Friday: the last day of Hewitt-Con. The first panel of the day may have been the best; Alistair Moffat talked about the history of the DNA of the Irish people– all people actually. He spoke of the migrations of people over the millennia, climate changes, and substantial markers in DNA variants. I learned that porridge helped small tribes actually start to grow larger as women no longer needed to wean their children for extended periods of time and could resume bearing children when porridge is easy to eat and provides many proteins they’d get from breast milk. We had to do some recordings of our work for a promotional video, so that cut into other presentations, but I saw the fiction one. We also had a session where students from each workshop read their work to the audience, Carolyn was the only one who read from the Armagh Project. Malachi’s debate was the culminating event of the festival, he spoke with a Presbyterian minister, a Sinn Fein politician who used to be in the IRA, and a protestant woman who is married to the PUP chairman and runs an Irish language school.

Malachi questioned them all on the role of Irish language in cooperative negotiations, how can we all get along, where are we going from here? After the panel, Malachi warned me about politicians in public, since the Sinn Fein member had previously killed people in the IRA, and would be considered a terrorist by our standards, so he might not be as cheery as he presents himself. I felt the woman was the most sincere, as she represented parents concerned about segregation and promoted the learning of Irish history, despite being British. She stated she was communist, which got a few remarks out of Malachi, though.

We ended with a pleasant wrap-up dinner and those who were attending the festival via bursars received certificates. We, attending the festival gratis, did not get certificates. Overall, I enjoyed the festival and found some panels very enlightening and fascinating.