The trip to Lisbon for the Association Congress was a fun one and it rekindled my interest in association management.  I met some really nice and interesting people and reconnected with a friend from ASAE.  He and I had a lot of fun catching up, AND during a few hours in a casino in Estoril I won 150 Euro and Jakub prevailed on me to stop, so I did and therefore didn't lose it as I usually do!  My presentation there went well also and it was a good preparation for when I do it in August in Atlanta.  All in all a good trip.

I was back in Dublin just one day before we left again (on Friday) for Sligo and my memoir writing workshop.  I'm always so disappointed with those things.  It's always the same for me, I go with such high expectations and really think I'll learn so much more than I do.  The presenter was nice but I don't think that she, herself, has actually written a memoir so by the end, her credibility was pretty low for me.  There were six students including me, three men and three women, so the mix was good and they were all very nice and good writers I thought.  I did learn a few tips so hopefully I will apply those lessons to my next steps in getting a book proposal done.  We returned from Sligo yesterday and have been busy since trying to catch up. 

Today is my birthday and I have a lot planned, but most of it is stuff associated with things I've been doing for a while.  I'm off to CoisCeim dance rehearsal at two and then Alan will meet me downtown for dinner, then I'm off again to set dancing at eight.  I'm actually pretty happy with spending most of my day engaged in dancing.

Sligo is Yeats Country and there are a lot of references to both W.B (the poet) and his brother Jack B. (the painter).  W.B. is the more famous of the two but the Sligo people are warmer toward Jack because he actually lived in Sligo most of the time.  Anyway, W.B. did a poem that references dance, and a quote from it was on a wall in a really nice restaurant we visited there.  Also, on the train coming back we met a pretty well known fiddler, Maurice Lennon, AKA "The Legend of Leitrim" so the convergence of dancing and fiddling seems apt just now.  Here's "The Fiddler of Dooney"

THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY     William Butler Yeats 

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave on the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet
My brother in Mocharabuiee.*

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer:
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle,
And the merry love to dance.

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’
And dance like the wave on the sea.

Well, today is a sad day for us.  We learned this morning of the passing of my mother's dear friend Annie Burke of Inver, Donegal.  We are fortunate to have know Annie, she was a font of information about our family in Donegal, even though she herself wasn't a Gallagher or Sweeny.  She and her husband were great friends with my mother's Uncle Hugh and her daughter, Teresa Flynn, wrote Hugh's letters to America and elsewhere for many years.  We are fortunate to know Teresa and really feel for her loss now.  Annie lived a good life and will be buried in the same cemetery as my mother in Frosses, Donegal.  I hope they have already met in heaven.

I was thinking to go to Donegal this morning but Annie is being buried pretty quickly tomorrow morning at 11 and there's just no way to get there without making a two day trip.  We are planning a trip to Frosses at the end of the month, in conjunction with my memoir writing class in Sligo, so have sent flowers and will be sure to visit when we're there then.

In more mundane news, we have successfully moved to Ballsbridge and have pretty much settled into our new duplex.  There are still some small adjustments to be made but we are pretty settled in.  Although it's more expensive than the last place, it's a much more vibrant area, a bigger kitchen and we have some outdoor space, so that's all to the good.  Pictures here. 

Well, we have settled on the place in Ballsbridge and will move next weekend.  In my last post I described the two options.  Ballsbridge was the first to accept us, but only because it was earlier in the day, the people in the place in Terenure wanted to meet us first.  That was perfectly reasonable but once we were OKed in Ballsbridge we both were pretty relieved and realized that we both want closer to the city center and were willing to trade the bigger and nicer house for that convenience.

We're not looking forward to the actual move but there's not really that much to it, we have our personal belongings and a sofa and that's it, so one van's worth should get is in.  We have a bead on a man with a truck that I will call today so that we can hopefully arrange it quickly.

We met with the tax man last week as well.  I'm hopeful that all that will work out OK.  He was pleased that we got Irish social security numbers (called PPI here) and that we haven't been back to the States since we came because both of those things are signals that we are not just casual visitors and entitles us to a big exemption on income.  Thankfully, as well, we actually earned some income while living in Ireland in 2012, otherwise the exemption would be moot.  It will take a while to get it sorted but I think it will be good once it's done.  More on that later I'm sure.

I've also made a commitment to do Dance Across Dublin with my Wednesday dance group, CoisCeim Dance.  That will mean rehearsals three times a week until the mid May but I'm looking forward to it.  I will know on Wednesday if I will be accepted to do it.  I have a week's work in Lisbon at the end of April which would mean missing three rehearsals so it might not be OK with the choreographer, that would be the only thing preventing it.

All in all, there's a lot going on all here in Ireland.  Other than a Lisbon trip for me at the end of April, we don't have any more travel outside Ireland planned until September.  In mid-September I will go to San Juan de Compostela in Spain to walk the last part of The Way with my friends Mary and Deirdre and a group of people they know.  Alan has taken a pass on that.  Then the following week, we will spend a week in the West of Ireland (Connemara) in a seaside house with friends from the States.  Then in October we've signed up for a cruise on the Black Sea starting in Istanbul.  I'm looking forward to a summer exploring things close by and hopefully getting started on the memoir after my two-day workshop in Sligo when I get back from Lisbon.

I'm just finishing up a white paper on association governance that's been a thorn in my side for months now.  I spent Easter weekend getting all the parts in order and hope it will be done today or tomorrow.  Of course, I thought it was done last month till I got the feedback from ASAE.  There was some good criticism that made for an extensive rewrite.  I think, and hope, that it's a lot better now.