Mitchell Scholar Blogs

Ethical and practical challenges present barriers to result communication in science. Effectively conveying research outcomes among scientists and the broader public is critical to scientific advancement and societal advancement. 

Scientific journals and conferences are the current principal means of disseminating scientific research products. These traditional forms of result communications are advantageous because they impose a peer review process aimed to ensure reliable, quality, and unbiased research. However, the efficacy of information dissemination from these traditional forms of scientific communication is severely hindered by restricted access to these channels of information. Paywalls, subscriptions, and fees associated with accessing these traditional means of scientific communication effectively restrict information access to individuals with institutional affiliations, thereby excluding general public access. 

Open source science aims to overcome traditional restrictions on information access by ensuring publicly available research publication and offering numerous avenues of publication with a range of fees to ensure publication fees do not limit information access. The broad access of open source science promotes broader collaboration and increases speed of scientific advancement via the immediate and transparent access to information.

Although open source publication is highly appealing because it increases information accessibility, legal concerns including but not limited to author ownership, intellectual property, and data privacy, present meaningful complexity in the practical application of open source science models. The greater accessibility of open source science possesses a two-fold nature because the advantages of creativity facilitated through increased accessibility also create difficulty with appropriately accrediting and protecting individual researcher contributions, which could decrease scientists’ motivation to publish with open source platforms. Further, the open nature of these publishing methods risks compromising individual participants’ privacy, which presents significant ethical concerns and undermines societal trust in future research.

These ethical, legal, and practical considerations warrant careful evaluation as I prepare for publishing the research findings of my master’s thesis. Ultimately, I aim to communicate my research findings through channels that facilitate the greatest public impact while maintaining research integrity. To reach the most effective research communication, I continue to evaluate all available options and am even considering a hybrid approach that utilizes dual publication in both private and open access models to reap the individual benefits from each.

My research at Trinity was deeply rewarding and I take great pride in sharing the products with the broader scientific community and general public. The products of my research at Trinity will advance neuroscience scholarship and keep me connected to Ireland through the ongoing academic advancements tied to research in my field.I look forward to my continued contributions to interdisciplinary scholarship in Ireland and globally as I embark on the next steps of my academic journey.

There’s a real mystique to the Royal Opera House — a gravitas lent by the red velvet cushions, ornately carved balconies, and frescoes. Yet when I found myself there one chilly Thursday night, the grandeur of the theater was sharply juxtaposed by the intimate story of Martin Lynch’s “The History of the Troubles (According to my Da)” with its cast of merely three powerhouse actors and a minimalist set. In typical Northern Ireland fashion, the play is darkly humorous and fueled by crisp, unexpected dialogue. And viewing this small, powerful play within this sprawling operatic setting somehow created a kind of electricity through contradiction that left the audience — or, at least, just me — buzzing as we left our seats that evening.

I shuffled out of the theater to the lobby, where I paused on my way out to ask the playwright to sign my copy of the script. He glanced up at me, taking in my age and American accent, as he scrawled his name for probably the fiftieth time that night.

“How old are you?” he asked me.

“I’m twenty five,” I said.

“So this is all just a history lesson to you, I guess?”

***

I’ve seen four plays since I arrived on the island, each of which has imparted a history lesson in some way. In “Joyce’s Women,” I saw the life and death of James Joyce through the eyes of the reviled and revered women behind his storied career. In “Propaganda: The Musical,” I went on a strange, dark journey through 1940s Berlin. In “History of the Troubles (According to my Da),” I saw ordinary lives torn apart by the Troubles. And in “Agreement,” I witnessed the peace process that ended the conflict.

After my brief interaction with Martin Lynch, I found myself thinking back to each of the plays I’d seen and thinking further about the nature of portraying history through narrative. There’s a profound power, and even danger, to the fact that most people’s understanding of history is shaped first and foremost by stories, rather than by dissertative historical texts or data. The historiography at work in playwriting and all creative work is foundational to how we come to understand conflicts.

As someone fascinated by how we communicate about conflicts and public policy — much of my professional work has centered around combating misinformation, which too has its roots in the darker sides of the narrativization of history — I found myself trying to put myself in Lynch’s shoes during that little snippet of a conversation. He likely wrote his play with an understanding that it would be performed within and viewed by a community that had lived this history in real-time or, at least, seen the immediate after-effects of it. Whereas for me, I was viewing it as a student, an outsider to this community, hoping to immerse myself within it and learn as much as I can.

In this sense, his play did indeed hold a kind of dual purpose — part storytelling, part history lesson. Yet the effect it had on me — and the effect all of these wonderful theatrical productions have had on me when paired with my coursework this semester — has been a lesson in how we tell history, in understanding the importance of creative forms in constructing our understanding of conflicts and of how the lines between history books and playbills are often more diffuse than we immediately realize.

Tomorrow, I go back to the U.S. for the first time since moving to Ireland. I will be back to Dublin shortly but this is a reminder that my time as a Mitchell is quickly coming to an end. These past few major transitions in life (college graduation, end of last summer, etc. ), I have found myself nostalgic for moments before I have even left them. Here are a few things that I wish to carry with me though the nostalgia of leaving Dublin. 

Enjoying the journey as much as the destination has been advice we have all heard but I don’t think we truly implement. This year has made me see that even more clearly since I first heard those words from my high school advisor. To truly enjoy the journey, I have to slow down. From breaking up with my GCal to learning to walk painfully slow amongst the tourists on Grafton street. Only once I have physically slowed down do I have appreciation for the things that my perception glosses over. It also has allowed me to make space to reflect. Just more actively being in touch with how I am feeling, what I am experiencing, and what I am thinking. It happens when you allow time and space to wander both physically and mentally. What has allowed me to shift from my ultra efficient, type A, northeastern self is the realization that too much time spent on thinking about what comes next comes at the expense of what is happening now. 

Growth comes from change. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. There is a concept in human development called the learning trap. As children we learn through exploration: I think of my younger cousin’s fascination with a coffee stirrer or my advisor’s daughter’s questions about the various birds at the UCD pond. Over time we go from forming new neural connections through exploring to primarily exploiting which strengthens existing pathways. This year I exploited coding, becoming more efficient and optimized. I also exploited the pathways that get me on the 39a bus into city centre. I just don’t think about it anymore. But I find far too often, we are pushed to exploit even more. Optimize your morning routine, meal prep your sustenance, streamline your workflow. And while this exploitation is great, and exploration does still happen even as we get older, our default state shifts from one of exploration to one of exploitation. I want to push back and keep the learner mindset I had as a kid. We can keep exploring mentally but facilitate this mind state through experiences. From meeting new people with fresh ideas and perspectives to visiting new places with new traditions and habits, I try to push against the dogma that seeped into my life. Keeping this growth and mindset as I move to other stages of life will have its challenges but can be achieved. It will take more than one year to rewrite the habits, beliefs, and views of the past 23 years but this is the start. 

Only 66 days left on the island and the coursework is finished (will my essays ever be marked?), my internship is over (over 1,000 objects were sorted and listed in the Lynda Walker archive at the Linen Hall Library by me), and campus is quiet (everyone has gone home except for the lonely post grads who are procrastinating their dissertations… like me.) 

I would like to say something profound with my last Mitchell blog, but I’ve been building Sim houses instead of writing this (and my dissertation), and now the deadline is here. I feel complicated about endings— I actually like change most of the time and find it encouraging. I love imagining the future. There was a time when all I could daydream about was what my life would be like here. And now I’m here with just a little bit of time left, anticipating the inevitable longing I will feel for this place when I am where I am daydreaming about now… So what now? What have I learned? What am I going to carry with me? I’ll try to keep this short:

Belfast has taught me how community is not only a value, but a necessity. Much of my culture shock and difficulty adjusting to life in Belfast, I think, stemmed from leaving such a strong home community where I understood my identity through my roles and positionality in my community and coming to a place where not only did I have no connection to the community, its cultural ethos, or its problems, but I also couldn’t pretend to be apart of it even if I tried. Each time I’ve spent abroad, I’ve always written about how exhausting and uncomfortable it feels to be aware of how “other” I am in every space, including in my home context. I have not reconciled this, and I don’t know if I ever will. But Belfast has reminded me of all the things I love about my home. My messy, complicated, fighting-for-its-soul Deep South. It has been challenging to watch my community from so far away and to be, again, an outsider. I will return home for one week before moving across the country to what will be my home for the next six years. I grieve for the place I’ve bittersweetly called home, especially recognizing that I will never go home in the same way I used to again. But I know it calls me back, and I’m grateful for how clear this call is now. 

The truth is: my life here is slow. And I like it like this. My life in the States was bloated and busy, and totally unsustainable. It has been an important lesson to know that an alternative is not only possible but necessary. Living slower has helped me invest even deeper in the real priority of this year: the phenomenal people I get to call my friends. From grad school late-night dinner hangouts to learning how to lift weights (thanks, Gil) and swim (thanks, Ellie) to intense second-hand embarrassment of Matty Healy and the most joyous day of my life when Sarah, Gil, Ellie, and I went climbing, slipping, sliding, and jumping off of 20-foot tall inflatables in wetsuits over an extremely cold lake— these are the moments that have really mattered.

I have felt most fulfilled being with friends and following my heart on things that were really and truly just for me. Like, signing up for poetry workshops to reignite my love for writing and running my first marathon just to prove to myself that I could follow through on my self-promises. Who knew that losing a whole toenail could be such a point of pride? This is where my real advice is for the me of the past and the Mitchells of the future. Find your people and lose your toenail. 🙂

Future Belfast Mitchies, if you want my recommendations and/or my total rotten tomatoes, I’ll be happy to give you my rawest scoop. (If there is one that I want the world to remember it is Bank Square Brasserie— you MUST go if you are visiting Belfast.) For now, though, I’ll leave you with the poem I wrote for my last workshop today, and that I hope to include some version of in a collection about twenty-year-old-girl things titled, “Girl Shit!” one day. Please don’t steal that…

There are few times during my young adulthood when I’ve been able to step away from capital and corporate pressures, choosing instead to live moment to moment, appreciating the small wonders of life. This past year at Trinity has been one of them.

That’s not to say that everything has been swimmingly rosy. But that I’ve tried to spend this past year thoughtfully, with an ease and appreciation, and curiosity that has anchored me always, to the present.

Here are some of the tender intricacies and simple observations over the past few weeks.

School’s out. The grass is green. Dublin is as beautiful as ever. Grey Hoodie switches out of the daily rotation for Blue Shirt Jacket. I still keep the grey pants though. The only thing left is to start writing my thesis. It’s a good problem to have. 

Last week I went to Dublin 6 for a stroll in the urban oasis. I stop by for a coffee, pet some dogs, and crack open a book. I never make it past the first page because I’m too busy thinking about where to go for brunch. Brother Hubbard? Alma? Goose on the Loose? Something about this outing feels all too familiar. Like that of a certain bustling metropolis across the pond. 

Feeling immersed in history is an incredible feeling, one that you don’t quite get in the suburbs of New Jersey. I walk the streets, which have quickly become familiar but still, on occasion reveal their obscured past. Who else laid eyes on this imposing English oak? Who smelled the rich smells of coffee in these local cafes? Whose intuition led them left, then right, to stumble upon this quaint alleyway? What a treat living at Trinity has been.

“Of all the money that e’er I had
I have spent it in good company
Oh and all the harm I’ve ever done
Alas, it was to none but me

And all I’ve done for want of wit
To memory now I can’t recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be to you all

So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate’er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all”
– “The Parting Glass” by the High Kings

Dear Reader:

Given that this is the last blog post, it is also the one you are most likely to have come across. It’s also more likely that you are someone I don’t know, whether that means you’re an alumni checking to see how the program is doing or a prospective applicant trying to gain perspective into whether the Mitchell is right for you.

To best serve you, I’ve structured this entry to answer the two generalized questions I’ve been asked the most about this experience: How the Mitchell has benefitted me, and what I recommend people do if they find themselves in Belfast.

Why the Mitchell Matters

Ireland is a small country. Geographically, it is roughly the size of Indiana with an economy roughly the size of Michigan’s. The advantages and limitations of these realities have been on the minds of Irish leaders since the rising and continue to shape virtually every aspect of Ireland’s international relations. Where Ireland lacks hard power, their soft power remains arguably unrivaled in the United States. It is difficult to think of another country of comparable size that enjoys such disproportionate investment and positive sentiment within the United States.

This makes Ireland an ideal place for a young American to spend a year abroad. The ongoing relevance of economic ties between our countries, the historical connections between them, and the raft of enduring policy challenges facing us offer an avenue for any thoughtful student to establish a new point of reference during their time here that will inevitably have professional and intellectual benefits for years to come.

Despite this, there are good arguments to be made that Ireland is declining in importance for American voters and policymakers just as Ireland’s economic dependence on the United States nears an inflection point. This presents a challenge for the Irish, and while the Mitchell scholarship is not a silver bullet for any of the trends referenced above, it remains a smart investment for all parties involved.

It may seem that 12 American students who come to the island every year cannot feasibly produce a significant long-term effect. I would argue (as is elaborated in more detail in this report) that for better or worse, American policy change is ultimately driven largely by small groups of well-connected and highly motivated actors. When it comes to Irish issues, the importance of the “Irish vote” has likely been exaggerated, while the importance of current politicians like Rep. Richard Neale and Rep. Brendan Boyle are comparatively understated.

With that in mind, it is in Ireland’s interest to cultivate ties early on with new generations of Americans who could very well wind up in positions of influence in science, the arts, business, and policy. For the students the Mitchell scholarship selects, we get the chance to actually make a difference via these ties. There are plenty of countries whose size or strategic importance make similar programs less cost effective. For example, the UK has long since overcome its lack of diaspora politics in the US, and will continue to be among America’s most important relationships regardless of any foreseeable circumstance. These conditions are not givens in the US-Ireland relationship, and the Mitchell allows scholars the opportunity to make an outsized impact during their time on the island as well as when they come home as a result.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the interpersonal benefits of the program. Throughout my time here, two of my fellow Mitchells (Sarah and Asha) and an almost-honorary Mitchell (Ellie) have all become invaluable friends who I likely would not have crossed paths with outside of this program. Higher education remains one of the most common ways that young Americans encounter people with fundamentally different backgrounds and beliefs from them. Placing us all in a foreign country helps to lower some of the defenses we build up at home, and I will be lucky to leave the island with life-long friends as a result.

With those musings out of the way, I hope I’ve convinced you to give the Mitchell (or just Ireland) a shot. If you wind up in Belfast, here’s a quick list of what I recommend:

Food & Drink

• Sakura is a sushi stop that has seen me at my highest and my lowest (usually my lowest) during my time here, and has a conveyor belt system that makes for great casual dining.
• Holohan’s Pantry is creative Irish cuisine served in a comfortable and local atmosphere.
• Madam Pho is a lifesaver during cold winter nights.
• Shu is good for a fancier night out.
• Flame is unbeatable for weekend people watching (bring a friend and ask for a seat by the window).
• Bert’s Jazz Bar is where I go when I am at my lowest and Sakura isn’t enough to bring me back up.
• Margot’s is a speakeasy with a creative cocktail list that usually flies under the radar for visitors.

Activities

• The Ulster Museum is a short walk from Queen’s campus and makes for a good afternoon out (I’m sorry Asha)
• Let’s Go Hydro is a hybrid waterpark/obstacle course that is hilarious to do with your less coordinated friends (I’m sorry Ellie)
• Tribe Boxing is a good workout if you’re willing to sacrifice your commitment to nonviolence at the altar of cardiovascular gains (I’m sorry Sarah)
• Mick Cage at Belfast Blackworks is an incredible tattoo artist who can transform even the tackiest study abroad tattoo ideas into layered and complex works of art in case you decide to spend part of your stipend this way (I’m sorry Trina)

That’s all from me folks. Goodnight, and joy be to you all.

With the arrival of the spring season, the Irish landscape bursts forth with tiny yellow flowers. Some call them “gorse,” from the German gerste (“barley”), others name them “furze,” perhaps from the Old English fȳr (“fire”). Botanists will know them by the genus Ulex. Whatever their name, these blooms paint every inch of the island gold from the forested walking paths of Glendalough Valley and the Bray Cliffs in the south to the coastal walk of the Giant’s Causeway to the North.

A chat with any naturalist quickly reveals the vast reputation of this plant. Ulex is a popular hedgerow, given its flexible growing conditions and spiny morphology, with endless fields in the countryside outlined in neat lines of the shrub. Additionally, many of the thatched roofs of the houses dotting the Wild Atlantic Way maintain the pre-Industrial method of using Ulex as the roof’s base layer. However, the high oil content of the shrub also makes it highly flammable, sometimes mitigated by the rainy climate, but sometimes also leading to hundreds of wildfires across the island in the span of just a few days.

The beauty of furze is that asking ten people will yield ten different stories about the plant—each more passionate than the previous. The plant’s prodigious mythology ranges from those who have claimed to see rare purple furze scattered in the outskirts of the southern counties to those who claim the plant smells of coconut (never in my experience, unfortunately).

I suspect the twenty-five years of this program’s run have yielded a similar repository of unique stories and memories from every person who has made it to the other side of their year. Now nearing the other side of my own year here, I have realized just how much has come of my time on the island. And while there will be so much to look back on, I think I will remember the gorse most of all.

There are always at least two reasons to do or not do something. For example, I rarely discuss my favorite local spots in Ireland or Los Angeles for 1) personal security reasons and 2) I don’t want them to get crowded. However, the secret salon of Dublin is now busy enough that I feel comfortable un-keeping the gate. If you see me nibbling chocolate to recover from a post-wax faint in the waiting room of Late Nite Beauty Salon, no, you didn’t. 

It was spring. It was 6 weeks out from the Irish Summer, which exists for 3 hours in the afternoon of each June day, roughly. I got a traumatizing wax at a student rate in September, at a “salon” found in a jet-lag haze, so for the summer trim I wanted an actual recommendation. On the floor below me at Trinity live two girls from a posh area, so I figured they would know.

The first girl said she didn’t know of any good local spots, she’s too broke for a wax herself. This checks out, as she’s training to be a social worker, like myself. 

The second girl said she didn’t know of any good local spots because she’s never needed a wax, personally, but her friends like Late Nite Beauty Salon off Temple Bar. This also checked out: this girl is very fair, fairly hairless, and also suffers from what my Northside cousins call “D2 syndrome”, which we don’t have room to discuss here. 

The Salon was almost impossible to find as I wandered around Temple Bar, which I knew meant it would be very good. The best wax place in Los Angeles is the unadvertised back room of my childhood nail salon. Late Nite Beauty Salon has a similar, comforting aura of gossip, sanitizer, bravery, lavender oil. As a ginger rights activist and noted fainter, I give the Salon 5 out of 5 red stars. The intelligent and beautiful waxing lady was compassionate, encouraging. At one point, as I clutched my evil eye necklace (Jewish rosary) for strength with my other arm flung over my forehead, I swore to the waxing lady that I could probably just do that last part at home? And she replied: Rhiannon, it’s just a few seconds. Breathe out. 

And it was! Let that be the lesson for all prospective graduate students, and people whose genetic heritage prepared them for deep winters more than sunshine. Whatever’s happening, there is an end to it. Also, you might be allergic to the liquid wax, so take an antihistamine and exfoliate a bit beforehand. When it’s all actually over, and you’ve wept to friends, family, medical professionals, academic advisors, God, strangers, various birds, children’s films, and the sea, you’ll have a thesis and really smooth legs. Remember to breathe in, and then out. Eat what you can, when you can. Sleep, or at least put yourself in bed. Fresh air, filtered water. Sunshine, in the morning and evening. Good luck! Don’t forget to tip!

The day after my first Irish dance class in September, I woke up to jelly legs. As it turns out, a lifetime of Indian Bharatanatyam and classical modern dance hadn’t prepared me for the calf strength needed to be constantly jumping on the balls of my feet. Traditional Irish stepdance—an art form that predominantly emphasizes movements of the leg—felt at first like a continuous exercise in tripping over my own two feet, but with classes at only €2 an hour with the UCD dance society, my jelly legs kept dragging me back to class week after week determined to master the steps and shuffles and skips and hops.

I began the year with individual and partner set dances—dances with set standardized choreography. Over the weeks I learned what an Irish dance shuffle was and how to hop on my toes and that skips usually happened in counts of threes. And just as my confidence in the dance style was beginning to grow, I took my first Céilí class.

Céilí, for the unfamiliar, is an Irish folk dance consisting of a larger group of participants in a social setting dancing together to traditional and often live music. While many of the steps of Céilí dances shared similarities with the individual Irish stepdances of weeks past, adding partners and group members quickly added a new dimension of chaos altogether. Hands grabbed the air searching for a partner, neighbors crashed into each other, and people froze as choreography escaped their brains.

And yet it was the most fun I had all year.

I am no stranger to social dances. An inevitable part of any Texas middle school education is lessons on southern square dancing, and an equally inevitable part of growing up South Asian is being invited to annual garba dances for the Hindu Navaratri festival every autumn. While garba holds some notable differences in execution—participants dance in concentric circles around a central lamp or statue—I was charmed by the similarities between Céilí and my Texas square dancing classes from childhood. Both dance forms involve partners interacting in larger sets of four or more and several standard dance fragments, with many similar fragments across both styles (peep the moments I pass under arm arches like the square dance Rip n Snort.) But while American square dancing usually utilizes a caller to announce the next steps for participants, Céilí usually uses set choreography for the whole dance.

Over the months I have grown to embrace the chaos of Céilí classes—the crashing and bumping and running to catch up to a partner and stumbling through the gent role choreography because I happen to be the tallest person in the class. In many ways, Céilí class parallels the process of learning to live in Ireland this year—figuring things out as I go but enjoying myself along the way.

Thursday

His threats are getting longer, and more specific. I bold, italicise, proofread the evidence file again, change the font from Arial to Helvetica. Legibility, style. I save the piece to my flash drive as a doc and pdf, because I forget which file type the Writing Centre printer prefers. In my stomach is the carsick feeling I only know otherwise from live performances. I close my laptop, put the flash drive in my pocket, take a red pen so I can circle what is necessary once I have the copies. 

At the Centre, the printer is plugged in, the outlet switch flipped up, but the grey thunderhead of a machine won’t turn on. At first I was pressing the wrong button, the green one with a tiny house which means Home. The power buttons look different in Ireland. The police don’t carry guns here. The Centre’s four floors are empty, so I can’t ask anyone, and I don’t have time to wait, and I’m sure where I’m going will have a printer. 

On the way to the DART, I see a PSA on the side of a pub. It’s a cropped image of a man’s torso, pulling his buttoned shirt open to reveal some device. It’s either against heart disease or for smoke alarms, I’m walking too fast to check. The caption is Don’t Ignore The Signals. 

Down the street from Pearse Station, I learn from a poster while waiting for the train, is a Resource Centre, which was a primary school 107 years ago where a few boys scouted for Irish Volunteer strongholds across the city. The school’s roll books called this the Poets’ Rebellion. Someone is playing a melody I recognize but can’t name on the public piano. 

I get a window seat facing forwards so I don’t get any more nauseous. On the way south, the train strides past private backyards and balconies, their laundry hanging in the misted afternoon. We pass a section of Silicon Docks, where some of the tech companies hold their European headquarters. Before the skyscrapers of one-way glass, the Docklands were factories, shipyards, older churns of labour, more immediate exploitation. Before that, a marsh outside a mediaeval city. Where the gallows were, where they burned witches. 

At Lansdowne, a yellow PSA from the Irish Heart Foundation says it’s only 800 metres to the American Embassy, and encourages me to walk to reduce stress. In the next 800 metres, I pass a junction box decorated in green which promises that Fibre Broadband is Now Here In Your Community. The box has the winning piece from a children’s art contest, a kid who’s drawn his family in different bubbles labelled Ireland and Rest Of The World, connected by their devices. A new luxury complex offers apartments On View, By Appointment. In the courtyard, four vaguely Grecian plaster statues of women arranged in a rectangle, twisting around with togas and flowers behind a metal fence. The eye-lines of the statues don’t line up. They can’t look at each other. 

Inspired by a 5th-century ring fort, the American Embassy is a round, brutal building of concrete and mirrored glass, which also looks like a high school textbook’s illustration of rough endoplasmic reticulum. Yucca trees grow by the main entrance, which are from California, like me. The security checkpoint looks like most security checkpoints. A guard sees me waving on the other side of the bulletproof glass, and motions for me to move closer to the intercom. 

“Hello,” I say in the device, as I’ve spoken into devices my entire conscious life. “I’m an American grad student, I’m dealing with a cyberstalker, I don’t think he’s in Ireland but the authorities back home recommended that I file reports locally. I have all the documentation on this flash drive, I wasn’t able to print it before coming here. Is there someone I can talk to?”

While that question buzzes up the chain of command, I turn away from the window towards the three-way intersection. Girls leaving school in groups and uniforms, bare-legged in January. Bird nest scrabbles in sycamore branches. A cyclist’s neon jersey says Be Seen Be Safe. Women push their babies in strollers, tiny faces peeking from layers of knit and puffer tucked against the cold, through the crossroads. I turn back to the window. 

The guard lets me into the checkpoint so I can talk to a woman, who can give me her first name but not her last. I explain that a guy I dated my first year of college has been leaving threats across my public social media, calling, texting. She asks what kind of threats. I say rape and murder, without stuttering. She asks if I’ve made a garda report, I say I’ve informed campus security but I knew the Embassy closed at five while the garda was open all night, so I wanted to get here first. She asks for my passport, to make a copy inside the rough-E.R.-shaped building, and asks me to wait while she sees what they can do. 

It took me a while to get my passport. Long separated, my parents couldn’t agree what my surname was. My birth certificate is under my father’s surname, but my mother got full custody and tried to get my name changed to hers, to make it easier for us to leave America. My father’s lawyers did not appreciate that, so my surname remained his. It has benefits. From commercials I don’t remember acting in as a kid to my most recent poetry collection, I’ve always been known publicly as [redacted], under my mother’s maiden name. My legal life exists more privately. Miss [redacted] is onstage with good posture, making jokes, trying to win an audience. Miss X is shivering under a hot shower. I got my passport when I was 18, able to fill out the paperwork by myself. In the picture, my hair is combed straight, pushed back from my shiny forehead. I am looking directly into the camera. I am trying not to smile.  

The amount of other things I could’ve done today, I say to the guards. I’m fanning my face with the planner where I wrote the email addresses the woman with only a first name told me to write. 

It’s stressing you out then, says the guard at the desk. 

Yes, I reply. It’s the first day back in lecture after holiday. I’m here for my master’s, I just wish I was at the library. 

You’re at Trinity? says the guard by the metal detector. They must be working you hard. 

They’re teaching me how to read, I say, it’s a great program. 

I don’t usually tell people I’m a writer, because then they stop acting weird around me and I can’t take notes, or they act weird in a different way. When asked, I usually say I’m studying literature. 

For literature, continues that guard, they must have you writing so much. I took a business course over Christmas, I had to write six thousand words, it was so hard, like. 

He pulls his phone from his uniform pocket. It’s these things, they’re so distracting. 

Absolutely, I reply. I turn my internet off when I’m working. It just doesn’t exist. 

The Embassy woman returns with my 18-year-old face. Since his finances allow him to travel, and he might have a French passport, they’re gonna try to put a travel check on him so he can’t enter Ireland, but I can’t quote her on that. She says I did the right thing, seeing how he’s sent me weird messages in the seven years since we dated, but they’d never been violent before. It’s probably hot air, but it’s best to get these things down before they escalate. I can’t use the Embassy printer, too much security, so I’ll email the documentation. 

On the way back to Lansdowne, a woman runs alone with her pit bull’s leash clipped to her waist. I pass a pretty bed-and-breakfast in Victorian brick called Ariel House. Ariel was the first character I ever played, in a children’s production of The Tempest: a sprite contracted to serve a magician until she’s freed in the finale. I was eight, with a bad stutter. My mom thought Shakespeare would be more fun than voice therapy. As I walk to the train, I am breathing how I’ve been breathing all week, how they taught us, in that little black box theatre that doesn’t exist anymore. Deep belly, in through the nose, out through the mouth. The kind of breath you need to project, to make sure the back row hears every syllable. The breath you need if you want to scream. 

While waiting for the DART to Tara, I talk to a woman in a midnight blue puffer because she has a puppy. I miss my dog in the states, I explain to her and the black speckled bulldog named Mario. Mario goes to work with her, he’s very well-behaved. Her mom has his uncle, who’s wild, so she was worried he’d be, but he’s so polite. He’d get along great with my Macaroni, who wags his tail at any stranger until they shift their focus to me. The woman asks how I’m settling in at Trinity, with the literature degree. Lovely, just lovely. She doesn’t know any of the Contemporary Irish Women Poets I’m writing my thesis on, not even Eavan Boland, who was on the leaving certifications for a few years, I think. She lists who was on her cert, twenty years ago. 

All the men, I say.All the men, she says.

From Barcelona to Budapest to Banglore to my hometown in Basking Ridge, New Jersey – there are Irish pubs. And furthermore those Irish pubs feel the same. There is a strange consistency to the Irish pub from the cozy layout, to the wood panels and leather decor, to the offerings of Guinness and hearty food. But what is more confusing is the supposed decentralized nature of this consistency. For example, McDonalds corporate office in Chicago spends countless hours and dollars trying to align their brand across continents while still playing into local tastes and markets. Pubs seem to manage to do this organically. Second, there are many other venues for drinking alcohol that could challenge the Irish pub for world domination. For example Mexican cantinas, German beer gardens, and Japanese izakayas all fulfill the basic tenets that Irish pubs do. I’ve chipped away at an intriguing story behind the Irish pub, its modern evolution, and its global ubiquity. 

The term ‘pub’ originates from ‘public house’ which were opened as an alternative for working men to private drinking establishments that required payment for entry in the late 17th century. Mitchell scholar Sam and I found ourselves at ‘the oldest pub in Ireland’, Seáns Bar in Athlone, County Westmeath, established in the 10th century, where manager Timmy Donovan enlightened us. In the sixth century, Irish Brehon Law codified that every local king was mandated to have his own brughaid or brewer who operated a public house that would welcome anyone who entered at any hour of the day. The law continued that all travelers were entitled to a drink at a public house if they were more than three miles from home but they needed to prove they had traveled for a reason other than a beer. 

During the 19th century, the temperance movement in Ireland forced publicans to diversify as revenue from spirits declined. Many combined their pub business with other ancillary business, such as butchery, post, hardware (Foxy John’s in Dingle), grocery (L. Mulligan Grocer in Dublin) or even as undertakers (McCarthy’s in Fethard). The remains of the ‘spirit grocery’ exist in pubs today with expansive shelves and bar counters taking up the majority of space leaving little room for customers. The arrival of supermarkets and grocery chains closed most spirit groceries and spurred the offering of food with drinks, something seen in many pubs around Ireland today.  

So back to it, two questions lingered since my Dublin debut 1) What are the features of a good Irish pub? And 2) Why have Irish pubs traveled so well around the world?

In order to assist in answering these questions, I enlisted the help of my pub philosophers: the lads Frank and Rory. 

Both lead with efficient service as a key. Frank mentions the lack of table service unless food is being served. Rory states that good service is “not from a spotty face, tweedle-neck 18 year old”. 

Live music, a proper Guinness pour, and cozy rooms come up as must haves as well. A unique Irish pub experience that is worth mentioning are lock-ins. Lock-ins are when the pub has officially closed for the night but the good times keep going after the doors have been locked and the windows have been shuttered. The idea is that once the pub is closed for the night it becomes private property. While the legality of these loopholes is gray, I had the opportunity to experience one with Mitchell scholars Abby and Ali in Galway. 

In response to the second question about pub’s global success. Both credit the widespread reach of the Irish diaspora but I think Rory summed it up best, “The Guinness is always woeful, even crossing over 100km to England. Irish culture is everywhere because we’re at every corner of the world. The British tried to kill us off 150 years ago, which only backfired into spreading us around the globe and bringing us to light through what unites everyone; drink.”

While I wish the story could end there, this is just the beginning. The real answer to my two questions is centered around the partnership of a young Irish architect and the global corporation that produces Guinness stout, Guinness Brewing Worldwide (now Diageo). 

In the 70s Mel McNally, a final year architecture student, studied the design of Irish pubs to understand what makes them work. From that work McNally developed three principles:

1. That you should be able to see the bar as soon as you walk into a pub and from almost anywhere in the pub. 
2. Within the larger umbrella of pubs, there are six district styles that define pubs (I borrow descriptions from a 2017 Eater article by Siobhán Brett because they really make sense).

3. A range of seating options between privacy and socialization. Pubs should include snugs and barriers breaking bar counters but also common spaces conducive to meeting new people. Rory nails it, “Quiet enough for a drink with the missus but not so quiet that you and the boyos can’t pop in for the evening.”

With these insights, McNally founded the Irish Pub Concept (IPC), a company that offers a service that will design and construct pubs with Irish materials and original memorabilia to create the authentic experience of an Irish pub anywhere in the world. 

Simultaneously, between 1985 and 1995, Guinness’ market research discovered that each time an Irish pub opened anywhere in the world, there was a noticeable spike in sales of their beer, both because of the pub itself, but also as a result of other bar owners adding Guinness to their offerings to compete with the Irish pub. Furthermore, this trend held across a very diverse group demographic, socio-economic and geographic regions. 

The bottom line was McNally’s IPC model drove stout sales. Guinness’ financial backing allowed McNally to expand into continental Europe and eventually world wide by subsidizing new operators and marketing. IPC would offer aspiring pub owners the design plans, a shipping container of Irish made prefabricated materials and locally sourced trinkets to line the walls, as well as the business plan to get off the ground. And as of 2020, some 6,500 pubs have been opened around the world as a direct result of this partnership and numerous more have developed independently. 

While at the onset of my research I hoped to find one story, I found an even better one. The Ireland I am experiencing is one being pulled in one direction by tradition and the other by globalization. And pubs themselves see this after the ‘08 recession, COVID, and increasing costs have made it harder to stay afloat. Authenticity is not sticking with tradition but instead molding and reinventing for the challenges of the day with a nod to the stories of the past. The Irish pub lives on, guided by a few basic design principles, Irish tenacity, and the ghost of Arthur Guinness. 

* I would have loved to be able to cite things for you but 1) these facts and stories have been crowd sourced after a few pints in pubs across Ireland and 2) you can see my academic writing in August when my thesis drops. 

Trinity’s academic calendar is divided into three terms, the anatomy of my year in Dublin has followed the rhythm from Michelmas to now Hilary, and is approaching a finish with Trinity. It feels like some things are aligning now, in Hilary term, which runs from early January to late March to bring in Spring, and is named after the Feast of St. Hiilary, or the Epiphany. And whether etymological or semantic – with St. Hilarius of Poitiers, a bishop and theologian who arduously defended the divinity of the Trinity at times of heresy, or hilary from the Latin hilarius meaning “cheerful” and traces back all the way to the Greek ἵλαος (hilaos), “propitious, gracious.” And nothing could describe the past couple of months in Ireland more, navigating the home that Trinity has created for me, so far away from home(s).

On February 6^th a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck my hometown Aleppo, and Southeast Turkey. The images of destruction permeated my notifications, of a city I once knew, people that have struggled through years of war, economic crisis, and global marginalization, of a city which continues to hold in its wings the people who have stayed through it all, and those who have carried her name with them in new homes around the globe. No number of times that you have to do this routine ever really prepares you for how the news cycles impact the way you navigate the homes you create, the solace you seek, the nostalgia you suppress, the resilience you construct, the guilt you feel, the incongruence you process. The safety check-ins flood the feed, your childhood friends marked safe, others mourning loss, awaiting news from neighbors, questioning how the curse can persist.

It was not the first time I had learned how grief can coexist with a determination in a context so removed from where you once were rooted.  I look outside and see the splintering green grass pave the base of Trinity’s campanile and I remember that it is now the first weeks of spring and how there can be more ways to be grateful for the cold Irish sun. I think of all of the ways I can continue to make the most of my time at Trinity as my return to Medical School nears – how to imagine a future where I can incorporate the praxis of global health in my career. This term, we’re exploring processes of global collaborations for healthcare interventions, and I still use assignments to delve into topics I am interested in, the global discrepancy in dementia diagnoses, the intersection of politics and international aid, the optimization of qualitative research for global interventions. I attended a Doctors without Borders conference at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, and learned of the efforts in critical care interventions in regions of crisis globally, the universality and urgency of ethical and collaborative medical work. At an Ireland For All solidarity march, I walked along the Liffey as Dubliners countered a growing xenophobic sentiment in Ireland.

To exist across a hyphen is to constantly balance the nostalgia with the hope, and to seek meaning in the everyday, drive a connection with those around you, and a desire to move forward. Tomorrow is Saint Patrick’s day, Dubliners will gather, joined by enthusiasts for the joy that Dublin enables from all over the globe, and the parade will come knocking on Trinity’s front gates, and we will gather, to celebrate all of the paths we took to get here, and all of the places we will go after.

“Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous