A First Timer's Guide to Ireland

I teased this a bit last week on my first day back from my first ever trip to my ancestral homeland. But given the jet lag, the disruption to my circadian rhythm, and the general need to clear my head a bit, I waited for a brand new week to sort of gather my thoughts. After all, this was a trip not just decades, but generations in the making. So what's a couple of days between friends in order to process it all. 

For starters, people have always tended toward being surprised when I'd tell them I'd never been to Ireland. Like when I used to tell friends I'd never watched Friday Night Lights, until I finally got around to it. (Thanks, pandemic!) The way I'm always prattling on about my Irishness, you'd think I had a timeshare there. But no. Truth be told, my devoted Irish Rose and I were serious about going for our 20th anniversary 10 years ago. But my brother Jimbo went and said the exchange rate kicked his ass. Plus our kids were in school and busy with a ton of things, and life just sort of got in the way. We kept dialing back our plans (maybe a trip to Orlando with the boys, a house on a lake, and so on), until by the time the metaphorical rubber hit the proverbial road, we went out to an expensive dinner two towns over. Where the next table over was clearly the scene of Dad's Court Order Visitation Weekend, as a father in a baseball hat sat across from a 12-year-old with his hood pulled over his head and they both stared into their phones in silence. To which I said, "This was supposed to be us in DUBLIN!!!" 

Anyway, we actually had another trip booked with our couplesfriends we've traveled with quite a bit. But that was in 2020. (Bite me, pandemic!) So we kicked the can down the road. And I vowed that the sun would not rise on our 30th without me having touched ground in the land where my forebears lived, died, worked, got arrested at age 16 for getting into a bar fight over football (true story), or noped out on their families and fled to the US, until my great-great-great grandmother hunted her deadbeat husband down and had more children with him over here (unfortunately, also true). Mission, accomplished.

Here is a random collection of impressions of my almost two week trip that met and exceeded all my expectations:

I'll start with the people. Ordinarily, I'd try not to generalize, because that's where you put yourself in danger of stepping in the ethnic-stereotyping dog mess you can't scrape off your shoe. But since mine are a people you can reduce to a cliche with impunity (until we get rid of Lucky the Leprechaun and the Shamrock Shake, can anyone be truly free?) and the whole country seems to have the diversity level of the St. Francis Knights of Columbus in Weymouth, MA, I think I'm on safe ground in painting them with a broad brush. 

Pretty much everyone we met not only talks to you like you've known each other for 20 years, but like you're picking up a conversation you were in the middle of five minutes ago. "How you getting along, then?" Or words to that effect. And every time they'd pick up on my insufferable Masshole accent ruining the sound of their pleasant lilt, they'd ask where we're from. And the answer "Boston" would immediately bring recognition and someone they know who lives somewhere in the area. Even if that area was Maine or Connecticut. A cousin. A friend they visited. An adult child who got a job working for a tech company. Followed by how much they love the States and are glad we're visiting. To someone who's spent his whole life in a culture that prides itself on a sort of surly, resentful misanthropy toward people we actually know and like, it was almost unsettling to have strangers be so unfailingly pleasant. Especially toward the most hated demographic on Earth: American tourists. But there? Everyone lives the line from their own WB Yeats: "There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met." It took me a few days to get used to it, and not suspect everyone was trying to put something over on me. (And maybe sell me a time share.) But it's totally genuine. Just their culture. And I'm going to try to do likewise. But that's a lot of behavior to unlearn.

And I suppose it's no wonder. Weirdly enough, at Logan, Aer Lingus isn't even in the International Terminal. They didn't even go through my bags. If you fly or drive into Canada, they strip search you, have the bomb-sniffing dogs give you the once over, and put you through the full body MRI. But the basic approach to Boston-to-Shannon is "Ahh, what the hell. They're the same place." TSA treats it like you're flying to Raleigh. 

Though on the way back, Customs in Shannon did ask me if I had anything to declare. And I said, "In the words of Oscar Wilde, 'I have nothing to declare but my own genius.'" I've had that quote chambered up for a long time, and it felt great to finally put it to use. Then I showed him the whiskey I bought at the Duty Free, to avoid an international incident.

Of course, that might be because for the most part, we avoided the major tourist areas. No one on the trip wanted to drive. And with good reason. I've known plenty of people who've gone to the British Isles and rented a car. And to a person they all agree driving on the left side is a terrifying, white knuckle, stressballing nightmare journey into madness. Think Clark Griswold in European Vacation, stuck in the roundabout, unable to escape. ("Look kids! There's Big Ben! Look kids! There's Big Ben! ...) The couple of times we took a cab, I sat in the back, watched the ride out the windshield and see if I could - what with all the unsafe driving points on my auto insurance and all - be able to pull it off. Basically, to treat it like you would a flight simulator. And it was truly hard to process. Driving on the left is like having automotive dyslexia. It turns a simple trip up a quiet, narrow country road into a Baby Driver getaway sequence. To the point where I decided if I ever try it, I'm going to use a mirror and face backwards.

So to avoid going all Steve McQueen in Bullitt, and to get access to the less touristy places, we rented a boat for a week and traveled up the middle of the country via the River Shannon. There are a lot of such craft on the river. Every town has a marina you can dock at overnight, with bathrooms and showers. The other couple we were with are experienced boaters, as is my own beloved. And I'm good at providing ballast. So it worked out. 

And on both sides of the river, for as far as the eye can see, is nothing but pristine, rural beauty. Pastureland. Rolling hills in the background. Contented cattle grazing in the fields. And inspiring me to shop for steaks, ground beef and cheese. (As comic Anthony Clark used to point out when I was opening for him in Boston, cows aren't into the four food groups, because they're two of them.) These are all family farms. Free range cows living off the land, as opposed to being crammed into factories in Oklahoma being fed processed corn or whatever. Which frankly matters to me less than how delicious the end product is. And I can confirm it makes a difference.

You spend time rolling down a river in the heart of Ireland and it's hard not to think this is what Tolkien had in mind when he conjured up the Hobbits. Living in a quiet, out-of-the-way land of pleasant people, sort of removed from the troubles of the world. Tending to their fields and gardens by day. Then heading to the Prancing Pony for some pints, music and conversation at night. Tolkien was of German descent. And the Irish probably weren't super popular at Oxford when he was there. So maybe not. But if I'd seen someone living in a hole in the side of a hill, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. 

Speaking of pints: There are places near me that pour a quality Guinness and places that do not. But I'd heard even the best places in the States can't do justice to the way it's served in Ireland. That too I can confirm, as I found out from a local the stuff we get in the US is brewed in South Africa. But the Guinness on tap they have tastes like ... what exactly? Picture the best beer you've ever tasted. Now blend it with your mother's love, the tears of NY Jets fans and unicorn milk. Then sip it out of an angel's nipple. That's Guinness in Ireland. 

On a related fun fact, you know how you open a can of Guinness and it activates that little plastic thing that releases the CO2? That thing is called a widget. And someone told me that a few years ago in the UK, a survey asked what the greatest invention of the 20th century was. And the widget came in first. Tough luck, human flight, automobile, polio vaccine, radio, television, computer and internet. The UK has their priorities in order. 

One place we visited that positively broke my brain was Clonmacnoise. A religious and trade site located at the crossroads of the Shannon (running vertically down the center of the island) and the Great Esker (horizontally), it began as a monastery founded by St. Cirian. And while much of it is ruins, there are incredible intact buildings artifacts. Not the least of which is an elaborate, 12-foot tall Celtic Cross carved out of limestone which depicts scenes from the Scriptures. It was erected in 542 AD and is still standing. There are others from the 10th century and later. Which somehow survived hundreds of battles between kings, rival factions, warring clans, Viking invaders. Keep that in mind next time you're in one of those towns like Hingham where they put a historical marker on the side of their house because it was built in 1890. Which in Clonmacnoise is considered temporary housing. Anyway, just next to this spiritual site of astonishing living history is the gift shop, where 25 Euros will get you a "Top O' the Mornin'" refrigerator magnet and a spoon rest featuring a cartoon sheep wearing a leprechaun hat. Because you've got to preserve your culture. 

Someone once famously said "Anyone who wishes to understand America, must first understand baseball." And that someone wasn't Ken Burns or George F. Will or someone else who throws like a girl, but by 20th century historian Jacques Barzun. Anyway, it seems to me that the Irish equivalent of that his hurling. When we first arrived, we were befriended on the bus to our AirBnB by a retiree from Bunratty who told us we needed to find a pub to watch the All Ireland semifinal. I didn't have to be told twice. 

Hurling probably comes from some old tradition of Celtic warriors competing for the spoils of war by bashing around the skull of their vanquished chieftain using the femurs of his soldiers or something. But the best way I can describe it is that if feels like it was invented by a PE teacher who had all this leftover equipment to make use of. He had one of those fields where there's soccer net under the football goalposts, some field hockey sticks, lacrosse helmets, and dead baseballs. The object is to get it into the goal if possible, for three points. But if not, get it between the uprights for one point. And people only cheer for the goals. So it's sort of the scoring rules of Quidditch, with the goals as an analog of catching the Golden Snitch. Oh, and it has the violence of hockey baked in. So there's something for everyone. And it is non-stop action. Not in the way soccer is; where they spend minutes at a time at midfield, passing the ball sideways or backwards. I mean full out sprints for the entire 35 minute halves. I'm absolutely a fan. Granted, I still don't grasp the fine points. It was hard to tell whether the guys in the pub who worked "fook" into every sentence were happy or angry. Whether they were yelling "Fook off" at the referee for giving someone a yellow card or at the guy who drew the penalty. I just know I will find hurling on my streaming if it kills me. 

The craziest part of the sport? Finding out that these guys don't get paid. Seriously. They wreck themselves in front of a packed stadium of 80,000 paying customer. Play in shirts with ads on them for traditional Irish restaurants like Papa John's. And then the next day show up to their jobs at construction sites, hospitals, retail shops or writing for snarky sports/smut sites. For real, all the money all goes to their local hurling clubs. Just unbelievable. And I'm reluctant to even mention this, because I feel like Roger Goodell will hear about this business model and have one of his subordinates rub his nipples from the erotic joy of the very thought of it. 

Circling back to the fact the guys in the pub curse like it's Peaky Blinders, I watched Banshees of Inishiren on the flight over. Just as sort of a travel guide/cultural primer. And their swear of choice was "feck." As in feckin', feck off, go feck yourself. Which I'm trying to adopt because it's a profanity, but one with a certain elegant flair to it. Other than that, I got very little out of the movie other than to say if you're going to see just one stark, dreary film about friends on a remote island who have a falling out that results in self mutilation? Make it be Banshees of Inishiren. Put that review in your ads.

The one truly touristy place we went was Galway. The city looks like Diagon Alley in Harry Potter, if the street was packed with Americans wearing NFL gear. I just happened to be sporting the only Patriots shirt I brought, and was stopped by a guy in a Colts hat, a couple from Buffalo and a guy in a Raiders shirt. Also by some Stoolies who wanted to know if I was responsible for all the Pats stuff on display in a sports store up the way. I can't cop to that, but I'd like to think I had some small influence. Besides the packed streets, virtually every pub has live entertainment. What is generally referred to as Trad Music, meaning traditional. Though the tradition pretty much seems to be that of Massachusetts. "Wild Rover" followed by "Country Roads." "Galway Girl" followed by "Sweet Caroline," with everyone in the house doing the 'So Good!" part like it's the bottom of the 8th at Fenway. Obviously they're catering to their target demo, so every playlist reads like it was drawn up by a 50 year old white guy from Scituate. Though I don't know what to make of this:

Based on what I know about our media, I can only assume this car belongs to an Irish sportswriter. 

I've gone on way longer than I intended. So let me end by saying that one of the many, many people I met - and it might have been the couple we talked to while we were doing our clothes a laundromat and having cocktails in the parking lot - said something profound. "No one," she said, "Goes to Ireland once." Right now, I have. But I'm going to make sure she's right. And soon. Thanks for reading. Slainte.