Culture Days

Hi everybody!
The end of this semester is already very near which means our great final exam will be soon. One thing I really appreciate about this upcoming exam is that we are allowed to choose from a wide range of topics. These topics cover different parts of the culture our teachers belong to, namely Irish and US-American culture. As my teacher is Irish, I will be talking about her culture in the exam.
Past Monday and Tuesday, Culture Days, as we call them, took place in my university. I was fascinated by the topics the students had come up with and it took me some time to decide which 5 I want to talk about in my exam.

Health problems of the Irish Travellers
The first topic I’ve chosen, is Health Problems of the Irish Travellers. Admittedly, I’ve never heard of the Irish Travellers in my life before past Tuesday. As I’ve been to Spain, I do know the gypsies from there, but I wasn’t even aware of the fact that there are such communities in Ireland as well, so I was very interested in what Nina Nöst was going to talk about. And I was stunned. How is it possible that in such modern countries as in Europe, that provide a proportionally high standard of living, there are still groups that have limited- or no- access to health services? They suffer a variety of different diseases, some more some less dangerous but in any case they could be cured with some improvements, for instance primary care.  

David Norris Contribution to the LGBT
My second topic is about David Norris, a seemingly charismatic person that paid his contributions to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender community, LGBT. According to Kathi Luttenberger, the presenter, it must have been a very exhausting and partly hopeless process until finally reaching some more rights for homosexuals. For me, it isn’t understandable that people are still judged because of their sexual orientation and are excluded from society and discriminated against. Thankfully, there are personalities like David Norris who fight for the situation to get better for these groups.

The Vikings in Ireland
As I was truly a fan of Vicky the Viking, this topic immediately called my attention. During the presentation of Verena Roßmann, I was comparing the series to how the Vikings actually were. Of course, in the series some things don’t match with reality but sometimes I could see the similarities. The presentation was very interesting as it gave much information that was completely new to me and because it broke some stereotypes such as the Vikings being just evil and brutal plunderers. Moreover, it was surprising that the woman played such an important role for them.

Belfast- a city still split by the Troubles
Although the Troubles are long ago, the impact is still omnipresent in today’s society in Belfast. It is known that the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants came to an end when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. That there are still conflicts, however, is widely forgotten. It is of great importance to make several further improvements to actually spread long-lasting peace which allows removing of the so-called peace walls.

Is Irish a dying language?

As I am passionate about languages, I chose the presentation of Nina Mikusch for my oral exam. I was surprised by the fact that such a low amount of people can actually understand and speak Gaeilge, as the Irish call it. Nina told us some very interesting stuff about history and how difficult it was for the language to survive. She emphasised what a shame it would be, if Irish died in the future and I completely agree with her. Gaeilge is a language that has carried so much history that the Irish really should keep it alive.