Ireland

The first time I was in Ireland, I was visiting Denis at Trinity. We went with his parents to little fishing towns and did a ghost tour of Dublin. I told Denis one of my goals was to ride a horse and following the instructions from the first google search we succeeded! Later he admitted he had initially highly doubted it would happen but that it’d ended up being the best time he’d had in Ireland! All due to me and a weird vision of horses in Ireland I got inceptioned with via Braveheart or something.

The second time I was in Ireland, I almost died multiple times. I was doing a horse tour of Connemara and did not know how to ride a horse. The horse people were extremely casual about everything and did not view this to be a problem so I had to learn to post etc on the first day. The other people on the tour owned their own horses and taught people to ride so they gave me lots of tips I struggled to obey, daily heaving me up on my horse in the morning while they gently leapt up Legolas-style.

At one point we decided to take our horses swimming and my horse really did not want to do this. We couldn’t have saddles in the water so I was bareback on an extremely reluctant horse, trying to urge it into the frigid Irish sea so it could paddle around. The horse managed to jerk and swerve so forcefully I last my grip on its bare, slick, wave darkened back and fell into the sea whereupon I saw its hoof swish once right past my cheek, the force of the current of its vigorous treading churning strongly against my face, and I was so thankful not to be brained that when it stomped on my leg I barely felt it despite the incredible bruise this left for the remainder of the week.

When it was time for me to leave, my flight left earlier than the others. The horse people again were quite nonchalant about this despite my tentatively inquiring occasionally what we could do about this since we were in the middle of a loamy bog quite far from any taxis or buses etc. On the morning of my flight, they suggested I borrow someone else’s rental to drive me and a German girl to the airport. German girl was 15, did not have a license but had studied the art of manual driving, unlike me on both counts. I had never considered driving a manual before and suggested she should drive since despite lacking a license she had at least driven manual before, but German girl seemed quite unwilling to bend the rules.

Furthermore, I was supposed to drive on the left side of the road, which I had only done once in the sleepy island of St. John, and then in a normal car.

Nevertheless, we were off. Immediately, we got lost. I have no idea how we found our way to the airport. Despite not speaking English that well, German girl was instructing me how to drive by screaming, ‘Now!’ every time I was supposed to hit the clutch and shift. Looking back, I’m amazed I agreed to any of this. I think the only reason we succeeded is because at each point I had no idea how hard the next part of the journey was going to be. A lot of the roads in Ireland are extremely narrow and people will slow down when a car comes from the other direction to let each other pass. At one point, a bus came barreling around a curve and I swerved away from it. Unaccustomed to judging distance from a right-side-of-car perspective, I hit the left mirror of the car against someone’s bush and it exploded. German girl started laughing hysterically. We also stalled at some point on a hill waiting for another car to pass and then I had to learn the difference between operating the clutch on an incline vs on a flat surface.

This time, I was only in Ireland for a few days, but it seems exactly the same: an extended period of green serenity punctured by terrifying moments of eminent death.

I love Ireland! I love the people, how friendly and helpful and calm everyone is, unphased by anything. I love the flaura and fauna, not particularly diverse but always growing strongly and breezily everywhere. I love the air and the cliffs and the moors and the bog people and the islands and the sea and the trees and the sheep- apparently Ireland is one of the most deforested countries in Europe but it’s still so green. I like the words they use for foods: rockets, bangers, mash, mushy peas. I think Ireland appeals to a simple side of me that would just live off my horse, a mare whose milk I’d drink, who I’d snuggle against for warmth at night, whose veins I’d open and close from which to drink blood on long rides when I didn’t have time to stop for water.

The only thing I noticed this time is there were signs everywhere saying things like, ‘Austerity isn’t working, vote NO,’ and ‘Stability, vote YES.’ The YES slogans seemed kind of weak but maybe that’s what happens when the party is already the majority- it’s the minority party that has to justify itself.

Outside of Dublin we went to Wicklow, Glendalough (of which there are like 5 different spellings), and Powerscourt. Is it normal for my first reaction upon visiting some beautiful estate to be that I want to own it? I don’t think I actually do want to own it but it’s still my first impulse even though in reality all I really own is some electronics and a million cat toys. Nevertheless maybe I should work on my Zen-ness and be free from all desire.