On my walk with Sinead along Dun Laoghaire pier she reflects on how walking this space provides her with the possibility of experiencing the therapeutic value of a horizon.

In search of a horizon - with Sinéad in Dun Laoghaire

In July 2019 Fergal and myself went on a cross-town walk in Dublin as part of a collaborative writing process for a book on further education.   Towards the end, and as we found ourselves meandering to a conclusion around the financial quarter of Dublin’s old docklands, our conversation turned to the significance of walking in his life.  He talks about walking as a way of tracing psycho-geographic lines in urban spaces.  But he also reflects on how our children teach us to slow walk and, finally, how walking into forbidden spaces can become a political act of protest.

Psychogeographic lines, slow walking and walking as protest - with Fergal in Dublin's docklands

Towards the end of our walk around Maynooth University campus where Brid has learned and worked as an adult educator since the 1970s, she reflects on how, in her childhood in Dublin, walking would have been seen very differently than it is now.

Walking and hardship - with Bríd in Maynooth

Walking with Conor down from the Carrowkeel megalithic tombs in Sligo, he reflects on his memories of walking and learning about the land with his grandmother.   He recalls, as he walks, her own stories of walking as an act of imperial servitude and later of her own performance of de-colonisation and reclamation.

We walked the land together - with Conor coming down Carrowkeel

In the stubborn rain of a pandemic summer in 2020, Camilla brings me, and her two dogs Hugo and Ferris, on one of her regular walks around her home in north Dublin.   In this extract, from the early part of our walk, Camilla reflects honestly on her difficult relationship with her father who, when she was young. would often bring her and her siblings out walking around the suburban streets of south Dublin.  She also talks about how she has, as an adult,  reclaimed walking for herself and her own family as a positive and purposeful activity.

A reclamation of walking - with Camilla around the Navan Road

Jerry, walking through the Devil's Glen in Wicklow, introduces an edited collection from the walks he has been on with five adult educator colleagues over the year 2019-20.    Sinead, Fergal, Bríd, Conor and Camilla all reflect, as they walk, on the significance of walking in their lives.  A lot emerges in our walks together:  walking into the thinking spaces offered by horizons; walking as psycho-social acts of orientation; walking as protest; the class dimensions of walking; walking as colonial subservience and post-colonial reclamation; and the gendered and familial tensions and performance of walking ...

Six Adult Educators Reflect On Walking

A series of occasional walking dialogues and reflections which explore, on foot and in situ, the significance of place and walking on people’s ways of knowing and being in the world.  
Each conversation takes its own path: some are focused on a specific topic or theme that is walked and talked through; others focus on walking itself and the space that we find ourselves moving slowly through.   
One of the purposes of this walking project is to explore the possibilities of walking dialogues and reflections for education and research.  
Facilitated and produced by Jerry O'Neill, Department of Adult Education, Maynooth University.

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