We’re so happy to temporarily call Dublin’s northside our home, and this morning, we spent our first hours exploring some of what this neighborhood has to offer.

First, students warmed up their writing muscles by composing definitions of noun and verb versions of their first names in the Garden of Remembrance (so named to honor those who died fighting for Ireland’s freedom).

Dazzled with the range of students’ definitions, we proceeded to the Hugh Lane: Dublin’s municipal gallery, and the subject of W.B. Yeats’ shout-out-laden poem, “The Municipal Gallery Revisited” (1937). Armed with notebooks and instructions to collect two hours’ worth of field notes, students observed and absorbed: paintings, sculptures, portraits, abstractions, neon, landscapes, short films, object assemblages, and more. Among the museum’s current exhibitions are several devoted to executed revolutionary/humanitarian Roger Casement, whose exposure of abuses related to rubber slavery in the Congo and Peru made crucial interventions on the endangered lives of indigenous people.

Eventually, students would take their annotations and fragments and use them to compose bricolage poems; but first, we refueled on full Irish breakfasts and more at our favorite local cafe, Lovinspoon. Just goes to show you don’t have to go far to experience the city, especially when you’re lucky enough to be living on one of its most central, not to mention historical, not to mention beautiful, blocks.