“The mimic warfare of the evening became at least as wearisome to me as the routine of school in the morning because I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.”

–James Joyce, “An Encounter”

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This afternoon, some of our students traveled to historic Sweny’s pharmacy, made infamous in Joyce’s Ulysses and currently home to an incredibly hospitable reading series of Joyce’s works (in several languages!). Sweny’s is upheld by an inspiring team of volunteers such as bow-tied P.J., who not only supplied students with cups of sugared tea and reading copies of Dubliners, but also treated our group to a live serenade of The Lass of Aughrim, the song which triggers Gretta’s Galwegian grief in Joyce’s “The Dead.” Below is an excerpt that does very little justice to the magic–and quintessential Irishness–of this moment. Go raibh maith agaibh, Sweny’s!

The Lass of Aughrim, Sweny’s, 15 July 2015. from VAF on Vimeo.