to Dublin.

The bus ride from Belfast to Dublin is just two hours, but it can feel like a journey—from the North to the Republic, pounds to Euro, just enough time to feel momentarily weightless before the pace of life swoops in as you disembark. It’s too bumpy to get much work done, so I typically find myself resigned to “unproductivity,” putting in my earbuds and watching villages, meadows, livestock, and birds of prey fly by. This time, which I’ve been prone to view as inefficient, has turned out to be a gift—one of the rare moments for real reflection that has allowed me to witness Northern Ireland transforming from foreign scenery to a montage of landscapes promising home.

The first leg of the journey, I’m flustered, sweating, and out of breath, recovering from my mad three-minute sprint to Europa Bus Station. Perhaps I check my email and attempt some work before carsickness forces me to give up, looking out the window instead. It’s beautiful, whether the sky is overcast or not. Sometimes, you can barely make out the base of Belfast Hills before they disappear into the clouds; other times, the green hills stand visible and steadfast, overlooking the city.

I think of ascending Cave Hill for the first time and seeing Belfast sprawled out below me—the twin cranes Samson & Goliath, the hazy outline of Stormont, the divided neighborhoods and bustling city center. When my friend came to visit, I pointed out the familiar sights and, for the first time, felt not that I was a visitor, but that I was opening up my own home to someone else’s curious eyes.

Or perhaps as we pass Black and Divis Mountain, I think of Queen’s University’s soccer pitches. I’ve joined the soccer team for the first time with fellow Belfast Mitchell Maysa, and as the sun sets over the mountains, we sprint around in a light drizzle, my heart pounding with exhilaration. Despite myself, I take a time-out just to appreciate the glow of the dying light against the green hills.

Soon, we’re passing Portadown, where I took the train and biked to Brackagh Moss Nature Reserve on a sleepy Sunday morning to trim bramble and cut encroaching willows, birches, and alder with Grassroots NI, a practical conservation organization. When I forgot my lunch, the other volunteers pooled their resources together to keep me fed, introducing me to egg-and-bacon sandwiches along the way—a new favorite of mine.

By the time we hit the Mourne Mountains, I’m at peace, contentedly reminiscing on hiking Slieve Donard, the highest point in Northern Ireland, with fellow Mitchells in the “QUB Crew.” It was one of our first trips together, and a great bonding experience I cherish already.

Passing the lake just ten minutes outside of Dublin Airport, I’m moved by the nascent familiarity of this landscape, and the memories that this land already holds for me. I’ve realized that you aren’t conscious of when a place has become home until you leave it and return, suddenly finding the once-foreign land familiar. On the bus between Belfast and Dublin, I find myself discovering what home will be for me this year—a beautiful, emerald pasture of rolling hills, saturated with new and promised memories.

It is becoming increasingly clear that they think I am from somewhere much warmer than the Mid-Atlantic seaboard. I turned up recently to a football practice beginning deep in the night on a hard and pretty little pitch in the Belvoir, and as I tied my cleats a little hoop of men laughed lightly and asked if I had ever seen weather like this. The cleats are starfish pink and, when viewed from an intermediate distance, I look like I am wearing a Caucasian’s feet. They enjoy telling me this. As for the weather, it was maybe 35 Fahrenheit and raining so, while foul, the cold was not for me unprecedented. The truth makes little difference; I was happy to lie.

Some words I like from an overrated Didion novel: “Inaccurate information is in itself accurate information about the informant”; I am in a good mood and even my worst experiences in this city have been obscurely thrilling.

I am afraid of stinging insects, though I respect their civic structures. Given its name, I should probably have been vigilant as I trotted down Botanic Avenue a few weeks ago. My passport was in my right pocket and, a few minutes later at my Biometric Residency Permit appointment, I explained to the agent that retrieving it could take a second as my right hand had just been wounded by a wasp. She suggested I “cross draw, like a cowboy.” An hour later, typing with my left, I would google “Doe Irelnd [sic] have wasps?”

Intelligent and experienced people, some from this very scholarship, told me I should spend some time learning the Belfast accent. “It is really difficult, and they speak quickly,” they said, and I thought “It’ll be fine; I’ve seen Father Ted and that’s probably close.” I know this post is boring you to tears so I will truncate the exposition: I am persona non grata at Boojum, the Belfast burrito bastion. I could not understand the burrito artist’s accent and slowed down the line so substantially I was nearly escorted out. I remember the astonished, almost fearful look on her face as I asked her to repeat the word “corn” three times. The shame from this event flourishes in my psyche.

The kind men from the first paragraph are often shouting at me. This is both fair and salutary; I am a profoundly average footballer with enormous technical and tactical limitations and if I were not fast, I would be nowhere near the team. Two weeks ago, I slipped as if on a banana peel while alone in acres of space. It was a near-elegant, splayed crashing sort of thing, half-slapstick half-Cirque du Soleil, and the other team almost scored as a result. This entrained an excoriation studded with oblique and abstract epithets including, most notably, “yogurt-making fraud.” I have never made yogurt but my feelings were hurt all the same. I felt better moments later when I realized I could understand every word.

Arriving in Dublin marked many new beginnings, which necessitated an evaluation of old habits and budding priorities. I tried to adopt a New Year’s resolution mindset, selecting four mottos for the year.

School is important, but there is more to learn outside of the classroom.

I have spent several years laser focused on getting into law school, and the security of these now-finalized plans has allowed me newfound freedom. While I love my classes, much of my learning here has been done elsewhere: an abortion rights rally pushing for expanded access in Ireland; four-hour-long dinners with my peers, considering everything from Catholic guilt to the treatment of the Traveller population; a day spent discussing the merits of therapy on the Bray to Greystones Cliff Walk; and rounding out Halloweekend studying Bloody Sunday at The Museum of Free Derry.

Practice habits of happiness and self-care that I can take with me beyond this year. 

I know that the years ahead of me will be exponentially more demanding, but I am hoping that practicing certain habits this year will make it easier to better future routines.

I walk the miles of UCD trails, as unleashed dogs dart past and children play soccer on the surrounding fields. I swim countless hours in the new Olympic-sized lap pool, cherishing this time that forces me to disconnect, focused solely on rhythmic breathing and moving forward. I say an emphatic yes to social plans, deeply appreciative that I do not need to limit those commitments as I did in undergrad. I spend too much money trying the ubiquitous Dublin vegan options, filling my camera roll with half-eaten dishes, because I was so eager to dig-in that I only remembered to take a picture several moments later.

Warm and sunny days are rare—when it is nice outside, be outside. 

Admittedly, the warm and sunny days haven’t been quite as rare as I anticipated, a surprise I gleefully welcome every day (although, I think Jonathan may kill me if he hears me say “wow, it’s so nice out” one more time). 

Recently, Meghan and I agreed to meet at a coffee shop to study. As I was about to pass through St. Stephen’s Green Park on the three-mile walk into city center, Meghan texted to ask if we could sit in the park “for a sec” to enjoy the beautiful day. We stayed for several hours before getting donuts, drinking tea at Trinity, and having dinner at our favorite falafel place. Neither of us did an ounce of work that entire afternoon, and it was one of my favorite days in this city so far. I hope for many more chances to ditch everything and just be outside.

Spend as much time as possible with my Mitchell class. 

The last, best, and easiest resolution, because I simply adore these people. It is profoundly special to be a part of a group with such varied interests, personalities, lived experiences, and fields of study, and to still fit together this well.

Goodbye is so far off, but it already feels just about impossible—I’ll be soaking up every moment in the meantime.