Ireland Bound

I don’t remember what exactly made me curious about Ireland, leading it—25 years after my visit-- to become a sort of second home for me. Perhaps it was my grandmother who’d gone in the 1980s, exploring with a tour group of other seniors the lush countryside and more than a few pubs, bringing home stories of meeting our relatives. Maybe it was a desire to find some sort of history I could tie myself too, an identity separate—and more interesting—than just another white kid from the San Fernando Valley.

What I do remember is arriving in Dublin at age 18 and being completely at ease, finding myself in conversations with strangers, people who even laughed at my jokes, though I was awkward, shy, and scared back in America. I remember finding the train ride to Galway meditative, with the rolling hills and rocks walls passing by. I remember finding myself in Sally Long’s pub in Galway—still a favorite—sitting beside a pair of nuns.

Another night I found myself in a café on Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands. I was slightly scared of the B&B I’d rented—an old woman with an adult son giving off serious Norman Bates energy—so I stayed in town late and drank coffee and talked to a girl from Wexford, a brunette who let me flirt with her in a completely amateur way. I think she made fun of me (which is what I though flirtation was for a very long time). But she kept talking and let me sit with her as she closed up.

I was never lonely. That’s what I remember.

Recently a colleague of mine, when hearing about the study abroad course I’m running, said “the Irish are cool.” It’s a broad generalization, of course. There are plenty of assholes in Ireland, just like anywhere else, but there a hospitality that is difficult to define. “Cool” is about close as you can manage