Green Green

The trip over to Ireland was much less romantic than I had anticipated. The four-hour train ride to Holyhead was lovely: gentle scenery, a quiet car and an attentive snack cart attendant. However, the ferry was a bit of a nightmare. It must have been family day since there were more small children running around than at Disneyland. I uncovered an algorithm that determines that families with small children need precisely twice as many seats plus one as there are members of the family. Thus so, I was hard pressed to find a place to sit and read. I finally found a group of three elderly passengers who were using precisely three seats of the four at the table and they were nice enough to let me join them.

I don’t even want to tell you about the sheer amount of junk food that I consumed that day—except that it was notable and I am committed to accuracy for posterity. Using up my quid on the train, I had innumerable cups of tea and bags of crisps and candy, but it wasn’t enough to tide me over on the ferry, so I also gave in to the smells of chips. Starving as I was, the first seven chips I stuffed into my face were the best things I’d ever eaten… and the subsequent 17 chips were some of the worst I’ve ever had and reminded me why I don’t really care for chips after all. (I suppose I should mention here that I am referring to a dish that Americans call French Fries [although a Belgian invented them.])

My first view of Green Isle was grey and industrial, but that was soon mended with tours into the countryside. My dear friend and reader, S, devoted himself to my delights and administered a thorough tour of the island via train, car, bus, and boat. S lives in Bray, which is a charming seaside town southwest of Dublin .

Being the ancestral home of my family in particular, I managed to track down the pub in Listowel, in County Kerry, where my Great-grandma Mae was born above. The bartender was not a member of the O’Connor family, who had bought the pub from GG Mae’s family before they moved to San Francisco, but he show me a picture of my Dad’s cousins who had visited in 2008. I had a pint of Guinness (after having learned the day before the proper way to pour a pint thereof) and tried to feel the fullness of being in the place where a woman had been born whose DNA eventually contributed to my own.

S, my fearless chauffeur, had an additional wish to go to County Kerry: the Skellig Islands. The largest of the two, Skellig Michael, was a monastery for over 500 years and bears the labor of these monks in beehive shaped houses and a thorough system of steps leading up to said huts. It is also a summer nesting spot for thousands of puffins. I can’t imagine that there is a more adorable bird in existence, and they were cautious but not fearful of the humans exclaiming over their cute beaks, cute wings, cute bodies, and cute waddles from just a few feet away. Did I mention that they were so cute?

We also journeyed to Cork (where we tried in vain to find some traditional music), Mitchellstown (where we did some spelunking AND got a bit lost in a hedge maze), and Glendalough. Glendalough is a monastery nestled in the Wicklow mountains that was founded by St. Kevin the Hermit. We went on a beautiful sunny Saturday so it was crawling with tourists, all trying to outdo each other for group photos next to the ancient tombstones. And really, what says ‘family’ better than everyone standing on grave smiling?

For my last day in Ireland, Sunday, we climbed up Bray head (much like Tillamook head, but with fewer trees and a big cross on top). There was also an air show event, so the little town was packed with carnival booths, prams and unsupervised teenagers. We ate corndogs made by a genuine Minnesotan. There are many more Americans in Ireland than I ran into in the UK.

Now I am back in New York, where it is humid and ill-mannered and malodorous as ever. Yesterday while I was reading in Madison Square Park, a young man asked me the time. As I had a clock on a chain that I had purchased in Camden Market, it took a few moments for me to make the mental adjustments to report. He asked me why I have a clock in a different time zone and then asked me if I was British. Oh dear, back in the land where accents are not discussed, and are even completely ignored.