For Americans, the term 'Summer School' represents a period of enforced extra study for such pupils at second-level who have not been considered to have attained the necessary level of progress to entitle them to proceed to the next stage of their formal education. The teachers serve on a rota basis, and it is likely that the ordeal is not one which is welcomed by students or tutors, one surmises.
In Ireland, the term 'Summer School' represents a much more agreeable experience: scholars and devotees of a given writer, or historical figure, assemble together for anything up to five days to participate in a series of lectures, discussions, debates, exhibitions and tours at a venue that has close associations with the figure whose memory and reputation is being celebrated in the title of the school. There are, as with other types of conferences, many opportunities for delegates to relax, to socialise and to renew old acquaintanceships. These summer assemblies also provide a considerable boost to local tourism, and to local pride of place.
The first Summer School in Ireland was held in Sligo to honour the poet William Butler Yeats. It attracted specialists from all over Europe, the United States and from Japan. It dates back to the 1950s. Another long-established institution is the school dedicated to the Donegal writer Patrick MacGill, which celebrated its 28th annual session last week in Glenties. This summer, a week of activity was given over to celebrating the life and achievement of the Omagh-born playwright and short-story writer, Brian Friel. A highlight of the celebrations was a tribute to the playwright by the Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, who held an audience of several hundred spellbound for over an hour, his insightful remarks being punctuated by readings from his poetry from over 40 years. Where else would you find such a mass audience gathering to hear a poet, but then again, where else would you find such a poet as Heaney?
For many years, there has been a summer school in Limerick to honour the Munster poet, Brian Merriman. One of the regular attenders (and sometimes speaker) was the Northern politician Ken Maginnis. It was Mr Maginnis's ambition to hold a school in his own constituency which led eventually in the early 1990s, to the establishment of the Carleton Summer School, which is held annually in the first week of August and which continues to thrive. Carleton wrote in great detail of country life in the Clogher Valley in the first half of the 19th century, a period which included the Great Famine. He was greatly admired in his day by such fellow novelists as Walter Scott and Leo Tolstoy and the Tyrone festival does much to create and promote ongoing interest in his writing. In the mid-1990s, there was a school in Mountfield to honour Alice Milligan. It ought to be revived.
The oldest summer school north of the border is held in memory of the poet John Hewitt, who spent most of his working life as a museum curator in Coventry, but whose heart was in the Glens of Antrim, the area which has hosted the John Hewitt Summer School in his memory for many years. Hewitt gave a public reading in company with the Tyrone poet John Montague, in the Royal Arms Hotel in Omagh, in the autumn of 1969 and later went out for a midnight stroll.
Closer to home, Benedict Kiely is celebrated in Omagh in a literary weekend which has been held every September since 2002. Although it was founded in the lifetime of the author, his advancing years and declining health, meant that Kiely had never been able to attend the proceedings in person, but was nonetheless very much in touch through audio and video recordings of the events in Omagh and in the neighbouring towns with which he is associated, courtesy of the attentions of Eugene Floyd.
There has been an annual school to honour the memory of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, the Jesuit who had associations with Clongowes College in Co. Kildare. And Francis Ledwidge has been commemorated at Slane, on the Boyne.
Always something of a maverick in life, Patrick Kavanagh does not have a Summer School in his name; rather he is commemorated in his native South Monaghan in late autumn, having died about that time of the year. Neither are those who inspire summer schools always literary figures. This week, a school is being held in Mayo to honour the memory of the French General Humbert who landed there in 1798. The Humbert School this year is discussing the Lisbon Treaty and sent out an invitation to President Sarkozy to drop in and give them his views during his visit to Ireland on Monday. Regretfully, the president declined, but the invitation indicates that these schools pitch their ambitions high. And rightly so.
These gatherings seek to provide a platform upon which a wide range of topical issues, as well as literary ones, can be ventilated, and are a great boon to national as well as local newspapers in the summer months when hard news is in short supply.
Speaking of which, there were a few eyebrows raised some years ago when 'The Irish Times' reported on – in Drogheda, of all places – an 'Oliver Cromwell Summer School'. What they had meant was an 'Oliver Plunkett Summer School'.
In evidence, the police described how they had observed the two defendants driving along the highway at speeds in excess of 120mph. It was with great difficulty with which they had managed to get them to slow down. The prosecution said that these miscreants were by no means the first to have been apprehended for speeding on this stretch of road, being, as it was, as straight as a die, and having such a level and polished surface that it encouraged motorists to race each other and to try to overtake each other. "What you might call," said the RM, "a duel carriageway."
An advertisement for the post of air traffic controller for the Scilly Isles airport informs readers that the job application forms are also available in Braille. Now that's PC for you.
The Irish practically took over the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall last Saturday when a large selection of Irish music was featured. On the occasion of the first colour transmission of 'The Last Night of the Proms' back about 1964, many viewers were twiddling knobs when some wags in the front row brandished a Union Jack in green, white and orange.
Given the current spate of knife crimes in Britain, the Nike shoe company has withdrawn a new line of footwear called 'Stab'. 'Stab' was meant to be short for 'Stability'.
Ryanair boss, Michael O'Leary, has dismissed the talk about air travel adding to pollution in the atmosphere as "mumbo jumbo."
An Indian pensioner has failed his high-school exams for the 38th time in a row. Shiv Charan, aged 74, scored 14% in English, 5% in maths, 17% in science and 25% in Sanskrit. But he is not giving up.
"I will go on taking examinations," sed he, "in order to get a wife."
