Ireland 2016 ~ After thoughts

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IRELAND AFTER THOUGHTS

So my adventure ends. I'm still not sure what, exactly, I am to think of Ireland. When I first went to England, I expected medieval castles, ancient churches, old coach inns, red phone booths and mystical Neolithic stones. I found all that. When I first went to Scotland, I anticipated stone cottages, heather and highlands, kilts and sheepdogs and isolated lochs where sheep grazed next to tumbling, tea-colored streams. I found that, too.

But after returning to Ireland a second time ... I don't know what I was looking for. My great-great grandparents immigrated to America about ten years before the Famine. Everyone to whom I mentioned their surname - Barry - immediately said," Oh, yes, they're from County Cork." But I don't know where in Cork, what village or parish or town, or if they were Catholic or Protestant or what. Did they leave to seek greater religious freedoms in America, or did some other compulsion drive them to risk all and abandon everything they'd ever known?

Of course, there is still that idealistic vision of green Irish hills crisscrossed with stone walls, of musical pubs and old men on bicycles and whitewashed cottages crowned in thatched roofs standing along crooked little lanes. Last year, my first full glimpse of "the auld sod" turned unexpectedly emotional when I stood on the Hill of Tara and beheld the green, sunlit expanse of Ireland spreading for miles at my feet. "Mine...," my heart sighed. But as soon as we started driving towards Galloway ... what the hell? Where were my thatch-roofed cottages? Where were my quaint little farms? And why were all those big, ugly modern houses taking their place? I suspect a hazy wish to connect with my Barry roots, or at least somehow glimpse the Ireland of my forebears' time, colored my expectations and not finding that left me feeling a little hollow.

But in reality, I have no way to know if my great-great grandparents left with sighs of regret or tears of joy. When reading the history of Ireland, it can appear that often what seems like the simplest times were actually the most turbulent, with sectarian and religious divisions played out on a violent stage. The stereotypical view of Ireland wants to freeze her in amber, in a vision of romantic poverty that may have never really existed.

On one hand a person could think Ireland doesn't really value its more distant past. How else to explain ancient abbeys where locals have been digging up the floors as a graveyard for generations? Or a forgotten Norman castle among whose ruins modern houses squat, its only purpose now to limit access to a light house that takes all the tourist glory. But if one were to take the builders to task, perhaps they'd just be baffled, saying, "Well, why shouldn't we? Everything is right where it's stood, we just made better use of the place."

In another light, it could seem that a cosmic ax clove Ireland's history between the Famine and everything before that, and another cleaved time between the Rising of 1916 and the remainder of the 20^th century. Perhaps Ireland is so layered in history, vigorous and dynamic and often still-green, that it's never had the luxury of wallowing in nostalgia. If an Irishman sings of heroes or battles, you have to listen close to discern if he's singing about something that happened in 1916, 1816 or three hundred years ago. The past is alive in Ireland's mind, a nationalism that builds its own myth and has little need of ruined old castles or haunted abbeys to keep those tales alive.

Which leaves us, the lost great-grandchildren of Ireland, possibly a little out of luck if we're looking for a stone to touch or a hill to climb and claim as our birthright. But maybe that's the point. Maybe our task is to embrace all of Ireland, with its convoluted history and mosaics of struggle and rebirth, and heroes who may also be villains, depending on the song.

Ireland is a complicated place with a complicated history and a complicated people, a land that reinvents itself every generation or so. I'm still a little disappointed at the scarcity of thatch-roofed cottages ... but I've gained a new appreciation for just how well the Irish have managed to proliferate and prosper in almost every corner of the globe. There's the old joke that God invented whiskey so the Irish wouldn't take over the world. But if you look close enough, perhaps they already have. And I've fallen a little in love with rural southern Ireland. :)

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Ireland - June 2016 - Part 10

June 14^th - DAY 10. I'm in a hotel in Dublin this evening, taxi booked for the run to the airport in the morning. We woke up this morning to sun peeking through the clouds and gorgeous views from our upstairs skylight-window. Oh, Ireland, how sweet you are in your gowns of patchwork green and sunlight. 

Clouds began to move in as I went out for a walk on the farm lanes while Cel took care of her morning ablutions. Across the road from our lodgings the local cows marched in a long, straggling line from their milking shed to pastures beyond. On the other side of the river I glimpsed another farmer moving his freshly-milked cows up another lane with the help of a quad bike. I tried to spend a little quality time in this last while with Ireland, walking one last narrow lane amidst acres of grain that nodded in the fields not occupied with grazing cows. Among the hedgerows birds twittered and wild roses wafted their perfume on the breeze.

I finally headed back to the house and breakfast. There Cel and I ate with a view of the garden where the sun briefly warmed the roses and petunias. Breakfast was delicious with all the fixin's and then it was time to bid the garden and the house with its beautiful conservatory farewell.

Rain showers punctuated by glimpses of sun escorted us northeast towards Dublin, but even now we weren't in any hurry to return the press of civilization. Celebsul opted to shift off onto the N81 and so we wended our way through little towns and rolling green fields. At Blessington heavier storms began oozing in from the sea and we stopped there for lunch, picking a traditional-looking pub and restaurant. There Cel introduced me to the wonders of chicken pate - actually very yummy when served with toast and a garnish of some kind of jam. I ate my fill, that's for sure! Then as the rain moved in again, we moved on.

At last we arrived in Dublin, maneuvering our way around the M50 highway that circled the city to find our lodgings at the Skylon Best Western Hotel. Let's just say that website photos may not be quite accurate. The place looked a bit tatty and *tiny,* tucked between taller buildings and we in fact missed it on the first pass. They had a parking garage but their pay-and-display kiosk was broken so we got to park for free. But the desk people were nice and a young man cheerfully hauled our luggage from the car to our room. The room was surprisingly spacious, more than enough room for the two of us and I reckoned it would do.

Once freshened up, Celebsul and I went into the city center on the bus and submerged into the boiling busy-ness that is Dublin. It's big, boisterous, cosmopolitan and avant-garde, the old dragged bodily forward in time by the new. On its busy streets I saw more varieties of human in the space of three hours than I normally see in a year. This city bustles, strides, teems, honks and lurches down narrow streets in two-story buses, and between it all whisk the derring-do on bicycles.

We took a brief, lovely respite from the throng by touring Christchurch Cathedral. It is indeed a bastion of peace and the keeper many tales. We explored it thoroughly, paid our respects to whatever Presence lingers there and even visited the historic catacombs under the building. Here amongst the displays of relics and shadowy but nonetheless ornate stone memorials to noblemen long forgotten, I was more than a little amused to find a gift shop down in those dark, stony bowels. I wondered just how much business the little gal minding the shop actually got. Back up in the waking world, I took a look at the black stone effigy of Strongbow and marveled at the stained glass windows. Then out we fared into the aged streets once more.

We rambled through a few cramped little shops and found a cozy little nook for supper, where besides yummy sandwiches they kept a mouth-watering display of baked goods. We resisted the temptation, however, and once fed we resumed our wanderings. Funny how just coming at the city from another angle makes it seem new all over again. I was here a year ago and yet the simple fact of a different hotel and a different bus route gave me a slightly disjointed sense of finding things strange and familiar all at once.

Dublin is too much city for me to stand for very long, but perhaps she is a fitting simile for Ireland today: a place with an ancient and storied past, but in far too much of a busy hurry reaching the future to fuss much about things that are gone. Except the Rising of 1916. On every lamp post and corner it seemed I saw banners or signs commemorating the century since Irish patriots - or perhaps Irish zealots, depending on who's telling the story - blasted their ill-fated way into history and perhaps carved a path towards Irish independence. One never loses track of the fact that one is, unequivocally, in Ireland.

Finally the hour began to grow late and we caught a bus back to our hotel. One more morning, one more long flight home and the great adventure is over. Thanks, Celebsul, my friend of many adventures, for coming with me on this incomparable journey through the land of my forefathers! Slainte!
TO CLOSING THOUGHTS.