'King Lear' scene by scene

For 12 podcasts on the all the scenes of King Lear, and a downloadable pamphlet gathering all the transcripts, click here.

Should be of particular interest to Leaving Certificate teachers and pupils.

Transition Year English Evening 2024

The 29th Transition Year English Evening was held on Tuesday 30th May in the Big Schoolroom. Again, it was a showcase of some of the best writing done during the year in English classes (there is no competitive element). Mr Jameson hosted the event, and the guest was former English teacher here, Mrs Annie Donnelly, who now works at Loreto Beaufort School.

Speakers (with Mrs Donnelly’s comments in square brackets) were:

• Rebekah Fitzgerald Hollywood on the nature of true friendship [this was thoughtful, with a clear sense of the person, and an excellent use of the extended metaphor].
• Delia Brady on her great-grandmother, ‘a person I would bring back from the dead’ [an engaging, fascinating historical essay, powerful as well as moving and tragic].
• Finn Woolsey on imagining his alternative self, ‘a person I would bring back from the dead’ [this was brilliantly philosophical, very controlled and original].
• Safia Walker on the proposition that young people have more problems than adults [an essay that was convincing and persuasive].
• Sophie Gibb with a story, ‘Window to the Soul’ [extremely memorable, with lots of tension and drama, and particularly effective use of sounds]
• Stella Borrowdale on her first home [a fine focus on family and belonging, with good attention to small things].
• Grant Fabian with a description of nature [poetic techniques used very well, with strong landscape description].
• Olive Mui on ‘The Oldest Person I Know’, her grandmother who went through the Chinese Famine [very engaging and original, with a lovely sardonic touch].
• Cerys Mordaunt imagining meeting up again in 8 years’ time with her friend Polly [excellent attention to detail in this imagining what the transition from adolescence to adulthood might look like].
• Grace Koch: a story called ‘Alone in the Forest’ [this captured big ideas, and used dialogue very well].

Mrs Donnelly also talked eloquently about the power of English, and how it deals with the most important things in life. She much enjoyed returning to the College, where she worked for two happy years. She also announced the winners of this year’s Premier Awards:

Stella Borrowdale, Delia Brady, Rebekah Fitzgerald Hollywood, Grace Koch, Grace McCarthy, Cerys Mordaunt, Olive Mui, Felix Strigel, Giulia Trolese and Safia Walker.

Voices of Poetry 2024

The long-standing Voices of Poetry event at the end of May provides a pause-point in the year. It is the last major event in the Big Schoolroom, and on a Sunday evening at the end of a busy weekend it gives us all a moment to listen attentively and appreciate great writing.

As always, it featured a mixture of English and other languages. It is remarkable how much one can get out of another language in terms of musicality even if the words are mysterious. Readers did give brief introductions to each of their pieces, and 23 poems were covered in 45 minutes, with Mr Girdham presenting and linking them.

Anton Demenko kicked things off in Ukrainian, followed by an utterly different language from a totally different part of the world: Bibiire Oke-Osanyintolu recited a poem in Yoruba from Nigeria.

The first English poem came from Eoin Siegel – Robert Frost’s famous ‘The Road Taken’, with its resonant final lines 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

On the thin grounds that both languages start with the letter ‘I’, but on the more substantial ones that they are both beautifully euphonious, Italian and Irish followed, with four poems intertwined and recited by Anna Luisa Sanminiatelli, Euan Flanagan, Francesco Malacarne and Molly Mann.

Shannon Walker Kinsella chose to read Cassandra Wright’s ‘Clandestine Meeting’, and she was followed by three ‘Iberian’ languages – Spanish (Pedro Olea), South American/Venezuelan Spanish (Manuela Nassief) and Portuguese (Kayra Mbanefo).

Congratulations to Nia Jessup, winner of this year’s Junior Poetry Prize for her touching poem ‘My Love’, about her grandmother, which she read out movingly.

Quite a jump then to one of the most unusual European languages, Hungarian (unconnected to any other, apart from, peculiarly, Finnish), from Gaspar Kekessy and Kasimir zu Bentheim.

And another jump to Mr Swift, who marked his interest in golf by reading out John Updike’s tribute to Payne Stewart, who came to a tragic end in 1999 at the age of 42.

Neighbouring France and Germany came next, with poems read out by Olivia Borbath and Vito Wieser, followed by two major languages from further afield, Arabic (Cecilia Corti) and Mandarin Chinese (Merida Zhang).

English rounded things up: Hal Somerville recited Byron’s dramatic ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib‘ from 1815, followed by the Warden again impressively performing one of his many learnt-poems, Rudyard Kipling’s classic ‘If’. Finally, the awarding of the Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry was marked by the Sub-Warden reading out one of Isabella Treacy’s winning poems from her portfolio. Congratulations to her on winning the prize for three years in a row.

As Mr Girdham said at the end, there is nothing better than catching up with some reading in whatever areas pupils like best. And why not some poetry?

Teaching Vacancy 2024-25

The College has a vacancy for a teacher of English for the coming academic year, to cover all ages from First Year to Leaving Certificate. Go here for further details including applications routes.

Junior Poetry Prize

 Congratulations to Nia Jessup, winner of the 2023-24 Junior Poetry Prize.

My Love

I lost you in our favourite time of year.
In that beautiful spring
with the sound of birds around us,
your favourite sound.

Our love for each other lasted 13 years 4 months and 9 days
Those years, months and days were my favourite.
Not a day goes by without me missing you.
Wishing you were here to see one more Birthday or one more just one more Christmas.

After you had gone my whole world fell apart.
You may not be here now
but you're still with me in heart.

My connection to you is so strong,
It reminds me of an infinity symbol,
it will always be forever.

You always told me that if I ever miss you, pray or if I feel alone, pray.
I may not see you as much now but I will always talk to you.
I will call for a quick chat
at the same time as every day
at 8.30 or around then.
Because you told me that prayer was like a telephone.

I will also always read Psalms Chapter 29, Verse 11 to 13
to remind me of you.
That was your favourite book of the Bible,
 you used to tell me all about it,
and now it is mine.

I can't wait for the day that I will see you again
It might be a long time away
but it is even longer for me.

Teaching 'Small Things Like These'

 

Secondary English teachers who are looking for guidance on teaching Claire Keegan's short novel Small Things Like These should head over here, where you will find online resources, reviews, and a detailed series of teaching notes on the book. A webinar follows in September 2024. This is particularly for the comparative section in the Leaving Certificate exam.

 

And here is a free downloadable 26-page booklet for teachers.

TY House Speech Competition 2023

On Sunday 8th October we held the annual Transition Year House Speech Competition. There was a high standard overall, and the judges awarded equal second place to Rebekah Fitzgerald Hollywood and Safia Walker. A clear first place, however, went to Grace Koch, whose speech about her great-grandmother is now below.

“In one day it all came crashing down— like falling into an abyss, the sudden shock reverberating long afterwards into the years that followed.” 

I’m sure that most people here have learned about, or at least heard of, the Holocaust. It is widely regarded as one of the most important topics in history. However, when we learn about it, I think that we tend to focus on broad details and statistics. Not to say that there is anything wrong with that, but I think it is equally important to listen to personal experiences. Today, I want to share with you my family’s personal experience with the Holocaust.

The quote that I just read is taken from Vienna Revisited, a book written by Freda Ulman Teitalbaum, also called Grandma Freda, my great-grandmother. In it, she talks about her journey of self discovery and reflection in visiting her childhood home with her daughter Marcia. She was born in Vienna in 1924 and grew up in the Judengasse, the Jewish district in Vienna. Freda describes her childhood to be joyous and carefree, albeit sheltered. She enjoyed school, despite her general aversion to math, and was particularly fond of languages and literature. In 1938, the Anschluss, the union between Austria and Nazi Germany, happened and my great-grandmother’s world was shattered. In her book, she writes of the day that she learned about Anschluss. She was walking in the park with her parents and her younger sister Susi when suddenly the sky was filled with planes adorned with Nazi flags that dropped pamphlets. Freda, only thirteen, picked one up only to read the words “Death to the Jews”. She was devastated and taken by surprise, her idyllic bubble popped.

She also tells of a common occurrence for Jewish women in Vienna at this time. Anyone over the age of 15 could be summoned to the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, and forced to strip naked in front of them. They would then cut off a lock of the woman’s hair. This would be a humiliating and devastating experience for anyone, but especially for a teenager. When Freda was 14, she and her mother got the summons. As a young adult, she felt extremely self-conscious about her body, saying that she was too afraid to even undress in front of her mother, let alone the Gestapo. While they ended up being dismissed because Freda was only fourteen, it was a traumatizing experience nonetheless. The Nazis completely changed her self worth as they constantly degraded her place in society as a Jewish woman.

Fortunately, after months and months of waiting, Freda, her mother and her sister were able to get visas for the United States, but their father, who was Polish by birth, had to wait. He told them to go anyway, and he was able to join them after a few months. Many of Freda’s family members would join them, but her beloved uncle Josef would die in the Buchenwald concentration camp and her paternal grandparents would disappear during the war. They refused to leave their home, saying that God would protect them. Even today, we don’t know what happened to them. Freda went on to graduate from high school in Chicago and begin working almost straight away. In 1982, she fulfilled her lifelong dream of university and graduated from UCLA with a degree in English.

As I was thinking about what I would do for my speech, I felt a pull towards my great-grandmother. I’m still not quite sure why, but I think I have an idea. Grandma Freda passed away last year at the age of 99. It was sad, of course, but not so much personally. To be honest, I barely knew her and rarely saw her. Last spring, I visited my grandparents, my grandmother Ruth being Freda’s daughter. Together, we looked through some of Freda’s old jewellery. Most of it was cheap costume material apart than two sets of pearl necklaces and two small watches, one silver and one gold. My grandmother gifted the two necklaces to me and my sister, as well as Freda’s college diploma from UCLA, which is now in my bedroom.

As we were looking through the collection, my grandmother very gingerly grabbed the watches. They were both broken, but had clearly been taken care of. My grandmother told me how the watches had belonged to her grandmother, Regina Ulman. She had brought them with her when she travelled from Vienna to America. These watches are some of if not the only surviving heirlooms from my family’s time in Vienna. Shortly after the Anschluss, Austrian Jews were forced to give up all valuables to the Gestapo. Before this happened, however, Regina and her husband Bernard were able to smuggle some items out of the country via a Christian friend living in Italy. Most of these items ended up being sold once the Ulmans reached New York.

As I held these artefacts of my family’s history, symbols of their pain, suffering, and grief but also of triumph and promises of hope, I noticed a sense of deep connection to my ancestors that I never truly had before. I felt a responsibility to keep their memories alive not only to commemorate them, but to learn from them and maybe help others to do the same. I know we can all agree that what happened in the Holocaust was disgraceful and despicable, but that is not enough. We have to actively fight against anti-semitism and other forms of bigotry. I think that this sentiment was certainly shared by Freda, and it is made clear in her book that there were still many things she thought needed to change. She ends Vienna Revisited with words that power my own desire to share her story: 

“From time to time the same question arose to haunt us: why were we saved, why were we the lucky ones to survive? The only answer to this enigmatic question could be that we were meant to live so that a new generation could arise from the ashes of the old, with the hope that they would inherit a better world, and that they would never forget.”
 

Senior Poetry Prize 2023

Congratulations to Isabella Treacy, who wins the Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry for the second year, and to Yilong She, who receives a Commendation. First, some of Isabella's winning portfolio.

A Funeral for your Lies 

and an Exhumation of my Truths

 

You could call this a funeral

for your Lies,

and an exhumation 

of my Truths.

 

I was buried next to this unseemly secret

six feet deep with the roots.

Lord knows I should still be

pushing daisies.

 

You took my life 

but it's not the end.

 

I was put in the ground

and now I'm back from the dead.

You should have known 

that something which was never living

can never really die.

 

I’m getting tired of crawling all the way.

I've had enough!

Isn’t it obvious?

Holding the pain like I’m holding my breath

Now that I’m on trial.

 

I won’t be beaten by this,

Not yet.

 

And it’s my whole heart

Being tried and tested,

But it’s mine!

I won’t be buried or burned this time.

 

Who’s the equivocator now?

Keres, help me not to forget,

While I’m on trial,

Wait until the beast comes out.

 

Oh you fool, there are rules,

I’m coming for you.

You can try to outrun this scourger

 but you can’t escape.

 

Holy water cannot save you now.

Now your reckoning begins

and La Pelona will lead you 

to your yawning grave.

I took a journey to the unknown

And I came back changed, 

I can feel it in my bones.

It feels like I've been away for an era

but nothing changed at all.

 

Say goodbye to who I was.

 

You told me to calm down

and asked why my heart had turned rotten?

It still gets my blood boiling.

And now I look at you 

through crimson tinted glasses

 while I stay stuck in the crossfire 

of my own thoughts.

 

La Pelona and I walk side by side

over your spoiled, evil spirit.

You left a deep scar

which I still try to bleach out.

 

I’ll dig a grave for your lies

with a beating heart of stone,

and I’ll never spare 

my sympathy

for someone like you.

Kitchen floors and

 Saints at doors

 

How could I have known

what I was about to trade. 

 

All I knew was that I saw a way

and you saw the worst in me.

 

As I reached for the clouds 

you made sure that I 

would return

to your weightless embrace.

 

I still search for a reason

not to end up in denial,

like those long summer nights

stolen away as the moon falls.

 

Despite the lies you bound to me

                                                          I still love you.

But, I won't wait anymore,

for the parts of you

that are never on show.

 

Yet, my heart yearns 

to lay on the kitchen floor

under you’re unfeeling gaze

as moonlight paints your face.

 

And every morning 

when you wake,

I'll still love those 

mangled bits of you.

Mine Forever

 

I was there,

When you fell from the clouds.

 

When I found you,

 I saw a place like paradise in your eyes,

then I knew that my end would come soon.

 

Those modest saying that meant so much to you,

with me they’ve never quite got through.

I’ve always needed bigger words.

 

I was so full of love that I could hardly breathe.

There isn’t a language for the things I feel.

 

It was such a relief and a horror

To be known so perfectly,

So completely. 

 

You were the one who made me believe,

that I could fly again.

 

Now we’re a story that I don’t want to read.

 

Loving you was easy when I balanced on a knife's edge.

Now your spirit follows me wherever I go,

and I still hear your melody from those days
as you haunt me in the night.

 

When the sun comes up and I go blind,

For a moment, I can blot out the memory of your face

and forget every line, every wrinkle.

 

But, if forever gets too lonely

I’ll meet you where our souls

Meet our bones,

Because in my mind

You’re mine forever.

Transition Year English evening, 2023

 

On the evening of Tuesday 30th May we had the 28th annual Transition Year English evening in the BSR (and so, with two years out for pandemic reasons, this event started 30 years ago). The formula has remained little changed: pupils read out interesting work they have written during the year, and a guest speaker associated with English comments on this, and speaks on wider issues. There is no competitive element: this is a pure celebration of writing. At the end of the evening the pupils receive their year’s grades.

This year our guest (who had also come several years ago) was Mr Toirleac O’Brien, former English teacher at Blackrock College (his comments are in brackets after each speaker). The evening was compèred by Mr Jameson.

The first reader was Ava Fagan, with a special memory this year about a scuba-diving trip (so richly descriptive - wonderful). She was followed by Melina Paulsen, who wrote about her first Irish train journey (a delightful piece, with entrancing dialogue). Clodagh Walsh was third, with a short story including the sentence ‘Suddenly there was no noise’ (it opened effectively in the middle). Amaya Street wrote about her memories of her early homes (this looked at how your life might have turned out differently). Jamie Casey then read Alba Perich’s story of first love (very bravely!), followed by a very different piece, Manuela Nassief’s ‘Waterfall’ (with incredible observation, a remarkable piece of writing). Aeladh Bradley-Brady next read her highly ‘imaginative’ piece about losing one sense - hearing. Finally, Iona McCausland wrote on a long-time favourite personal topic, ‘The Oldest Person I Know’, in her case her complicated grandmother (it was deliciously eccentric, with a lovely way of seeing things).

Mr O’Brien then gave us some heart-felt sentiments on the future of writing and reading, particularly given the new AI world we have moved into so recently. His passionate advocacy for books was striking. He finished by commending all the readers on their bravery in reading so personally and intimately in front of their peers.

Finally, congratulations to the Premier Award winners: Aeladh Bradley-Brady, Cajetan Cardona, Carlotta Castagna, Amber Cotton, Ava Fagan, Emilia Hager, Manuela Nassief, Melina Paulsen, Shannon Walker Kinsella, Clodagh Walsh, Alison Wang and Johanna zu Solms.