This is a little bit of a cheat since I’m leaving for Ireland in thirty-eight days, but I have always wished to return. Twelve years ago, I got the opportunity to visit Ireland with one of my best friends, Laura, and the trip was definitely life-defining. We traveled throughout the Republic and Northern Ireland, hitting Dublin, Cork, Dingle, Limerick, Galway, back to Dublin, Enniskillen, Belfast and again to Dublin.
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| A bucolic view of Ireland |
While there, I wrote nine e-mails about my visit to friends and family. This was the time before blogs or smart phones. Digital cameras were gaining popularity, but still most pictures were taken on film and printed (and also scanned onto a CD at the photo processor’s.)
In one of my several attempted to design a webpage and to keep a travelogue, I posted my e-mails, including all typos, misspellings and missing words on my cuchulainn.net site. I went back to visit them to see what had impressed me about Ireland and what I wanted to share with my folks while I was still there.
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| Ha-penny Bridge, Dublin, Ireland. |
My observations about Ireland amused me. I mention that Laura and I would stop mid-conversation and saying that the people “look so effing Irish” and that an Irish Bar in Ireland looks like any other Irish Bar in the world, including a few that I’ve seen in France and Japan. I was disillusioned crossing into Northern Ireland from the Republic, since it was more anti-climactic than crossing into Delaware from Pennsylvania; I didn’t even remember since a sign saying anything like, “Welcome to the UK.”
As for the cities, Dublin reminded me of Boston; Cork, Manayunk; and Belfast, New York but smaller and more colonial. I was thrilled to visit the Dublin’s General Post Office (GPO) to see the statue of Cuchulainn as a memorial for Easter Uprising, but I was disappointed by its small stature. I was humored by how still superstitious the Irish are, since the Y2K bug was a very big topic there. In Enniskillen, I walked around town and happened upon a Pound Store (just like a Dollar Store, except things cost a £,) it tickled me.
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| Belfast City Hall |
One of the things that I won’t be getting to do this time in Ireland is visit Belfast or any of Northern Ireland. We simply don’t have the time to stay longer to do so. However, I did get to Belfast when I was there in 1999, where I stayed with Laura’s friend, who drove us through Catholic and Protestant Belfast. We went past the Peace Lines – walls built around Catholic sections of Belfast that look more like No Man’s Land barriers than Peace Lines. I was taken aback by the Murals, particularly one featuring the Cuchulainn statue from the GPO and a Northern Irish British solider with symbols of Ulster and the Union Jack, claiming Cuchulainn as the North’s protector, too.
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| The Mural in West Belfast |
In my last e-mail from the island of Ireland, I stated “I will miss this little island and I will have to return.” I have missed Ireland, its people and its culture; visiting really left a mark on me. I can’t begin to explain how elated I am that I get to return.
If you are interested, feel free to read my error-ridden
e-mails from Ireland in 1999.
All images courtesy of
TripAdvisor, except for
the Mural in West Belfast - courtesy of
Big E's Belfast Taxi Tours.
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