It's Not Just About Irish Women

Yes I know my PhD analyzes Irishwomen's representation of Continental Europe from the Act of Union of 1800 through contemporary Ireland, but it simply isn't all about the Irish women.    You might be wondering what I'm on about, but let me explain by way of an example.  These past two weeks I've set down the works of the two writers whose works form the subject of my third chapter and have spent most of my time reading histories of nineteenth-century France, histories of banking, and Honoré de Balzac.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It's time to dust off the old Leinster, Munster, Connacht, or Ulster kit and sit in a pub for hours on a Saturday afternoon.  That's right; it's Six Nations time again!  Forget bowl season, forget the superbowl.  None of them compare to the international rugby tournament between England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, and Italy.

How Things Work

Over Christmas several people asked me what exactly it was I was doing.  They didn't mean it in an existential fashion or indeed even in a way that would interrogate my dissertation's raison d'être.  Rather, they were wondering what the structure of the PhD is, what is involved in it, and how one goes about completing it on a day-to-day level.  That's what this post aims to answer.

Racing in the Streets: Belfast from a Runner's Perspective

I've been back in Belfast since Friday afternoon and wanted to get this going again, hopefully with more consistency than during the fall.  One of the pieces of advice I received over the break was to shorten these entries, so they wouldn't seem so daunting to write (or I'm sure to read). To that end, I want to give a brief account of my run because it helps with the lay of the land.  I was running my truncated route today because I took way too much time off during the holidays.  This route takes me past several iconic Belfast landmarks: Queen's University Belfast, City Hall, the Crown Liquor Saloon, the Grand Opera House, and the Europa.  Over the course of several blog entries, I want to create a better picture of Belfast, a street-level view.