Meeting people was easy in the pub after a session as all of humanity seemed to gather there: Erasmus, non-Erasmus, Breton, French. Even the clumsiest of players can claim a certain allure in a foreign climate.

ItвЂ™s difficult to underestimate the appetite for Irish traditional music abroad. It was easy to feel at home among my Celtic brethren, and I soon found an Irish pub where musicians were welcome, including maladroit ones such as myself. I exchanged the stinging rain of the West of Ireland for the marginally more temperate rain of Brittany. In 2003 I arrived in Rennes as an Erasmus student to study French, a bit of Breton and Celtic Civilization. And it was through French that I encountered Europe in all its messy, multifarious splendour. Like many Irish people, I suspect, the French language was my first introduction to вЂthe ContinentвЂ™ and France became a synonym for Europe. French publishing houses produce beautiful editions, and though I couldnвЂ™t then read their contents, my eye was drawn to their sharp design. The combination of letters suggested a peculiar, alluring music. I can still recall their tantalizing spines: Gide, Mauriac, Zola, Colette.

Are French books just more attractive than other books? My mother, a French teacher, had any number of books in French on the shelf at home when I was growing up.

Kaleidoscope synonym