WorldCon: Thursday August 16

On this second day of regular sessions, the convention was better organized about queue management in Conference Centre Dublin, but there were still some glitches. Today I attended sessions on

• Writing beyond king and colony
  
• Done to death: the art of killing characters
  
• Is epic fantasy conservative?
  
• Unwritable stories
  
• Craft is not a dirty word
  

Unlike yesterday I managed to get into all the sessions I wanted.

Worldcon: Thursday August 15

Worldcon 2019 was the reason for my being in Ireland this year. If you don’t know about Worldcon, here is a teeny capsule summary: the World Science Fiction Convention is a combination of panels on a wide variety of topics of interest to fans and creators of science fiction, fantasy, and horror (collectively known as speculative fiction, or sometimes SFF to people who downplay the horror element), plus events relevant to the hosting location, cosplay, and shopping (largely books, which you can sometimes get a chance to have autographed). Plus, the big item that’s relevant to fans who don’t go: attendees and associate members vote on the Hugo awards, which are presented in a big ceremony (on Sunday night this time).

Today I went to four panels:

• Crime and Punishment in the Age of Superheroes
• How to Build an Evil Empire
• Creating wonderful new worlds
• Making the asexual textual.

Vacation 2019: Derry to Dublin

Tuesday August 13 involved a lot of driving. We started in Derry, visited the Giant’s Causeway in the far northeast, then the Titanic Museum in Belfast, then returned to Dublin.

Vacation 2019: Galway to Derry

Monday August 12 took in Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, Donegal, and Derry. We visited a holy site in Knock, a sheep farm in northern Sligo, and took a tour of a small part of Derry.

Vacation 2019: Clare and Galway

Sunday August 11: we set off from Killarney, north across County Kerry, and took a ferry to County Clare – avoding the long drive around County Limmerick. The three main items of the day were the Cliffs of Moher, the Burren, and the medieval part of the city of Galway. The day started off moderately rainy, but cleared up for us as the day progressed.

Vacation 2019: The Ring of Kerry

Our Saturday Aug 10 tour was the Ring of Kerry (An Mhór Chuaird), a loop around the high hills of County Kerry. It was a somewhat shorter touring day than most of the others, leaving Killarney at 8am and returning close to 4pm. We found out that busses are required to circle counterclockwise around the loop, lest two of them meet going in opposite directions. The roads in Ireland are very narrow by North American standards and typically have no shoulders, with hedgerows of 3-4 metre high “hedges” (more like trees!) growing right at the edge. At least in most of the country; we later found that western Ireland has drystone walls instead. Occasionally there is a 1-lane bridge. Even if driving weren’t on the unfamiliar left, I don’t think I could manage.

Vacation 2019: Cork

Friday August 9 we left Waterford and entered County Cork, visiting the towns of Cobh (pronounced “cove”) and An Bhlarna (Blarney). Road signage in Ireland has both the Irish and English place names. We learned several town name prefixes: An (the), Baile (village of), Cill (church), Dun (fort), and Glen (valley).

Vacation 2019: Wicklow and Waterford

Thursday August 8: Our tour is proceeding clockwise around the coast of Ireland. We started this morning in Dublin, County Dublin, and headed south into County Wicklow and later County Waterford.

Vacation 2019: To Dublin

The next few blog posts are about my 2019 vacation. Two years ago I went to Worldcon, the World Science Fiction Convention, when it was in Helsinki. I skipped last year in San Jose, and decided to go this year when it is in Dublin, Ireland. A friend from the WXR cruises organized a bus tour of Ireland the week before. I had no chance to write about anything for the first few days, but now I'm sitting in a comfortable hotel in Cill Airne, othewise known as Killarney, with an hour to go before dinner, so I'm going to start catching up on my reporting.