Walking through the streets of Dublin, something about the city feels familiar. But it’s nothing like Austin and Des Moines, the two places I call home. The Georgian and Victorian architecture is both stunning and approachable and you can feel the history as you get deeper into the city. Cafés line every street and tiny cobblestone alley. You can walk nearly anywhere in the city within 30 minutes. If you can’t get to your destination by walking, you can take a bus or the “Luas,” the tram that runs through the city.
Right before I arrived in Dublin, I was extremely nervous. I’d only been out of the country a handful of times, and none of those destinations were outside of North America. To add, the May Term course I’m taking is photojournalism, which requires sourcing and stepping out of one’s comfort zone every day.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my short time here, it’s that the Irish are extremely welcoming, kind and hilarious people. Just the other day, I had an older Irish gentleman come up to my classmates and I at a pharmacy. We proceeded to walk around the city together for two hours, exploring new areas and listening to funny stories from his time living in Ireland. This is a common experience most of my other classmates have also had.
Dublin and Ireland as a whole are great places to practice photojournalism because the people are extremely willing to help and want to get to know you better. The Irish people are undeniably proud of their heritage. Through visiting Dublin and diving into Irish history, it’s easy to understand this sense of pride. It’s made me want to hold on to my little bit of Irish-Catholic heritage on my dad’s side as much as possible.
To put it simply, Ireland has had an unfortunately dark history of violence, death and oppression. But in recent years, Ireland has been at the forefront of progress and change. The Irish also don’t take themselves too seriously, so you will often hear dark humor.
The country’s beautiful landscapes also make it easy to want to carry around your camera all day. Dublin alone contains the largest park in all of Europe — Phoenix Park. Dublin also has an extremely beautiful botanical garden, which is free to the public. Recently, my class took a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway and the western landscape was stunning. We drove along the coastline for a few hours seeing small surf towns, the Burren and traditional Irish cottages. Although I was secretly hoping to see a basking shark on the Cliffs as I’ve recently become obsessed with them, unfortunately, I did not. Throughout our time as a class, we’ll also visit an eco-village and Giant’s Causeway. I hope to see more of the countryside as well as visit the rest of the parks and green spaces Dublin has to offer.
Day-to-day in Dublin has been very similar to my life as a student at The University of Texas at Austin. For our course, we have two main assignments we’re working on each day and we must submit a photo of the day. This can be anything including food, street art, portraits, etc. There’s a lot of freedom with this, so it’s been fun to try new camera techniques and skills each day.
We also have group projects. We were divided into groups of four to cover topics that are relevant to Dublin and Ireland at the present including immigration, asylum seekers, the housing crisis, Irish language and culture, environment and LGBTQ+. My topic is the environment. We’re focusing on biodiversity, agriculture, sustainability solutions and the transportation sector. To do this, we photograph and interview sources or locations that are relevant to our topic. At the end of the course, our group will design a 50-page zine with our best work from the course to add to our portfolios.
While I’m only at the beginning of my May Term, I couldn’t recommend the program enough. It’s a little taste of what abroad looks like for those who might not have the time to fully commit to a semester or year-long program.
For those who aren’t journalism majors or don’t have a ton of experience with cameras and are interested in the documentary photography course at UT Austin, do not fret. In just my first week here, I’ve gotten comfortable shooting on my manual camera which I checked out from Moody College of Communication’s equipment checkout. Not to mention, the range of skill levels in this program goes from beginner to expert and everyone is willing to help you with questions.
I’m already so grateful for my time here and I can’t wait to see where the rest of my month takes me.
This post was contributed by Rebecca Youngers, a Global Ambassador for May Term 2024. Rebecca is a sophomore journalism studies major studying abroad in Dublin, Ireland.
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