Ever in Good Stead

Kenny returned to London at the end of his semester. We had planned a few things to do around the city and a trip to Ireland for the coming week. In London, we spent time at Hampstead Heath and Richmond Park, and had a few classic English meals - proper Sunday roast, fish and chips, pies.

We set out for Ireland on a cold, cloudy day. I did not have many expectations for Ireland. The times were so hectic leading up to the day, I really had not done any preparation for the trip. Fortunately, Kenny and I are a similar breed of traveler. We both like to have a few ideas in mind, but nothing definite; whenever we have traveled together we have just let things fall into place.

When we arrived in Dublin, we found some cheap food to go and met up with our Airbnb host. I had arranged to meet up with Shauna, an old friend from high school who is studying at Trinity College Dublin. We met her at the front gate of the college and she showed us the campus, including the spectacular library, the collection of which boasts the Book of Kells. She showed us around parts of central Dublin along the Liffey, She shared many interesting observations about Irish people and culture. Since it was the end of the semester, we could all talk about our explorations in Europe too.

For dinner, Shauna recommended we go to the Bernard Shaw, a bit south of St. Stephen's Green. Kenny and I made our way there to find a good deal, a drink and a pizza for something like €7. The place appears to be an ordinary bar, but it leads to an open patio in the back, colored with eccentric street art, the kitchen taking the form of a blue double-decker bus parked at the back of the lot. The pizzas were crafty, made with ingredients like chard, pear, prosciutto, and gorgonzola. Our booth had a bit of a flair to it:

After the meal we wandered back toward the center of town. On the way, we stopped in a church to poke around. My favorite feature was the keg of holy water.

As we made our way back toward the Grand Canal Docks, our neighborhood for the week, the dynamic quality of Dublin became clearer, specifically in the architectural differences within the area. To one side of the canal are the glass fronts of high tech conglomerates; to the other, the concrete bastions of industry.

I was beguiled by the rows of single-story Victorian homes that are not only still in place, but remain inhabited by locals. In London, the demolition of Victorian homes in favor of new high rises seems to be one of the County Council's foremost schemes.

In the morning we decided to take a bus to Galway for a daytrip. On our way to Connolly Station, we met some lobbyists for Ireland's (now victorious) "Yes" campaign, in favor of the legalization of same-sex marriage. One lobbyist, a local councilman wanted to talk to us about our trip and our origins, despite the knowledge that we cannot vote in the referendum. Thus is the kindness of the Irish. Anyway, what matters here is that Kenny and I were witnesses to the polemics of the referendum, the traces of which could be found on every streetsign and lamppost. One image remains particularly poignant to me, of a concrete canvas depicting two men embracing each other, which had been defaced - whether by human hands or the rain I am not certain.

The advertisements for each side of the argument were spread not only in the city, but throughout the country as well. About 60% of the electorate voted in favor of legalization; Ireland is the first country to legalize same-sex marriage through popular vote. On a side note, one of my favorite parts of the semester has been engagement with European politics, especially the UK's General Election.

The bus to Galway took about ninety minutes longer than we expected, so once we arrived in town we decided to book beds in a hostel so we could have enough time to explore. We had lunch at The King's Head, a pub our friend Sean had recommended. Leaving the pub, we chanced to find our former classmate Riley Stefano, who happened to be heading home from her semester abroad the next day. We met up later for drinks around town.

Shop Street

The town of Galway is beautiful. Its semblance to the landscape of New England's coast is striking. At times, I was reminded of the trips my family would take to visit my grandfather on the coast of Maine when I was little. It is a lively port town, populated by the National University's many local and international students. Kenny and I walked all along the coast of Galway until we found Salthill and its small cliff.

Kenny contemplating at Salthill

After a sufficient session of what I have come to call "horizon therapy," we wandered back into town to check into Barnacles, our hostel. The receptionist there recommended some good places for food and drink. We had a cheap dinner at Hillbilly's, a chain serving delicious chicken fillet. Here I must digress: the Irish love chicken fillet (pronounce the "t"), a baguette with fried chicken, tomato, and lettuce, usually costing as little as €1 at grocery stores. No, it is not traditional Irish food, but it is a cultural enterprise in the country; thus is traveling on a budget.

From there, we crossed Eyre Square and found the National University's beautiful campus. Something about the energy of university campuses makes me comfortable. It is an energy I have sorely missed this semester, studying at a large, spatially fragmented city university. Walking across quads and under stone archways, and lazing in the neatly trimmed grass offered the kind of energy and clarity I have only found prior on my own home campus in Vermont.

Later that night, we met up with Riley and Laura (another SMC classmate) for a proper pub crawl around town, from Taafe's for live music to The King's Head for traditional Irish dancing, and finally to The Quays, a re-purposed church across from our hostel, now a multi-level super-pub with great vibes.

Laura, Kenny, Riley, and me, Jameson in hand

The next morning, Kenny and I headed out for the Cliffs of Moher, a truly spectacular place encumbered with a truly unspectacular spirit of tourism. We had a good long walk along the trail, which brought me back to my very first day trip this semester to the grand White Cliffs.

We headed back to Galway from there, then back to Dublin, a total of five hours on buses that day. We were relieved to arrive at the station in Dublin and find chicken fillets.

The next day we decided to see more of the city. We began by heading out to gambol with the throngs along Grafton Street. We inched closer and closer to the Guinness Storehouse, and eventually passed the threshold of St. James's Gate. The factory tour is probably the closest thing to a major tourist attraction in Dublin. I am not a huge fan of Guinness, and the whole place was just a big ode to Arthur Guinness, but I have to say that the Gravity Bar on the top of the building is a really cool place to see the city.

View of the Wicklow Mountains from the Gravity Bar

Kenny and I glimpsed the great sprawl of the Wicklow Mountains from the bar and were bummed we didn't have time or means to go hike them. However, we were intrigued by the sight of Phoenix Park from above. So there we went, to some disappointment. A major road runs right through the park, which, despite its enormity, lacks any sort of trail for walkers to follow.

We made it through to the other side and waited forty minutes for a train to take us back to our neighborhood. When we made it there, we spent some time looking around the Grand Canal Docks.

Samuel Beckett Bridge, appropriately bizarre and complex in structure

We did manage to fit one more walking trip into our day. For sunset, we walked from our flat to Sandymount Strand, a sandy bluff in the bay of the city. I was interested to go there because of an incident in one of Joyce's books that takes place there. It turned out to be high tide; otherwise, we might have ventured out on the sandbar and been marooned in the rising tide. It is a beautiful site to see the city lights and the turn toward night.

The next day, we took the DART train to Howth, a seaside suburb of Dublin. It is a real beauty.

We walked uphill for a while to reach the town's cliff walk. Having brought a few beers along, we thought we would toast to our last day in Ireland atop the cliffs. However, without an opener, we tried to open the caps on a fencepost, whereupon a group of adult men crossed our path and asked in broken English if we required assistance. All five of them gladly retrieved bottle openers from their rucksacks; the man who opened my bottle looked me in the eye and told me deadpan, "We are Germans," to which his friends all erupted in laughter. It was a strange gem of a moment Kenny and I continued to cackle about for the rest of the day.

The coastline looks almost mythic from the cliff walk. Small islands rise from the sea, glowing green.

We ate fish and chips in Howth and headed back into town. Our Airbnb host was kind enough to drive us to the airport as he was picking up his new guests there at the same time. The trip back was easy, only forty minutes in the air. From my window seat I could watch as we passed over Sandymount and Howth in a pinkish sky, and then as we descended above the little glistening hamlets of England.

Having had few expectations for Ireland, I was all the more thrilled by the trip. I returned to a sense of anxiety, with only ten days left in the UK. I began to plot my grand finale with just as much excitement as trepidation. I thought of a passage near the end of Joyce's first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a diary entry of the protagonist dated on my birthday:

"April 10. Faintly, under the heavy night, through the silence of the city which has turned from dreams to dreamless sleep as a weary lover whom no caresses move, the sound of hoofs upon the road. Not so faintly now as they come near the bridge: and in a movement as they pass the darkened windows the silence is cloven by alarm as by an arrow. They are heard now far away, hoofs that shine amid the heavy night as gems, hurrying beyond the sleeping fields to what journey's end - what heart? - bearing what tidings?"

 I hoped for a final epiphany as fortunate as Stephen's, to be stood ever in good stead by my own great artificers, memory and imagination, as these grand trips grew fewer and fewer, my time slipping sooner and sooner.