Ruth Maddeaux in Ireland

Second-year PhD student Ruth Maddeaux spent the month of August in Ireland, where she conducted an experiment as part of her research for her first Generals Paper. She first spent a week in Dublin attending Sociolinguistics Summer School 6 at Trinity College Dublin. Then, traveled on to the rural village of Carna, in County Galway, where she spent the next two weeks. Carna is part of a Gaeltacht – a predominantly Irish-speaking region, and the perfect place to find native Irish speakers to participate in a phonological experiment! Though monolingual Irish speakers are virtually non-existent these days, Ruth was happy to find that Irish is proudly spoken in this region, by old and young alike. Renting a room from a local Irish language teacher provided a helpful introduction to the community. Her travels also included day trips into Cill Chiaráin, An Cheathrú Rua, and Casla – all similar villages in the Connacht area Gaeltacht – as well as the larger Galway City. Ruth highly recommends this landscape as the backdrop to writing a Generals Paper!

The one day it was warm enough to go without a jacket. Locals

recommended that Ruth wash her face in the Irish Sea as a cold remedy!