Today began with a little free time—some slept to recover from our travel, while others saw as much of Dublin as they could before we met to drive to our Sheep Experience (so labeled on the itinerary...) Those who had breakfast at our hotel were treated to an Irish breakfast, far above the offering at any USA Holiday Inn Express! It also served as lunch for many.
We drove an hour or so, sometimes through pounding rain, to a sheep farm in Ballymore. Despite the rain, or maybe because of it, the scenery was gorgeous. We saw our first field of the bright yellow flowers Rape. From late April through the summer to August, incredible fields of this brilliant yellow plant are on view throughout Ireland. A crop which is planted for its yield of oil-seed, it often escapes and finds its way onto waste ground, other arable fields, roadsides, and ditches. I will try for a good photo before we leave for home.
The owner of the sheep farm welcomed us to an area under cover while he gave us history and background on sheep farming, all enhanced by his accent and wit. I'm not sure how such a humid area produced such a dry wit, but there it is. He was charming, and gave us lots of information. We then moved to the area where we could view his dog, a border collie who was very well trained, tightly control a small herd of sheep as they tried very hard to be uncooperative. That didn't work, and the dog, responding to very specific whistles, aimed them into the corral every time. It is very much a joint effort between the farmer who did the training, and the dog who was smart enough to pass the tests to do this job.
The sun broke out for a few minutes, so the choir gathered for a group shot. Note the lamb in the front row who joined us.
After that, we raced back to our hotel for an early dinner that was pre-ordered to be picked up by some of the choir and brought to us from a nearby Vietnamese restaurant. It was good food, and we then continued our race to dress for the first concert of our tour.
The concert was set in the beautiful St. Andrews Church. This concert was set up by a very fine Dublin choir, New Dublin Voices, with Bernie Sherlock their conductor. Two USA choirs who are competing in the Cork International Choral Festival were invited to join the concert. The New Dublin Voices; Mt San Antonio College Chamber Singers—Bruce Rogers, conductor; and BYU Singers presented the concert. Each choir rehearsed individually to warm up and get a feel for the space, then they rehearsed their two joint numbers, one piece conducted by each American conductor.
We had a very large, receptive audience who loved the concert. Quite a contingent came from the Dublin LDS ward, which was wonderful to see. A set of parents showed up, and a choir member reconnected with a current sister missionary in Dublin who he met in Sweden on his own mission when she was just 13. Despite all the years, they remembered each other well.
The three choirs were excellent, and each sang a varied program. Singers started with a Hildegard von Bingen motet and ended with two pieces in with a real Irish feeling. The audience loved those, sung separately by the men and the women.
BYU Singers concluded the concert, then there were the two group numbers.
