For years I have had the sense that I should plan a trip to Ireland, but that trip has always slipped down the travel list, falling prey to the temptations of trips to Italy, Turkey, or Spain. I have had some subtle guilt about continuing to downgrade Ireland. There is such a tight cultural connection between the United States and Ireland. I imagine more Americans than Irish celebrate St. Patrick’s Day...I understand the comparison is unfair because fewer than five million people live in Ireland, and there are almost 500,000 Irish Americans in New York City alone. However, it stills seems like a very American pilgrimage to visit Ireland. Given our proximity this year, we finally took the trip last week. I did not fall in love with it the way I have with Rome or southern Spain. However, we did have a delightful trip. We met my mom in Cork and spent a week exploring the Atlantic Coast and Dublin.
In the interest of not simply cataloging a week of sightseeing, I think I will take an approach that looks more like...dubious beginnings, highlights, and some curious observations.
We flew to Dublin on the weekly RyanAir flight; these flights are both spectacular 9cheap and direct) and bizarre (one a week...don’t be late). RyanAir only staffs the Sevilla airport a couple of days a week, and if you want to fly on their flights you have very limited options - Saturday to Saturday or Saturday to Tuesday...and don’t miss your flight or you will need to wait until next week for the next one. Also, you often see the same folks on your return flight. Our flight to Dublin was probably 50% Spanish high school students on a school trip...three of whom sat behind us and sang along to Spanish pop music that there were listening to with headphones - it was amusing for the first twenty minutes, and then...not so much. They did not, however, sing on the return trip. Once in Dublin, we were set to visit the Irish National Stud Farm and then meet my mother in Cork, but we had to get our car first, which proved almost comical. Along one wall of the airport were six car rental agencies, fully staffed but without a single customer, and opposite those desks was the single Dooley Car Rental (Every customer is a VIP!) desk...staffed by one person with a line, I mean queue, of four customers. The woman in front of me who had just flown in from Chicago had been waiting for a half an hour...with her daughter who had vomited on both of their flights. When she finally got to the counter, her daughter came over from where she was sitting...to let her know she wasn’t…”Oops Mommy!” I didn’t see this, but Beth watched it unfold from where she was sitting with Maya. She was pretty sure the girl was going to throw up on my suitcase, but she missed... One bullet dodged. When I finally got to the desk, I had a pretty ominous conversation with the attendant about insurance. She asked if I wanted it...I said no, like I always do. She asked if I was depending on my credit card insurance...I said yes, but really I just don’t pay for rental car insurance for any reason. She responded that I should check “because 80% of credit cards that offer travel insurance have a clause that says it does not cover you in The Republic of Ireland.” I offered that my card was fine. Then she proceeded to tell me that they needed to take a 4000 Euro hold on my credit card if I didn’t pay for insurance...WOW! I admit that the whole exchange made me think I might be headed out to drive in a war zone or something...maybe I had been a little over-confident about my left handed driving skills. Once in my sweet Renault Fluence - that’s right, a fine French automobile - I began to worry a bit more when I struggled with the clutch...while shifting with my left hand...in a tight parking garage. I cursed the car and the French before I recognized that I was trying to start in 3rd gear...a problem I remedied pretty quickly, and which made me feel much better about the Fluence and the French.The rest of the driving went pretty smoothly...considering that most roads in Ireland are bounded on both sides by stone walls, are remarkably narrow, and have speed limits of 100km...which is laughable. The speed limit is 100km, and if you need to pass a bus going the other way...you might have to back up to a place where the road widens a bit. Driving 100km/hr would be a death wish. And, sometimes there are sheep grazing along the road...Maya tried to pet them as we drove by...I am not kidding...she would reach out and try to pet the sheep as we drove by...Maybe I should have purchased the insurance!
Any doubts we may have had about Ireland were wiped away by the glorious sunny day that turned into a blazingly beautiful pink and orange sunset as we drove into Cork. Apparently it had been snowing the week before, but the profusion of daffodils and the vibrant sky showed no evidence that we had barely missed. We met my mother in Cork, which was delightful. She had flown in a day early from Seattle in order to acclimate, as we were off in the morning to drive the Ring of Kerry, followed the next day by a drive up the coast of County Clare with a visit to the Cliffs of Moher. Both Kerry and Clare were beautiful; each new inlet or rolling hill offered vistas complete with beautiful coastline, sheep (and newborn lambs) in stone walled fields, and ruins of stone towers and fallen houses overgrown with green moss and grasses. Beth most enjoyed the old forested areas, which bring to mind elves and druids; the land simply feels old, rich, and magical. Unfortunately, most of Ireland was stripped of its forests by its early inhabitants. We had a great stop at the Staigue Fort - one of the stone forts from the iron age - in which we had the fort to ourselves. Though we definitely did not have the Cliffs of Moher to ourselves, that stop was simply striking. Beth is pretty sure that the cliffs must have been the model for the Cliffs of Insanity in The Princess Bride, and she has a point. I am sad that the Irish have progressed beyond their policy of not installing barriers - “nature will sort it out.” We also had a great lunch at the pub in Port McGee...outside in the Irish sunshine...a rarity in Port McGee, I imagine.
The real highlight of the trip for all of us came in our three days at Ashford Castle. We just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stay in a proper Irish Castle, and Ashford didn’t disappoint. The castle, which was the person castle/estate of the Guinness family was fully restored in 2013, and it is truly amazing - from the antique furniture, to the sculptured gardens, to the two Irish wolfhounds that are in the sitting room from 10-11 each morning, the castle is the real deal. One of the Guinnesses even brought trees from around the world (mostly from Washington St). Maya and grandma even had a room with a sitting area facing out over the gardens and lake...complete with a fireplace and a snifter of sherry. On the first morning, I came in to find Maya checking her email, my mom reading the paper, with coffee, juice and pastries on the table. They were pleased as punch. To make the castle even more castley, the irish school of Falconry is housed on the grounds, and we had scheduled a hawk walk for our first morning; the hawk walk might be the best one hour of touristing that I have ever done. It was amazing. We were met by Mel, a sparkling young french woman who had left her career as a dancer to follow her passion for falcons. She had a role in a ballet in which she had a falcon, and she so loved the bird that she decided they were her path. She showed us the facility, taught us what to expect, and retrieved two harris hawks for our walk. We then walked out on the grounds of the castle and let the hawks fly free. As we walked through the forest around the castle, the hawks would swoop past us and perch on the next tree, waiting for one of us to raise a gloved arm, offering the promise of a small nibble of meat. The hawks would glide down onto the glove, take the meat from your hand and fly on. It was simply a stunning experience. The hawks are remarkably light and agile, and they are full of personality; to have them so close and to interact with them was truly magical. By the end of the walk we could understand Mel’s passion, which was nice for mMya to see, as well. Maya was practically jumping around with how cool the experience had been, and my mom described it as a dream fulfilled. I would go back just to do the hawk walk again. Later in the day we doubled down on adventure and scheduled a tree climbing session, in which we climbed about 120 feet up in a Monterey pine. With a background at the Peninsula School, Maya was in her element - on belay, she attempted to do as much of the climb as she could without using any of the ladder steps or metal staples. Beth, on the other hand, went halfway up once, declared that it was much higher than it looked, and decided that Maya could have the rest of her turns, an offer Maya was more than happy to accept.
On the less light-hearted side of things, we also took a day trip from the castle to hike part of the way up Croagh Patrick, the mountain Saint Patrick climbed to perform his legendary lenten fast - yes - all forty days. He is credited with converting Ireland to Catholicism in the fifth century...and of banishing all snakes from Ireland, which he did from the top of the mountain. We also drove along the route of the famine walk, along which 200 Irish died after being denied food by men sitting at a hearty lunch. The stories of struggle and famine seemed to be everywhere throughout County Mayo...still, our drive along the route was really quite beautiful...and it was the site of most of our attempts to pet sheep while driving...don’t tell the rental car agency.
We ended our trip with a couple of days in Dublin, which was pretty interesting, but it also left us yearning to return to Sevilla. The city simply feels dense and heavy - perhaps it is the sky, the population, the squat, brick architecture/construction, I am not sure, but the city simple doesn’t have the light, openness of Sevilla, either in its spaces or its citizen’s faces. We got to fondle the statue of Molly Malone, enjoy a horse carriage ride with Georgie the horse, go for a run in the beautiful St. Stephen’s Green, but I was underwhelmed by the city. It felt a little like it feels in Joyce’s Dubliners...which I guess should be obvious but doesn’t particularly make me want to be there.
One bizarre note: in the Dublin airport, a man sat down next to Beth and set down a newspaper on the little side table between them. When Beth looked over, she saw articles about a terrorist attack on US soil, so she turned over the paper to find out what it was...what she had missed. Shockingly, it was a copy of the Irish Times published on September 12, 2001. Beth was understandably spooked. The man didn’t look at Beth; he just sat stiffly with his two oddly shaped bags. He was older, very thin, and white. Beth had decided in her head that she was not getting on the plane if he boarded and she actually got up and stood well away. He then got up, moved to the next waiting area and sat down. No explanation….
We returned to Sevilla on Saturday afternoon to find spring in full glory. The walk to Maya’s school is amazing - colorful and fragrant, our park run in now through blossoming trees, and the city is bracing for the insanity of Semana Santa...which will be the topic of my next journal entry.
