Tag: kathleenmccarthy1

By kathleenmccarthy1

As much as I love GW, I often find myself, as many of my fellow Washingtonians do, getting just a little tired of the way that politics can constantly invade other aspects of our everyday lives. This is truer than ever in wake of the government shutdown. As expected, coming to Ireland has provided a break from the type of intense political divides that we can often see in the US. However, what has surprised me most about Ireland is not just that it has its own deeply divisive political matters, but that people with differing views are actually able to coexist with each knowing full well that the people around them don’t agree with them even remotely.

When I arrived in Ireland, the nation was on the eve of a referendum vote to abolish the Seanad, which is one of the houses of the Irish Parliament. The Seanad has weaker powers than the Dail, the other house in Ireland’s parliament and can’t actually veto any legislation, just delay it. Abolishing the Seanad would reduce the number of politicians and subsequently free up funds to replenish Ireland’s struggling economy. During the 2011 election for Taioseach, or Irish Prime Minister, the Fine Gael party promised that if they were to take office, they would pursue a referendum to abolish the Seanad. When the Fine Gael candidate, Enda Kenny, won the election, his administration continued with the agenda to hold the referendum to have the Seanad abolished, which was scheduled for October 4^th.  Throughout Ireland, you could see posters advocating both the abolition of the Seanad (produced by the Fine Gael party for the most part) as well as some advocating for the continuation of the Seanad (largely produced by the Fianna Fail party). When I participated in a homestay for a weekend, the family that I stayed with shared with me that they were in favor of getting rid of the Seanad because, they found it to be a waste of money when it had, what many considered, little impact on governance. My Irish roommate also mentioned that she would be voting in favor of abolishing the Seanad and said that it was very likely that most Irish people would vote that way as well.

I also had some lecturers weigh in on the referendum as the vote loomed closer. For example, my political science lecturer is actually an adjunct lecturer who works full time as a lobbyist. He is currently working on the campaign to keep the Seanad. As we were leaving class the day before the referendum, he actually stopped all of us before we could leave the room to hand us some literature on this issue and asked us to vote in favor of keeping it. My history professor also asked our class who would be voting in the upcoming referendum. Since my history class is filled predominantly with visiting students from other countries, only about five people in the class raised their hands. He then asked them who would be voting to keep it and who would be voting to abolish it, with both groups answering by a show of hands. After asking this question, he just went back to lecturing without using the referendum as any sort of jumping off point.

 

There are a number of things that I find striking about the referendum. The first is the fact that in just a little over two years, a bill to abolish one of the parliamentary houses and drastically change the constitution has been drafted, published, approved by the government and brought to an official vote without any interference. I’m also amazed that such large-scale government changes can be enacted so fast. Were Fine Gael to be successful in this referendum, Ireland would go from having a two-house parliament to a one-house parliament, just like that. Another thing that strikes me about the whole situation is that it isn’t taboo to talk about it at all. A professor distributing materials on a political campaign he is personally involved with and could benefit from would be considered highly inappropriate in the US, but here no one had a problem with it at all. Everyone in the class just politely accepted and said “Thank you.” If a professor asked his students to share how they would be voting in an upcoming election openly in class, it would be at least somewhat controversial and even be called unethical by some. I was also struck by the fact that there were people literally sitting right next to each other who openly admitted that they would be voting differently and no comments were made whatsoever. No snide remarks, nothing offensive, no dirty looks. No one seemed to have any problem with the people around them having an opinion that completely opposes theirs.

In the end, the Irish government ended up retaining the Seanad after an incredibly close vote with 51.7% of voters in favor of keeping it and 48.3% wishing to abolish it. Even though I won’t be able to say that I lived in Ireland when the Seanad was abolished, being here for this important election has not just helped me in learning how the Irish government is structured, but also about Irish political culture and how people here approach politics.

By kathleenmccarthy1

At NUIG, you spend a lot of time trying to get away from the other American students. With such a high international student population and a heavy presence of American study abroad programs on campus, the opportunity to be surrounded by only Irish students even for a short while does not come around often. This is why I believed that there would be a considerable number of American students in the sociology seminar that I registered for. However, when the class, entitled: Contemporary Irish Health Care Policy in a Comparative Context, began, I discovered that apart from a German student who was also taking it, everyone else in the class was Irish.

My health care policy seminar is the only class in which there is not a large population of visiting students. In fact, with 13 students in total, it is the only one that doesn’t take place in a large lecture hall. This means that the professor will actually learn our names and get to know us as individuals instead of just talking at us for the entire lecture like the professors in Ireland typically do. Obviously, since it is still relatively early on in the semester, the professor does not know all of the students’ names yet. He has, however, known one student’s name from the first day of class and that student is me. The reason for this is that, as the only American in the class, I am the go-to girl for questions about free market health care policy.

Even at GW, it is unusual for a professor to address me directly and know my name during the first lecture. This is why it took me back when, during our first class, the professor looked right at, called me by my name and asked me about public health care options in the US. Getting questions like this one would have been intimidated to get even back at GW, but in the states it would only be out of fear of embarrassment or concern over having it reflect poorly on my grades. In Ireland, my answers to these questions will shape my classmates’ understanding of American health care policy and, subsequently, their understanding of global health care policy. I feel as though I have essentially become a guest lecturer in my sociology class, completely by accident.

With my health care policy class meeting on Thursday mornings, my Wednesday nights have essentially turned into a briefing session on new developments in American health care policy. This might seem excessive and unnecessary but anyone who has been on Twitter lately can attest to the fact that this topic is not one that you want to ignore for a few days if you have any intention of discussing it with someone. I basically need to prepare for a class presentation on American health care policy every week, but I’m never really sure of the aspect of health care policy that I will be presenting on. Fortunately, both the professor and the other students in the class are incredibly warm and understanding and seem pleased that there is an American in the class to contribute to the discussion. Even though I’m sure they would be really nice about it if I had nothing to say, I’m going to be asked to contribute whether I like it or not. So, I might as well give 110%.

By kathleenmccarthy1

Many people don’t know this, but the Irish don’t refer to their Prime Minister as “the Prime Minister.” Instead, Ireland’s Prime Minister is called the “Taoiseach” which means “chief” in Ireland’s native language and by being in the right place at the right time, I got to meet the Taoiseach last weekend.

The Arcadia program managers arranged for us to participate in a homestay weekend in Castlebar, County Mayo, about an hour and a half away from Galway City. Heather, another girl in the Arcadia program, and I were assigned to the Reilly family, consisting of a woman named Marie and her husband, John. Also living with them was Jannick, a German high school student spending the semester in Ireland.  Our first night was a little awkward. Jannick was much younger than us and Marie and John were much older than us, so it was difficult to keep up conversation. After we had dinner on Friday night, we watched the Late Late show, a popular Irish talk show that plays every Friday. To give us background on some of that episode’s content, Marie explained to us that the current Taoiseach is pushing to have the Seanad, one of the two houses of the Irish parliament abolished. I brought up that I had seen Enda Kenny, the current Taoiseach, at GW when he visited this past March. To this, Marie responded “Enda? He’s from Castlebar! His son goes to school with Jannick! They ride the same bus!” This completely blew me away and I found it impossible to keep my inner-fangirl in check. Marie was delighted that her American guest was so excited about meeting someone who knows the Taoiseach, especially since Enda Kenny is the first person from any part of west Ireland to hold the title. She said that the next day she would take us into town and show us his constituency office. She also told us that she would call her dad to see if he knew whether or not the Taoiseach would be in town that weekend even though she was pretty sure he would be in Dublin.

As we ate breakfast the next morning, Marie called her father, who actually knows Enda Kenny pretty well, to see if he could tell her whether or not the Taoiseach would be in his office that day. To find out, Marie’s father called Enda Kenny, who agreed to meet with us in town around noon.  Knowing I would be really excited about this, Marie came running into the kitchen as Heather and I were eating breakfast and said “Girls, you’re never going to believe this! Enda is going to meet us in town for a coffee!” I was so excited that I actually threw my hands up and squealed in front of this woman that I had met less than 24 hours before. I could not believe that I was actually going to meet Ireland’s Prime Minister and one-time President of the Council of the EU.

Marie drove Heather and I into town to the café where we had been told to meet him.  We got there a few minutes early so we sat in the car to wait for the Taoiseach to arrive. As we waited, Heather and I got to know Marie a lot better.  She told us about what she usually does on Saturday and also about her family and living in Castlebar. Even though Marie said she expected Enda Kenny to arrive in his wife’s car, he was actually walking up the street when we saw him.  Marie got out of the car and walked to to greet him as Heather and I walked timidly behind her.  Upon seeing her, Enda Kenny said “Marie! So good to see you!” and gave her a big hug. He then looked at us and said, “Are these your American guests?” Marie introduced us and we each got our own hugs from him. “I’ve known Marie since she was this tall,” he said, “You could not have a better host.” We expressed our agreement with this statement and then he said, “One thing that you should know about Ireland is this: everyone in this country knows each other.” Instead of going into the café and having a coffee as planned, we walked to the park across the street where Enda Kenny pointed out various buildings in the town square and explained to us the history behind them. After that, we sat down on a bunch and the Taoiseach called one of is security men over to take a picture. He asked if any of us had a camera. I offered up my iPhone, in its bright green vintage-inspired cassette tape phone case. As his security guard held the phone up to take the picture, Enda Kenny said, “Is that a cassette tape?” When I bought my iPhone case, I would never have guessed in a million years that Enda Kenny would be making fun of it. After taking pictures, the Taoiseach asked us what we were studying in school. When Heather told him that she was studying English literature, he said “You know, when we were visited by the Queen a while back, I said to her ‘Since gaining independence, look at all of the Nobel Laureates we’ve had. Beckett, Shaw, Yeats; the Irish have taken the English language and made it better.’”

After that, our time with Enda Kenny had come to an end. He, of course, gave us all another hug and told Marie he would see her again soon.  As he walked back to the car that had brought him there, a motorist driving by stopped their car to shake his hand. I found this so reflexive of Ireland’s culture of openness and accessibility. The Taoiseach, who is responsible for leading the entire country and handling foreign affairs, took time out of his day to meet with people he had never met. Up until then, I had thought that what people had told me about Irish hospitality had been somewhat overestimated. Sure I found that people were generally nice, but there didn’t seem to be much beyond common courtesy. After my experience with the Taoiseach, I realized just how warm Irish people genuinely are and how doing nice things for people is an established part of the culture. It also exemplified just how strong community ties are in Ireland. Being an important public figure doesn’t make you exempt from doing favors for friends and neighbors, it’s expected of everyone. And yet, everyone seems happy to do it.

By kathleenmccarthy1

Thursday and Friday were orientation days for international students at NUI, Galway. Thursday was mainly focused on making sure the students knew how to access the university’s services and take care of all our requirements as international students. Friday was dedicated entirely to presentations by all the academic departments at NUIG about how to register for their classes and what modules are being offered this semester. Things aren’t quite as organized or efficient at NUIG as they are GW.  To begin with, most of the students had already viewed a booklet of modules that would be offered this semester, but the class schedules here aren’t actually finalized until right before teaching begins so many of those were not actually being offered. Also, there is no online registration here so everything has to be done the old fashioned way.  Each department has its own day in which students sign up for seminar classes on a first come, first serve basis. Regular lecture classes are less complicated to register for but registration for those doesn’t take place for another two weeks. The point of such a long pre-registration period is so that the students can “shop around” for classes and see what they can handle. One drawback of this though is that we don’t have access to Blackboard until registration happens. This laid-back system has caused some anxiety for myself and the other American students who are used to knowing what classes they have right away. There is also very little communication between departments and this means that when each department made their presentations, they gave students information that affected the university as a whole so each one was very repetitive. By the end of orientation, most of the international students (or at least the American ones) were a lot less confident that they could actually successfully register for the classes that they wanted to take. They way that they determine who gets spots in smaller classes didn’t really seem as fair as the American system to a lot of us and rely a lot on students being honest and following the rules. The uncertainty of the whole process is also unsettling for students who need to fulfill certain requirements at their home institutions. The Irish attitude towards all of the confusion involving registration seems to be a lot like their attitude towards everything else: alarmingly nonchalant.  They seem to be aware that things will probably go wrong at certain points while students are trying to register but don’t seem to have any desire to implement a more efficient system. This led me to realize just how neurotic American college students can be. We really like to know exactly what classes we will be taking and when they will be. Not knowing that we can have everything just right REALLY makes us nervous. The Irish students on the other hand are a lot less concerned about it. I couldn’t help but wonder if I will start to adopt a more “Irish attitude” about things when I get back home or if I will simply be relieved to back in a world of certainty.