A Terrible Beauty
Oct. 12th, 2018 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dedalus_1947Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
This is heavens part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them til they died?
I write it out in verse –
MacDonah and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
(Easter, 1916: W.B. Yeats – 1916)
Any essay about a voyage taken begs the question, why? Why write about a journey to a foreign land, or a trip to a far off isle? Is it to describe the sights, and the cities, towns, and villages we saw and visited, so as to induce others to follow in our path, or is it to give others some points for comparison? Why write about it at all? Why not just experience the trip, savor it, and remember it? I’ve pondered these questions since returning to Los Angeles, and the only answer I can come up with is this: I write in order to process and make sense of the thoughts, feelings, and reactions I experienced why traveling through Ireland. I was confronted by so many surprises, sensations, ideas, and questions about this country and its people, that it seemed impossible to encapsulate, when asked, “How was your trip?” I felt the need to figure it out before I could answer the question. I had to make sense of the whole experience for myself. Every tourist walks away from a city, town, or country they visit with their own opinion of the land, people, sights, and food. Some even write travel books about it. This is not a travel book. I don’t want to list all the places we visited, the sights we saw, and describe and evaluate them. I simply want to describe my impressions of Ireland and be able to cite the things I learned about it and myself. So that is my task, and, hopefully, what you will read.
Kathleen and I just completed my second trip to Ireland in three years. The first was in late December of 2015 to celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary, and the latest in September to celebrate my 71st birthday. The real purpose of this trip was to complete the tour we had originally planned in 2015, but which had been unceremoniously cut short by a medical emergency that necessitated my spending four days in St. James Hospital (see The Irish Sage; or Do You Love an Apple). So after two attempts, I can honestly say that I come away from this land of rugged beauty and harsh history with barely a novice’s impression of Ireland, its history, and its people. I also recognized in Ireland the attractive native characteristics I had all ready detected in all the Irish-American friends I made over the years, and in the Irish-American family I married into. I encountered these traits throughout the island – in their friendliness and charm, their openness and willingness to help, their self-deprecating humor and love of travel, and their songs and laughter. Despite the difficulties of driving and travel, and relocating into three cities and one village, Ireland felt like home. I know it sounds strange coming from a Mexican-American, with strong ancestral ties to Mexico and Mexico City, but it many ways Ireland, its history, and its people felt like home to me.
Our 14 day excursion of Ireland involved stays at four locations, plus travel: Dublin (4 days), Galway (3 days), Ballyvaughan (2 days), Kilkenny (2 days), and Dublin again (3 days). Of all the many positive aspects of the trip, I was only really ambivalent about the travel involved. We journeyed by plane, train, automobile, bus, and foot. Of these different modes of transportation, airport security, the long airplane rides, and driving on the left side of the road were the most arduous for me. I was searched at each of our two airport security stations at LAX and Heathrow Airport, and a third time as one of the unfortunate victims of a “random search” before I was about to board our plane for the trip home. I will never be able to overcome my immense dislike of having to unpack and separate designated electronic devices from ones carry-on luggage, and practically disrobe (okay, that’s an exaggeration) of coat, jacket, belt, and shoes. It’s a tiresome necessity, I know, but it’s such a hassle, and it always prompts me to nostalgically recall the blissful days when we dressed up in coat and tie to fly, and one simply sauntered into the airport and casually boarded your plane to assume a roomy and comfortable seat. Adding to theses hassles was my inability to sleep comfortably during an eight and eleven hour plane ride. Even the luxury of 1st Class accommodations did little to mitigate my inability to sleep dreamlessly and uninterrupted. But even the discomforts of airplane travel paled before the hair-raising, white-knuckled reality of driving on the left side of the road, in cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side.
So let my get this second peeve out of the way. On my first outing in a rented, Irish vehicle on the outskirts of Galway, I sideswiped a parked truck with my left side-view mirror. I then spent the next hour on a wide double-lane highway in Connemara, enroute to the town of Clifden, in terrified silence – searching for road signs and speed limits, and concentrating on keeping my vehicle in the middle of the lane, while fighting the tendency to drift to the left. It was a nerve-wracking experience that allowed no time for sightseeing, conversation, or the notion of making photo stops at scenic vistas or locales. I was a man on a mission – get us to our destination as soon as possible, alive, and without further damage to the car. Irish-American Kathleen, on the other hand, seemed to meld right into the art of driving and had little trouble adjusting. When she drove, she pointed out the scenery, conversed naturally about the sights and their characteristics – pointing out the rock fences, the loughs of Connemara, and the thatched roof houses we passed along the way. She took single one-lane roads in stride, never blanching when confronted with wide, on-coming buses and trucks, and casually pulling over to the side of the road to inspect first hand the ruined monasteries, chapels, towers, and beaches she saw along the way. Having gotten those two personal peeves off my chest, let me just add that the trip would not have been possible or successful without the necessary tribulations of airplane travel and driving.
Traveling by train from Dublin to Galway was especially delightful and it allowed us to experience the quick transition from a bustling, cosmopolitan city to the rural countryside of Ireland. The change was shocking. Ten minutes out of Dublin on a smooth, modern, and seemingly motionless train, and suddenly one is presented with the pastoral beauty of Ireland – lush green meadows, and pocket-sized pastures with huge cattle, and black-faced sheep, all divided by fenced in barriers. The trip Dublin to Galway took less than 2 hours, and yet it seemed to present a variety of scenes and vistas that would take days in California: pastures, meadows, villages, towns, rivers, forests, and loughs. It was breathtaking in its scenic rapidity.
Once arrived at our destinations, walking, with the occasional need for motorized travel, fleshed out the tour. Dublin, Galway, and Kilkenny are flat cities and meant to be walked and inspected by eye and foot. Each was unique, with its own feel and charm. Dublin was the first and last of our stops, and in many ways the most significant. I was already somewhat familiar with Dublin from our first trip, having previously spent two full days walking through its various sections – St. Stephen’s Green, Grafton Street, Trinity College, the River Liffey, O’Connell Street, the Abbey Theatre, Temple Bar, and Dublin Castle – and traveling throughout the city on the Hop on Hop off Bus Tour, and stopping at the Guinness Storehouse. On this occasion we expanded on these points to include visits to specific locales near the bus stops: Merrion Square, the General Post Office (GPO), the Book of Kells, and various museums and pubs. We would also visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Teeling Whiskey Distillery, and Kilmainham Gaol. The overwhelming sense of Dublin is its political, economic, and cultural significance, and its role in Irish history, independence, and tragedy – the sum of which I will touch upon in my conclusion.
In all the previous tales I’d heard about traveling in Ireland from reliable past travelers (Kathleen and my friend Jim Riley) there was one consistent narrative – to fully appreciate the rugged beauty of the land, and the charm of its people, one had to travel west out of Dublin, and explore the counties of Galway and Clare, while visiting the regions of Connemara, the Burren, and the Cliffs of Moher. The city of Galway was a delightful contrast to Dublin. It was smaller, quaint, and more approachable. Kathy had masterfully booked us into The Jurys Inn Hotel, so we were situated on the banks of the River Corrib, near the Spanish Arch, and the old fishing Claddagh section, at the entrance to Galway Bay. We were also next door to the Latin Quarter of town, with its plethora of restaurants, pubs, shops, and jewelry stores. This made eating and shopping incredibly easier than in Dublin, and the city was centrally located to the regions we wanted to explore by car – Connemara, and the Burren and Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. Galway was also significant because it signaled the throwing out of our fixed itinerary to a more spontaneous selection of places to see and visit. Since the day we picked up our rental car was so sunny and clear, we impulsively decided to set out on the national highway toward Clifden, a seaside town in the Connemara region, and then work our way back to Galway along the Atlantic seacoast. When we were about halfway there, we serendipitously decided to make a rest stop at a village called Maam Cross. There, Kathy engaged a hostess at the nearby hotel to discuss travel options and directions. Annie, was another of the countless Irishwomen and men we encountered on the trip who went out of their way to be helpful and friendly. This was not merely a verbal transaction to gain useful information; it became an introduction to a full conversation of past and present circumstances, ending in friendship. Annie advised cutting our trip short and heading south through the Connemara region on small roads, which allowed better viewings of the area, and then traveling along the Atlantic coast toward Galway, stopping at the seaside villages of Spiddal or Furbo for lunch. There was little traffic on the roads, and with Kathy driving, we were able to slowly and comfortably take in the sights of the countryside, with its rock walls, lush green pastures, and nearby loughs.
I’ve always kidded Kathleen about her TMI tendency – her proclivity of revealing or volunteering Too Much Information about herself, her children, or me, in her casual encounters with strangers. I’ve always considered it a personal weakness and would never have recognized it a national trait. But in Ireland this tendency was rampant in the people we meant and spoke with. In every city and in every any situation we encountered Irish men and women who always welcomed a verbal encounter to learn about us, and to share their own stories, travels, and counsel. We met these citizens in hotel lobbies, lounges, stores, pubs, and on the streets of cities, towns, and villages of Ireland. And after all of these encounters I walked away learning more about the person we met than what we revealed. We learned about Dublin’s problems with affordable housing from a young Dot Com data manager with a growing family, and the fact that Kilkenny was the primary “stag and hen” destination city for bachelor and bachlorette parties from a lounging smoker in Ballyvaughan. In fact, during a musical interlude in Dublin’s O’Donough’s Pub, a stranger named John expounded on this Irish proclivity of sharing stories and giving friendly advice to strangers as a paradoxical byproduct of their harsh and brutal treatment at the hands of the British. “Ask anyone on the street for help”, he volunteered in accented brogue, “they’ll always take the time to guide and direct you. That’s our nature”. Kathy, of course, was in her element in all these encounters that allowed her to tell stories of her own. She would stop strangers in the street without a moment’s hesitation – questioning a covey of uniformed schoolgirls on their way home, or chatting with a bride and bridesmaids on their way to a wedding in Kilkenny. In every conversational encounter with Irish men, women, or children, the informational scales always tipped in our favor.
In many ways my Irish-American mentors, Kathleen and Jim Riley, were right. I found MY Ireland in the West – specifically in the village of Ballyvaughan, the Burren region of County Clare, and the Cliffs of Moher. Connemara was truly lovely in its pastoral landscapes, but nothing compared to the desolate, stony terrain of the Burrens, and the craggy beauty of the plunging seaside cliffs of Moher. These regions called forth memories of my native California when I first discovered the breathtaking beauty of the Pacific Coast along Highway 1, and the sparse mysteries of the desert. But while I usually traveled these Californian terrains by car, the west of Ireland invited them to be walked and meditated upon. Walking along the Cliffs of Moher was a religious pilgrimage of sorts that I felt compelled to make. I had seen old photographs of Kathleen, my teenaged son Tony, and my niece Maggie Denison, during their first visits to Ireland, standing on these cliffs that also seemed to beckon me. The imperative to join their number demanded my obeisance, and I walked the long, worn, cliff-side trail in reverent silence – speaking only once to ask a fellow pilgrim to take my photo with the craggy cliffs in the background. Ballyvaughan stood in dramatic counterpoint to the robust landscapes of Moher and the Burrens. It was a tranquil village that invited you to pause and breathe slowly, allowing your heart rate to lower to a dreamlike level. A walk from our hotel to the seaside dock, with Monk’s Pub standing sentinel, saw the color and look of the scenery change every hour, and at each tide. The weather could vary with a blink of an eye – shifting from sunny and bright, to dark and misty. There was a timeless quality to the air that called forth thoughts of mythical Brigadoon, the romantic village that appeared once every 100 years. And at night, one could see the lights of Galway city slowly come alive across the bay, and twinkle their greetings to the neighboring county. It was a village and a region I hated to leave, and swore to remember.
The most significant change in our itinerary was substituting Kenmare and the Ring of Kerry for a two-day stay in the medieval town of Kilkenny. After our earlier trials with driving, we decided to forego the longer drive to Kenmare, for a shorter one to Kilkenny, which would also shorten our ultimate ride back to Dublin. It was this castle town with its winding, romantic river, and countless churches and cathedrals, that brought out the song in my traveling companion. While strolling along the medieval walkways during our first afternoon in Kilkenny we espied a picturesque restaurant called Kytellers Inn. There Kathy noticed a sign advertising its musical schedule for the night. For the past week she had scanned the front of every pub we passed in Dublin and Galway, futilely listening and looking for signs of Irish music – all to no avail. She was not about to pass up this final opportunity, so clearly marked and advertised. So later that evening we returned to Kytellers Inn for dinner and music, and I witnessed a musical colleen come alive in Kathleen. I’ve seen Kathy’s face radiating happiness and joy on numerous occasions – while watching her children and grandchildren cavorting on the beach, or walking into the silent beauty of an old church – but I’ve rarely seen her whole body sway and vibrate like a tuning fork while listening to the singing of Irish ballads. We stayed for the entire set of the group called Drops of Green, and I left with an exhausted, but elated companion.
Dublin was where our travels started and where they ended – beginning with our stay at The Alex Hotel near Merrion Square and Trinity College, and ending with an immensely sweet reunion with our son Tony and his wife Nikki, who had flown in from Scotland. There is something special about meeting up with a family member in a foreign country, away from the normal boundaries and routines of home. Despite the difficulties of merging two diverse travel itineraries, we managed to connect with Tony and Nikki at the Pearse St. Station, around the corner from our hotel, and take them to dinner at Kennedy’s Pub in Dublin. Although the capital city lacks the picturesque beauty of Galway or Kilkenny, it remains the historical, cultural, and economic cornerstone of the country. During any leisurely walk along its streets one can’t help stumbling over an artifact or footnote of historical or artistic significance: The General Post Office (GPO) on O’Connell Street, where the Easter Rebellion began; St. Stephen Green and the Shelbourne Hotel where Irish insurgents battled the British Army; or Kilmainham Jail, where the Easter rebels were imprisoned and later executed. These were the streets that Michael Collins traversed by bicycle, directing the IRA’s undermining war against the British Empire that finally brought it to its knees. Simply strolling through Merrion Square brings you to the former residences of W.B. Yeats and Oscar Wilde, and crossing the River Liffey brings you to the Abbey Theatre, the Mecca of Irish literary arts. Gazing into a shop window when leaving Kennedy’s Pub brought me face to face with a display proclaiming it as the store where Leopold Bloom, Joyce’s fictional hero of Ulysses, purchased a bar of soap for his wife Molly on June 16, 1904. All these locales and literary footnotes seemed to point to a sorrowful past and a people’s continuing attempt to sublimate it into something artistically and historically redeeming. Still, Dublin is a modern city that struggles with modern problems. Although its economy is rebounding mightily from the Economic Recession of 2009, when the Celtic Tiger collapsed, the city grapples with a bulging workforce. Ironically, while there are jobs to be had in Dublin, there is insufficient room to house its growing population. This points to the final characteristic I found in many of my encounters with Irishmen, young and old. So many of the men I met and spoke with in Ireland had lived and worked in Los Angeles, California, and other parts of the United States. In every encounter their stories were the same: not enough work in Ireland, outside of Dublin, and encountering visa problems in the States which prevented their return. They also ended their stories in the same way, each man voicing an optimistic (though sardonic) attitude that everything would somehow work out. These Irish men and women had an air of universal citizenship, as if they could be comfortable in any city, state, or country – yet always retaining their unique cultural and poetic traits. It was no accident that James Joyce chose to make Leopold Bloom, his fictional Irish hero, a Jew – a member of a world-traveling people from a country without borders – but first and foremost a Dubliner.
So I fly away from Ireland a more thoughtful man than when I arrived. The visit filled in some of the blank spaces I often wondered about: How a land so small could be so diverse in its beauty? How a terrain and a climate so rugged and harsh could be so mystical and soothing? How a history so terrible could bring forth such a romantic and openhearted people? I didn’t leave with answers to these questions, but that was never the point. I flew away having seen the country and gotten a taste for its people, feeling richer for the experience.
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
This is heavens part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them til they died?
I write it out in verse –
MacDonah and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
(Easter, 1916: W.B. Yeats – 1916)
Any essay about a voyage taken begs the question, why? Why write about a journey to a foreign land, or a trip to a far off isle? Is it to describe the sights, and the cities, towns, and villages we saw and visited, so as to induce others to follow in our path, or is it to give others some points for comparison? Why write about it at all? Why not just experience the trip, savor it, and remember it? I’ve pondered these questions since returning to Los Angeles, and the only answer I can come up with is this: I write in order to process and make sense of the thoughts, feelings, and reactions I experienced why traveling through Ireland. I was confronted by so many surprises, sensations, ideas, and questions about this country and its people, that it seemed impossible to encapsulate, when asked, “How was your trip?” I felt the need to figure it out before I could answer the question. I had to make sense of the whole experience for myself. Every tourist walks away from a city, town, or country they visit with their own opinion of the land, people, sights, and food. Some even write travel books about it. This is not a travel book. I don’t want to list all the places we visited, the sights we saw, and describe and evaluate them. I simply want to describe my impressions of Ireland and be able to cite the things I learned about it and myself. So that is my task, and, hopefully, what you will read.
Kathleen and I just completed my second trip to Ireland in three years. The first was in late December of 2015 to celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary, and the latest in September to celebrate my 71st birthday. The real purpose of this trip was to complete the tour we had originally planned in 2015, but which had been unceremoniously cut short by a medical emergency that necessitated my spending four days in St. James Hospital (see The Irish Sage; or Do You Love an Apple). So after two attempts, I can honestly say that I come away from this land of rugged beauty and harsh history with barely a novice’s impression of Ireland, its history, and its people. I also recognized in Ireland the attractive native characteristics I had all ready detected in all the Irish-American friends I made over the years, and in the Irish-American family I married into. I encountered these traits throughout the island – in their friendliness and charm, their openness and willingness to help, their self-deprecating humor and love of travel, and their songs and laughter. Despite the difficulties of driving and travel, and relocating into three cities and one village, Ireland felt like home. I know it sounds strange coming from a Mexican-American, with strong ancestral ties to Mexico and Mexico City, but it many ways Ireland, its history, and its people felt like home to me.
Our 14 day excursion of Ireland involved stays at four locations, plus travel: Dublin (4 days), Galway (3 days), Ballyvaughan (2 days), Kilkenny (2 days), and Dublin again (3 days). Of all the many positive aspects of the trip, I was only really ambivalent about the travel involved. We journeyed by plane, train, automobile, bus, and foot. Of these different modes of transportation, airport security, the long airplane rides, and driving on the left side of the road were the most arduous for me. I was searched at each of our two airport security stations at LAX and Heathrow Airport, and a third time as one of the unfortunate victims of a “random search” before I was about to board our plane for the trip home. I will never be able to overcome my immense dislike of having to unpack and separate designated electronic devices from ones carry-on luggage, and practically disrobe (okay, that’s an exaggeration) of coat, jacket, belt, and shoes. It’s a tiresome necessity, I know, but it’s such a hassle, and it always prompts me to nostalgically recall the blissful days when we dressed up in coat and tie to fly, and one simply sauntered into the airport and casually boarded your plane to assume a roomy and comfortable seat. Adding to theses hassles was my inability to sleep comfortably during an eight and eleven hour plane ride. Even the luxury of 1st Class accommodations did little to mitigate my inability to sleep dreamlessly and uninterrupted. But even the discomforts of airplane travel paled before the hair-raising, white-knuckled reality of driving on the left side of the road, in cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side.
So let my get this second peeve out of the way. On my first outing in a rented, Irish vehicle on the outskirts of Galway, I sideswiped a parked truck with my left side-view mirror. I then spent the next hour on a wide double-lane highway in Connemara, enroute to the town of Clifden, in terrified silence – searching for road signs and speed limits, and concentrating on keeping my vehicle in the middle of the lane, while fighting the tendency to drift to the left. It was a nerve-wracking experience that allowed no time for sightseeing, conversation, or the notion of making photo stops at scenic vistas or locales. I was a man on a mission – get us to our destination as soon as possible, alive, and without further damage to the car. Irish-American Kathleen, on the other hand, seemed to meld right into the art of driving and had little trouble adjusting. When she drove, she pointed out the scenery, conversed naturally about the sights and their characteristics – pointing out the rock fences, the loughs of Connemara, and the thatched roof houses we passed along the way. She took single one-lane roads in stride, never blanching when confronted with wide, on-coming buses and trucks, and casually pulling over to the side of the road to inspect first hand the ruined monasteries, chapels, towers, and beaches she saw along the way. Having gotten those two personal peeves off my chest, let me just add that the trip would not have been possible or successful without the necessary tribulations of airplane travel and driving.
Traveling by train from Dublin to Galway was especially delightful and it allowed us to experience the quick transition from a bustling, cosmopolitan city to the rural countryside of Ireland. The change was shocking. Ten minutes out of Dublin on a smooth, modern, and seemingly motionless train, and suddenly one is presented with the pastoral beauty of Ireland – lush green meadows, and pocket-sized pastures with huge cattle, and black-faced sheep, all divided by fenced in barriers. The trip Dublin to Galway took less than 2 hours, and yet it seemed to present a variety of scenes and vistas that would take days in California: pastures, meadows, villages, towns, rivers, forests, and loughs. It was breathtaking in its scenic rapidity.
Once arrived at our destinations, walking, with the occasional need for motorized travel, fleshed out the tour. Dublin, Galway, and Kilkenny are flat cities and meant to be walked and inspected by eye and foot. Each was unique, with its own feel and charm. Dublin was the first and last of our stops, and in many ways the most significant. I was already somewhat familiar with Dublin from our first trip, having previously spent two full days walking through its various sections – St. Stephen’s Green, Grafton Street, Trinity College, the River Liffey, O’Connell Street, the Abbey Theatre, Temple Bar, and Dublin Castle – and traveling throughout the city on the Hop on Hop off Bus Tour, and stopping at the Guinness Storehouse. On this occasion we expanded on these points to include visits to specific locales near the bus stops: Merrion Square, the General Post Office (GPO), the Book of Kells, and various museums and pubs. We would also visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Teeling Whiskey Distillery, and Kilmainham Gaol. The overwhelming sense of Dublin is its political, economic, and cultural significance, and its role in Irish history, independence, and tragedy – the sum of which I will touch upon in my conclusion.
In all the previous tales I’d heard about traveling in Ireland from reliable past travelers (Kathleen and my friend Jim Riley) there was one consistent narrative – to fully appreciate the rugged beauty of the land, and the charm of its people, one had to travel west out of Dublin, and explore the counties of Galway and Clare, while visiting the regions of Connemara, the Burren, and the Cliffs of Moher. The city of Galway was a delightful contrast to Dublin. It was smaller, quaint, and more approachable. Kathy had masterfully booked us into The Jurys Inn Hotel, so we were situated on the banks of the River Corrib, near the Spanish Arch, and the old fishing Claddagh section, at the entrance to Galway Bay. We were also next door to the Latin Quarter of town, with its plethora of restaurants, pubs, shops, and jewelry stores. This made eating and shopping incredibly easier than in Dublin, and the city was centrally located to the regions we wanted to explore by car – Connemara, and the Burren and Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. Galway was also significant because it signaled the throwing out of our fixed itinerary to a more spontaneous selection of places to see and visit. Since the day we picked up our rental car was so sunny and clear, we impulsively decided to set out on the national highway toward Clifden, a seaside town in the Connemara region, and then work our way back to Galway along the Atlantic seacoast. When we were about halfway there, we serendipitously decided to make a rest stop at a village called Maam Cross. There, Kathy engaged a hostess at the nearby hotel to discuss travel options and directions. Annie, was another of the countless Irishwomen and men we encountered on the trip who went out of their way to be helpful and friendly. This was not merely a verbal transaction to gain useful information; it became an introduction to a full conversation of past and present circumstances, ending in friendship. Annie advised cutting our trip short and heading south through the Connemara region on small roads, which allowed better viewings of the area, and then traveling along the Atlantic coast toward Galway, stopping at the seaside villages of Spiddal or Furbo for lunch. There was little traffic on the roads, and with Kathy driving, we were able to slowly and comfortably take in the sights of the countryside, with its rock walls, lush green pastures, and nearby loughs.
I’ve always kidded Kathleen about her TMI tendency – her proclivity of revealing or volunteering Too Much Information about herself, her children, or me, in her casual encounters with strangers. I’ve always considered it a personal weakness and would never have recognized it a national trait. But in Ireland this tendency was rampant in the people we meant and spoke with. In every city and in every any situation we encountered Irish men and women who always welcomed a verbal encounter to learn about us, and to share their own stories, travels, and counsel. We met these citizens in hotel lobbies, lounges, stores, pubs, and on the streets of cities, towns, and villages of Ireland. And after all of these encounters I walked away learning more about the person we met than what we revealed. We learned about Dublin’s problems with affordable housing from a young Dot Com data manager with a growing family, and the fact that Kilkenny was the primary “stag and hen” destination city for bachelor and bachlorette parties from a lounging smoker in Ballyvaughan. In fact, during a musical interlude in Dublin’s O’Donough’s Pub, a stranger named John expounded on this Irish proclivity of sharing stories and giving friendly advice to strangers as a paradoxical byproduct of their harsh and brutal treatment at the hands of the British. “Ask anyone on the street for help”, he volunteered in accented brogue, “they’ll always take the time to guide and direct you. That’s our nature”. Kathy, of course, was in her element in all these encounters that allowed her to tell stories of her own. She would stop strangers in the street without a moment’s hesitation – questioning a covey of uniformed schoolgirls on their way home, or chatting with a bride and bridesmaids on their way to a wedding in Kilkenny. In every conversational encounter with Irish men, women, or children, the informational scales always tipped in our favor.
In many ways my Irish-American mentors, Kathleen and Jim Riley, were right. I found MY Ireland in the West – specifically in the village of Ballyvaughan, the Burren region of County Clare, and the Cliffs of Moher. Connemara was truly lovely in its pastoral landscapes, but nothing compared to the desolate, stony terrain of the Burrens, and the craggy beauty of the plunging seaside cliffs of Moher. These regions called forth memories of my native California when I first discovered the breathtaking beauty of the Pacific Coast along Highway 1, and the sparse mysteries of the desert. But while I usually traveled these Californian terrains by car, the west of Ireland invited them to be walked and meditated upon. Walking along the Cliffs of Moher was a religious pilgrimage of sorts that I felt compelled to make. I had seen old photographs of Kathleen, my teenaged son Tony, and my niece Maggie Denison, during their first visits to Ireland, standing on these cliffs that also seemed to beckon me. The imperative to join their number demanded my obeisance, and I walked the long, worn, cliff-side trail in reverent silence – speaking only once to ask a fellow pilgrim to take my photo with the craggy cliffs in the background. Ballyvaughan stood in dramatic counterpoint to the robust landscapes of Moher and the Burrens. It was a tranquil village that invited you to pause and breathe slowly, allowing your heart rate to lower to a dreamlike level. A walk from our hotel to the seaside dock, with Monk’s Pub standing sentinel, saw the color and look of the scenery change every hour, and at each tide. The weather could vary with a blink of an eye – shifting from sunny and bright, to dark and misty. There was a timeless quality to the air that called forth thoughts of mythical Brigadoon, the romantic village that appeared once every 100 years. And at night, one could see the lights of Galway city slowly come alive across the bay, and twinkle their greetings to the neighboring county. It was a village and a region I hated to leave, and swore to remember.
The most significant change in our itinerary was substituting Kenmare and the Ring of Kerry for a two-day stay in the medieval town of Kilkenny. After our earlier trials with driving, we decided to forego the longer drive to Kenmare, for a shorter one to Kilkenny, which would also shorten our ultimate ride back to Dublin. It was this castle town with its winding, romantic river, and countless churches and cathedrals, that brought out the song in my traveling companion. While strolling along the medieval walkways during our first afternoon in Kilkenny we espied a picturesque restaurant called Kytellers Inn. There Kathy noticed a sign advertising its musical schedule for the night. For the past week she had scanned the front of every pub we passed in Dublin and Galway, futilely listening and looking for signs of Irish music – all to no avail. She was not about to pass up this final opportunity, so clearly marked and advertised. So later that evening we returned to Kytellers Inn for dinner and music, and I witnessed a musical colleen come alive in Kathleen. I’ve seen Kathy’s face radiating happiness and joy on numerous occasions – while watching her children and grandchildren cavorting on the beach, or walking into the silent beauty of an old church – but I’ve rarely seen her whole body sway and vibrate like a tuning fork while listening to the singing of Irish ballads. We stayed for the entire set of the group called Drops of Green, and I left with an exhausted, but elated companion.
Dublin was where our travels started and where they ended – beginning with our stay at The Alex Hotel near Merrion Square and Trinity College, and ending with an immensely sweet reunion with our son Tony and his wife Nikki, who had flown in from Scotland. There is something special about meeting up with a family member in a foreign country, away from the normal boundaries and routines of home. Despite the difficulties of merging two diverse travel itineraries, we managed to connect with Tony and Nikki at the Pearse St. Station, around the corner from our hotel, and take them to dinner at Kennedy’s Pub in Dublin. Although the capital city lacks the picturesque beauty of Galway or Kilkenny, it remains the historical, cultural, and economic cornerstone of the country. During any leisurely walk along its streets one can’t help stumbling over an artifact or footnote of historical or artistic significance: The General Post Office (GPO) on O’Connell Street, where the Easter Rebellion began; St. Stephen Green and the Shelbourne Hotel where Irish insurgents battled the British Army; or Kilmainham Jail, where the Easter rebels were imprisoned and later executed. These were the streets that Michael Collins traversed by bicycle, directing the IRA’s undermining war against the British Empire that finally brought it to its knees. Simply strolling through Merrion Square brings you to the former residences of W.B. Yeats and Oscar Wilde, and crossing the River Liffey brings you to the Abbey Theatre, the Mecca of Irish literary arts. Gazing into a shop window when leaving Kennedy’s Pub brought me face to face with a display proclaiming it as the store where Leopold Bloom, Joyce’s fictional hero of Ulysses, purchased a bar of soap for his wife Molly on June 16, 1904. All these locales and literary footnotes seemed to point to a sorrowful past and a people’s continuing attempt to sublimate it into something artistically and historically redeeming. Still, Dublin is a modern city that struggles with modern problems. Although its economy is rebounding mightily from the Economic Recession of 2009, when the Celtic Tiger collapsed, the city grapples with a bulging workforce. Ironically, while there are jobs to be had in Dublin, there is insufficient room to house its growing population. This points to the final characteristic I found in many of my encounters with Irishmen, young and old. So many of the men I met and spoke with in Ireland had lived and worked in Los Angeles, California, and other parts of the United States. In every encounter their stories were the same: not enough work in Ireland, outside of Dublin, and encountering visa problems in the States which prevented their return. They also ended their stories in the same way, each man voicing an optimistic (though sardonic) attitude that everything would somehow work out. These Irish men and women had an air of universal citizenship, as if they could be comfortable in any city, state, or country – yet always retaining their unique cultural and poetic traits. It was no accident that James Joyce chose to make Leopold Bloom, his fictional Irish hero, a Jew – a member of a world-traveling people from a country without borders – but first and foremost a Dubliner.
So I fly away from Ireland a more thoughtful man than when I arrived. The visit filled in some of the blank spaces I often wondered about: How a land so small could be so diverse in its beauty? How a terrain and a climate so rugged and harsh could be so mystical and soothing? How a history so terrible could bring forth such a romantic and openhearted people? I didn’t leave with answers to these questions, but that was never the point. I flew away having seen the country and gotten a taste for its people, feeling richer for the experience.
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Date: 2018-10-18 10:49 am (UTC)http://seks-aziatok.replyme.pw/?page-reese