Summer schools on learning curve that runs all the way to Croke Park

THERE were plenty of things to complain about during the last few months, but there was much to celebrate too, including those things that can generate a great deal of pride in being Irish.

The summer schools and festivals are a case in point; they are now so numerous that if you had the time or the inclination, you could spend the whole season engaged in protracted debate and discussion about this country’s past and future.

Like most historians, I’m forever hungry for information, and the one thing that can feed that hunger better than anything is a room full of interesting people engrossed in heated and enlightened discussions that often reveal a new angle, solve a particular mystery, prove a hunch, vindicate a conspiracy theory, or simply whet the appetite for further research and begin a whole new sequence of questions.