I was skyping with my children while at an amazing B&B in Dingle, Ireland, population of right around 2,000. "Boys, tomorrow, we're going to see the Cliffs of Moher. They're like the Cliffs of Insanity from Princess Bride. Ok, see ya later." Then on a whim, I googled it. I was spot on: they were the exact cliffs used as the establishing shot in the film (one of my favorites), and I was going to see them in a day!
Rewind a few months, and you would find me reading e-mail. Delete Heather's running crap. Delete Nigerian scam. Delete, delete, delete. Delete fan club spam...wait a tick...U2 is having a Joshua Tree tour for the album's 30th anniversary? Ok, that's a must see; we're huge fans. Are they playing Nashville? Clickity click click; why no, no they are not. Ok, not Tulsa either... searching the tour roster for someplace close: Louisville. Meh. Wonder where they are playing on Heather's birthday? Dublin. I fire off a text: "How about seeing U2 in Dublin for your birthday?"
Let's just say that went over well.
I checked the ol' passport to make sure all was in order. I had several months of validity remaining after the trip, so my next overseas adventure would require a renewal. All set.
Fast forward a few months, to just a couple of weeks before the big Ireland trip. I had this strange feeling one night. You may have noticed my choice of pronouns in the last paragraph. It occurred to me that I had laid eyes on my passport and not Heather's. In my mind, we'd gotten them at the same time, in preparation for some trip a decade prior. Turns out that Heather got her passport a few months earlier than I did, and I honestly can't remember why. It probably has something to do with my own procrastination. Regardless, those few months mattered because hers was expired. So, we paid through the nose for an expedited passport renewal, and got it just in the nick!
Our flight got in super early on a Saturday morning. What we failed to realize/research was that Dublin is not a morning town on the weekends. We couldn't get into our room, so we just dropped our bags with the hotel clerk and started walking around looking for open coffee shops. It took us a long time, but we found an open quasi-convenience store that had some carbs and caffeine.
That first night, we saw the U2 concert and it was amazing!
The next day, we got some breakfast at a place not too far away from our hotel. Heather thought she had some toast and jam. She was betrayed by the not-jam. Turns out that red onion relish is a thing in Irish breakfast that is most certainly not-a-thing in American breakfast.
We spent a day being tourists in Dublin doing things like going for a birthday run...
...visiting the Jedi Archives from Ep2 the Long Room of the Trinity College Library...
...and touring the Guinness brewery. We tossed back a pint in a pub established in AD 1198 while listening to a storyteller explain Irish folklore.
Then, we rented a car so we could head off to the west coast.
We reserved a nice class of car, and were expecting a BMW "or similar." The "or similar" turned out to be an Audi A4 with a stick shift (automatics cost a lot more to rent, and are somewhat rare). During the first one second, I was disappointed. Then starting during second two, it occurred to me that I'd be on the "wrong" side of the road, on the "wrong" side of the car, and on an unfamiliar road system. "Yeah, I'd love an A4 stick shift. I happen to own one, and it's a great car." I told him, mentally noting that it might be nice, smart, and safe for me to drive a familiar car.
The strangest part for me was sitting on the right side of the car, both for my view out and for shifting with my left hand. Strangely, the pedals were not reversed. Oh, here's what Heather's worried about...once we got off the motorways (think Interstates), the county roads were often about 1.5 lanes wide with dense hedgerow lining either side. When you come across a truck, you both just slow way down and think thin thoughts.
We visited a castle in Kilkenny and then took a bicycle tour. There was a family from Galway on the tour with us. When they heard we'd come for the U2 concert, they said, "We have a saying: Bono may think he's God, but God doesn't think He's Bono." Hm, sounded like sour grapes to me.
We climbed a thousand year old tower where I took this panoramic. The wooden stairs we used to climb were modern, but very steep--almost more like ladders.
We swung by the Rock of Cashel, which is a 900 year old church.
Or at least the remains of one. It's a cemetery too.
This thing below was supposed to be a commemorative monument there from when St. Patrick converted one of the big pagan Irish kings to Christianity.
From there, we went on to Dingle for some touristy stuff. These are little two and three room houses made of piled rocks. There would have been wood and straw roofs, and they would have invited the sheep in during the winter to help warm the thing.
This is a 1200 year old chapel made entirely of stones without mortar.
The loop around the end of Dingle peninsula is one-way, by tradition, not law or signage. Our tour driver said that sometimes opposing busses will come nose to nose and get stubborn and cause hours long delays. Fortunately, that was not our experience.
During that tour, if you squinted toward the sea, near the horizon you could see Skellig Michael. This is the island they used as Luke Skywalker's hermit retreat in The Force Awakens. Due to ecological concerns, they had to recreate the island sets and film elsewhere for The Last Jedi. Tours to that island are very limited in number, and subject to the weather as you have to cross over in small boats. They also depart from a different peninsula than Dingle, one to the south. So, we did not visit it as our plans took us north to the Cliffs of Insanity!
At Tarbert, we took a northbound ferry across so we wouldn't have to drive the long way around and through Limerick. I was never good at those anyway.
We learned a piece of US history.
Then we got to the Cliffs of Moher, and they were spectacular.
The cliff face bent around, so you could walk along the top and get a good view of each side.
Then it was back to Swords, a suburb of Dublin, near the airport for one final evening of reflection.
One of the things that interested me about Ireland is that they've never been a world power, but also aren't part of the third world. The country is modern, but has an innate humility to it. I've visited France, England, and Italy. They've all been top dog at one or more points in their histories, and have the architectural grandeur that goes along with it. You can see some of that in Dublin from when they were a part of the UK, however they were always a conquered land, apart rather than a part.
One other interesting thing about Ireland is that for a very long time, it was the frontier of European civilization. According to many scholars, it was the monks of Ireland during the dark ages that saved western culture with their tireless writings and manual copying of books. Out on the fringes, they were too remote for many raiders to fool with. And so their paper avoided and survived the fires that took so many others in Europe during that tumultuous time.
We loved Ireland and hope to return one day. It would be a treat to visit the northern parts, and indeed Northern Ireland too.
