7/3 -7/6/19

After a sumptuous breakfast at the B&B, we were picked up by a tour bus, which conveyed us south and west. When not knocking the mirrors off passing campers, the driver provided an entertaining commentary on the Burren, a gray limestone plateau cracked with the color of wildflowers. The bus pulled into a ferry port at the bustling village of Doolin, from which we embarked for Inisheer, smallest and easternmost of the Aran Islands.

On the island, my parents boarded a carriage while the rest of us rented bikes. Losing my siblings while investigating a ruined medieval chapel, I continued solo. Inisheer has only two real attractions. The more visually dramatic of these is the wreck of the Plassey, a large trawler than ran aground in 1960 and has been quietly rusting away since.

Inisheer’s other sight, a small castle, was too crowded to be interesting. The most enjoyable part of my ride was the final half-hour, during which I rode up and down the deserted stone-walled lanes on the island’s western end. The weather was warm, and clear enough to allow unobstructed views of Connemara to the north and the other Aran Islands to the west.

Instead of returning directly to Doolin, the ferry headed north, toward the famous Cliffs of Moher. Sheer seven hundred feet from the waves they rose, a great gray wall against which thousands of seabirds wheeled, dove, and called. The visual impact (as we found after returning to the bus) was even more overpowering from above. From the precarious cliff walk, we could look straight down the cliff face, and watch those numberless flocks of birds soaring and plummeting below.

The bus dropped us in Galway, a lively city with the feel of an overgrown college town. We dined in an excellent pub, where we watched the resident mixologist create a series of exotic cocktails.

7-4

We split up today. While my sister and her husband went riding, and my brothers went drinking, my parents and I made the long drive north to Connemara and County Mayo. An early highlight was the winding, not-quite-two-lane road skirting the eastern edge of Connemara National Park, which had more sheep than cars. After stopping at picturesque Kylemore Abbey, we continued north along another narrow road. This brought us past Doo Lough (Black Lake), a mountain tarn, and up a bleak mountain valley where hundreds of starving Irish died during the Great Famine. A cross marks the site of the tragedy.

A few miles north, my parents dropped me off at the base of Croagh Patrick, Ireland’s most famous mountain. It was here, according to tradition, that St. Patrick fasted for forty days and nights. Every year, on the last Sunday in July, thousands of pilgrims climb to the summit in commemoration. The most dedicated walk up barefoot. Though I wore shoes during my own climb, I still nearly managed to cripple myself. I have climbed taller and steeper mountains, but never such a treacherous trail. The first half of the path was heavily eroded, and carpeted with a loose layer of fist-sized rocks.

The path then drove six hundred feet straight up a scree slope, where every step sent stones rattling downhill.

The views from the top were spectacular. Beneath a sea of clouds that just grazed the summit, most of County Mayo was visible. To the north was a broad and islet-speckled bay; to the south, rolling green hills. Immediately below was the white scar of the trail, meandering treacherously back down the mountain. After idly wondering how many of my ancestors had enjoyed the same view (my great-grandfather’s family emigrated from County Mayo), and comforting myself with the fact that my forbearers had managed it barefoot, I began the exhausting climb down.

The climb up Croagh Patrick took me just over an hour. I didn’t time my hike back down. Having neglected to bring my hiking boots to Ireland, I was wearing a worn-out pair of gym shoes, which slipped and rolled at almost every step. As I picked my way downslope, I passed an Irish woman and her son. To his mother’s despair, the son – probably eight or nine years old – was scooting down the trail on his rear. As I passed, she ordered him to get back up. Looking injured, the boy turned: “but mom, it’s so much easier on my arse!” After a moment of reflection, he added “though I keep getting rocks up my bum.”

In the end, I made it down without destroying my ankles, though my feet and knees would be sore for days afterward. I met my parents near the trailhead, and drove back to Galway down a seemingly endless series of one-lane roads.

7-5

After breakfast, we packed up and drove north to palatial Ashford Castle, a former manor house repurposed as an obscenely expensive hotel. Lacking the resources to actually stay there, we contented ourselves with enjoying the vast grounds. My father and brother-in-law went golfing; the rest of us rented bikes.

After riding around the castle and watching a falconry demonstration, we rode into the nearby town of Cong, best-known as a filming location for the Quiet Man. I was more interested in the ruins of the medieval abbey just outside town, and in the splendid Art Nouveau windows of the village church.

After lunch in the village, we rode back to the vans. Despite repeated efforts on my part to convince them that one last medieval ruin would be worthwhile, my siblings decided to drive straight to our next hotel in Trim. My parents and I, however, detoured to Clonmacnoise, probably the most important Monastic settlement in medieval Ireland. Arriving about an hour before the site closed, my mother and I toured the museum, while my father napped in the car.

We emerged from the museum to find ourselves virtually alone with the ruins. A feeling of peace pervaded the site – the mute walls of the churches, the ragged rows of gravestones, the Shannon sparkling in the evening sun. Having visited so many remote ruins in search of such quiet, it was an unexpected pleasure to find it at one of Ireland’s most-visited sites.

We continued on to Trim, a quiet town about thirty miles north of Dublin, where we met the rest of the family. After an excellent final dinner at a steakhouse overlooking Trim’s Norman Castle, we sallied forth in search of a bar. Since my mother wanted to hear traditional Irish music, we settled on a small place with the music of an acoustic guitar spilling out the door. Inside, we found about two dozen locals, listening to a grizzled man with a black lid and tattooed arms. He had a raspy, lived-in voice, and a repertoire that included both ancient ballads and the Dropkick Murphys. Shortly after our arrival, he regaled the bar with two IRA war songs and a ballad for a Belfast bomber jailed during the Troubles. The locals sang along, and we tried not to look too uncomfortable. Then he switched to American hits. Several of the drunker patrons began to jig along the bar, and a bald man with a red beard danced enthusiastically with my alarmed sister-in-law. Not until midnight did we make out way out, and back down the quiet street.

7-6

I woke early this morning, and took a long walk through Trim and along the rain-speckled Boyne. After wandering through the drizzle-streaked ruins of Newtown Abbey, I returned to the hotel, and walked with my family to Trim Castle, Ireland’s best-preserved Norman fortification. We strolled along the battered walls and towering keep, both used (as we learned) during the filming of Braveheart. Finally, at the end of a tour led by a seriously hungover guide, we emerged on the roof of the keep.

The drizzle had resumed, and the horizons were blurred by mist. Wiping the lens of my phone on my shirt, I walked to a corner of the roof overlooking the Boyne. Below, the fields around Trim glistened in their myriad shades of green. I took my picture. Then the guide called, and it was time to go.