10 days before liftoff

Setting up a blog site may not be the best use of one’s time, 10 days before embarking on a seven-month journey to Belfast and beyond. But here it is nonetheless.

My wife is a Fulbright Scholar at Queen’s University Belfast for the spring semester, where she will teach two classes and do research for her next book on literary responses to the peace process in Northern Ireland. Oh yeah, and she’s got another book that she edited coming out this spring with an Irish publisher. It will be much easier to go on a book tour when you’re on the east side of the pond.

Although we are not Irish, we named our son Declan to honor my wife’s research interests and our favorite place to travel. Little did we know he’d have auburn hair like many Irish kids to go along with his Irish name. Although we still don’t have a school nailed down for him yet, we know he’ll fit right in. It was in Derry during summer 2013 when he pledged allegiance to the EPL team Arsenal  and asked for his first jersey. Four Arsenal jerseys and those from nearly a dozen other teams later, he’s still into football (the world kind).

And I’m merely a humble writer, with a newspaper background and my own marketing communications company that specializes in technology and healthcare writing. It means that I’m infinitely portable in terms of work, which helps make this odyssey possible.

The photo is of Giant’s Causeway, taken in 2013. It’s a World Heritage Site and did not disappoint. Most people opt for the package bus tour, which includes a tour of the Bushmill’s Distillery. We hired a car for the day from Belfast, so no distillery for us.