MY WOW MOMENT IN IRELAND

Post tour, Rick Steves Europe (our tour company) sends out a survey that is quite extensive.  They seem to really care what went well and what didn't, asking for feedback on the itinerary, the tour guide, the accommodations, the food, etc etc.  And he asks overall, "What was your WOW moment?"

It's a fun question.  Out of a two-week jam-packed itinerary, is it possible to isolate one standout moment?  I'm sitting here now, back home for a month and a day post tour, having looked at my travel diary once or twice in the last few weeks, looked at photos with Hub a couple of times, but I'm stopping myself from pouring back over it all to come up with my "WOW" moment for Rick's survey.  I'm relying on my brain to bring something to the fore that organically stands out -- with no journal entry or photo reminder to prompt me.

It has to be the Falconry.  Our group was dropped off at the grounds of the Ashford Castle, formerly a real castle and now an elegant hotel and country estate in County Mayo on beautifully manicured grounds.  We walked a gravel path through the forest and gardens for about 15 minutes to arrive at the Falconry where birds of prey are housed, cared for by naturalists who were remarkably devoted to honoring these majestic creatures for what they are -- not for what they might provide a tourist.  The birds are not trained to perform, per se.  They are rewarded for being the birds they are which means they are given dead mouse parts when they fly back to the naturalist.  They like the easy-pickin's of relative captivity so they do learn to come back.  But they could just as easily decide not to.

We were shown several of the birds, with the naturalist explaining their features and habits.  Then we were led to an open area where we each were given the opportunity to don the traditional leather glove, protecting our arm and hand from the deadly talons of the Harris Hawk accompanying us.  The hawk flew free through the trees until we came to the appointed spot on the trail.  Each person who wanted the experience stepped forward one at a time, assuming the position of holding the arm out to the side signaling to the hawk that a little mousie treat was forthcoming should she decide to fly in to grab it.  She always did.  

When it was my turn, I felt perfectly at ease.  I held out my arm and with surprising ease and near total silence, she glided from treetop to just above the ground, then upward to my outstretched arm, where she landed with effortless and nearly weightless grace.  She sat there looking about, sometimes looking right into my eyes, until she was ready to fly away again and off she went.  It was a brief moment, but such a stunning experience.  It was my WOW moment for sure.  

We saw and did so much and there are many things I will joyfully revisit in my memories, but other tour highlights that come mind right now, again without benefit of prompting my memory (photos below): The Library at Trinity College in Dublin, our nurturing and beautiful accommodations in Dingle at the Castlewood House, our spontaneous "just us" bluff trek overlooking the Blasket Islands near Dingle, and the hike at the Giants Causeway on the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland.

I am grateful for our trip. I have mostly fond memories now since the hard parts seem to fade after a bit.  I am recovered from my weariness.  And grateful we came home healthy, having spent our entire Covid-caution budget on being in close proximity to so many people -- mostly in restaurants where masking was not possible.

Here's an admission: we laughed at our son (behind his back, I'm ashamed to say) when before we left he said to us rather wistfully, "I miss Dublin."  We thought it a silly thing to say, he having only visited there once briefly.  But now....well, I sorta see his point.  I had heard so many nearly swoon-worthy reviews of Ireland from so many people that I was skeptical it could ever live up to the hype.  And I'm not sure it really did, hype is hype after all.  And yet.  There is something...something...something about Ireland that seeps in and stays. 

 Slainte, Ireland.  I think I miss you.

At least that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit:  Hub, Official Trip Photographer

LUCK 'O THE IRISH? A LITTLE HISTORY

Hub and I are going through the photos of our recent trip to Ireland, and by "photos" I don't just mean a film roll of 36 frames, half of which would be tossed for being blurry or blank.  Digital means a person (Hub) can take, let's see, about one-thousand photos with the promise of culling them after getting back home.  This becomes a daunting task.  It's also a nice way (until interest and energy wane) to re-visit in great detail sites and memories of the trip. 

People have asked us what stood out for us from our Ireland tour.  Frankly, it has all sort of run together.  As I've already blogged, the itinerary was packed and we were no sooner in one place than it was time to move on to another.  It was hard to stay grounded in any one experience before we were off to the next, such that "impressions" of Ireland come to the fore more readily than specifics.  The photos help with the specifics and I'll get to that in the next post.

For now...impressions:  The Republic of Ireland isn't all that lucky.  

But it is beautiful.  The coastline is rugged with the wild Atlantic crashing into towering cliffs.  Cities are vibrant, modern, busy.  The countryside is green.  And rural.  And there are dairy cows and woolly sheep everywhere.  Especially sheep.  Always sheep.  Rolling hills, old stone fences for miles dividing multi-green-hued pastures, on surprisingly open land.  I thought there would be more trees.  But no...

The invading Normans first decided to take a whack at the native forest lands in the 12th and 13th centuries to create farm land.  In the 16th century Ireland fell under British rule and the British pretty much decimated the rest of the forests for farming, for open space for military maneuvers, to deprive the Irish rebels of shelter, to harvest timber for ship-building and construction in England, really for whatever they wanted. This went on throughout Irish history until now 80% of Ireland's native forestland is no more.  So, while lovely, Ireland still looks nothing like it should, which is one of the many ways in which Ireland has been a victim of invaders, oppressors, and bullies.  

The Irish never did fully surrender to their British occupation given that Britain was a cruel and oppressive "colonizer".  In 1601, an event that turned a tide and set in motion animosities that remain to this day, was the Battle of Kinsale.  The Catholic Spanish sailed to Ireland to help their Catholic brethren reject British rule and chase them back to Britain.  Since this is not a history book, I won't recount all the twists and turns that enterprise endured, but it was dramatic.  The Spanish Armada sailed, arrived off course (not to Cork but to Kinsale) and fought with the Irish against the British.  Alas, fortunes turned, and the Irish began to withdraw, as did the Spanish who surrendered and went back home to Spain, leaving the exhausted and outnumbered Irish to suffer a terrible defeat at the hands of the British.  About 10 years later, after the chieftains of the northern areas of Ireland were forced out, the British rewarded these lands to Anglican (Protestant) loyalists who established this area forever for Britain, foreshadowing what would come later.

The  famous Irish "potato famine" looms large in history and still seems oddly current to the Irish.  They have not really gotten over it. There is bitterness.  We saw many monuments and cemeteries and memorials throughout the Republic to victims of the "The Great Hunger", which some call that period.  I grew to believe this is an apt description.  Potatoes grew prolifically and were a staple of the Irish diet, since the ruling British forbid Irish folk from owning land.  They rented small plots from British landlords and subsisted mostly on the crop that could grow -- potatoes. Then came 1845 and a potato virus from faraway Mexico that turned harvested potatoes to rotting mush.  Nearly 1 million Irish died and 2 million emigrated  to Britain and/or  got aboard "coffin ships" that sailed with starving, diseased, and dying Irish to the United States and Canada.  The population of Ireland was decreased in years to come by 50% and still has not reached pre-famine numbers.  

While the rotten potatoes created a dietary deficit, it was the British (again!) who caused the misery and the Great Hunger -- they did not come to the aid of the starving Irish with any formalized social outreach. The churches doled out  watery soup to families who waited in line all day to get it. The British continued to export nutritious meat, dairy products and vegetables from Irish farms to British mouths while the Irish starved.  The Great Hunger is still mourned to this day, with nearly everyone having an ancestor who died or emigrated in this period.

The Irish Rebellion of 1916 was yet another attempt, of many, of the Irish to break free from British rule.  The rebels thought they might have the advantage while the British were busy with WWI.  But no, again, the uprising was quickly quashed leaving hundreds dead and rebel leaders to be tried and summarily executed at the infamous Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin.  These men and women are remembered as martyrs. 

The Irish War of Independence (Easter Uprising) began in 1920 after the Republic announced it had seceded from Britain.  It resulted in thousands of deaths until finally in 1921 an agreement was reached with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty establishing the Irish Free State.  Unfortunately this did not end the fighting which went on in an attempt to bring Northern Ireland into the Free Republic, but the Republic was defeated by the Northern Loyalists who fought to remain with Britain.

Thus we have "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland in the 20th Century. Remember in 1601 the British basically took Northern Ireland and gave it to the Protestants after the Irish  defeat at the Battle of Kinsale.  And after the Independence Easter Uprising, the north fought to stay with Britain. Frankly this North/South conflict is so woven into history, oppressor and oppressed, power plays, politics, religion and a wee bit of "it's all OK now; let's not talk about" denial that I am still confused about when, why, and how it started and whether it will ever really end in spite of that Good Friday Agreement when President Clinton brokered a peace between Loyalist Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.  

Let me just say that while we were there, Queen Elizabeth died and the Republic shrugged, while in Northern Ireland the Union Jack was at half mast and the funeral day was a Bank Holiday.  Some in the Republic are still agitating for a "United Ireland" while in the north they, today!, refuse to seat a government because the "unification party", the Sinn Fein, won a majority for the first time ever but the loyalists won't let them participate in governing.  (Think Mitch McConnell thwarting Obama, the former president deciding not to recognize the new one, etc.)  At least that's how my simple brain comprehends it.  I refer you any number of Google-able sources that have long confusing stories about this.

So, I guess my impression is that Ireland is a small island nation with a long history of oppression and a sad history of North/South internal conflict that seems to have started centuries ago.  It is a beautiful country of contrasts: Melancholy and hopeful. Safe. (The police do not carry weapons.) But the history of violence is memorialized everywhere. The people: Friendly. Warm. Welcoming.  Realistic. Proud. Resilient.  The culture: Steeped in the past, moving to the future.  Festive.  Musical.  Creative.  Fun.  

As for luck?  Wikipedia says the "luck o' the Irish" saying comes from the California Gold Rush where many of the most successful miners were Irish or Irish-American.  Good on them. 🍀

At least, that's the view from here...©

Sources:  A bunch of Wikipedia articles, ABC News, The Economist, History, Irish Central, Kinsale (book by Barry Molony), and my own faulty memory.

Photo credits:  Hub, Official Trip Photographer:  (CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE) Irish coastline, Irish countryside, colorful Kinsale, artist's iron sculpture of a "coffin ship" with skeletons surrounding the masts, plaque at the Easter Rebellion Uprising Memorial, sculpture in Northern Ireland with figures reaching out in friendship -- but not quite touching.

IRELAND: DITCHING THE HIGHLIGHT REEL

Our first trip "across the pond" was four years ago.  We did back-to-back Rick Steves tours of Scotland (10 days) and England (14 days).  I came home with a bad cold, exhausted, and swearing never another tour!  People apparently thought I'd had a miserable time.  I didn't. They just caught me moaning in overwhelm and exhaustion. (See previous post about my highly sensitive traits.)  I actually had a wonderful time.  As I did on our recent trip to Ireland -- another 14 day tour.

Yes, we jumped back in.  We bid on a Rick Steves tour at an auction for an organization we support.  We got into a good-natured "bidding war" with another guy, until he dropped out!!!  What?  We won.  So what to do?  We scheduled a tour with some trepidation, but feeling we'd do better this time.  First of all, NEVER do two tours together!  And we decided to do our best to pace ourselves, find times for quiet and aloneness, pack lighter.  (RS makes everyone lug their own luggage.)  We were not entirely successful.  It might be impossible.

I posted each day's activities to Facebook, as a travel journal for me and as virtual travel for those who appreciate going along vicariously with others who travel.  On Facebook it looked magical, perfect, with quintessential Irish culture and sites in abundance, us always smiling.  

What no one saw was the fact that I slept abysmally about 1/3 of the time.  We changed hotels on average every 2 nights as we made our way around the island.  The longest stay was 3 nights, the shortest were two 1-night stays.  This means we lived out of our suitcases.   (Highly sensitive to new places/clutter/chaos.)  NOTE:  Even once home, I woke up for the first few mornings wondering, "Where am I and which way to the bathroom?"  LOL)

Accommodations on RS tours are interesting -- he tries to choose only local, family owned inns which can be absolutely lovely or maybe a bit dated and threadbare.  All are clean and very adequate, but often small.  In one room I had to step over my open suitcase to get to the bathroom.  But most of the places on this trip were pretty 'luxe, one or two being fabulous.  I will say the proprietors are mostly wonderful and I love the idea of supporting them.

We were two of 26 on the tour with a guide and a driver (all masked per RS Covid policy, FYI).  To cover the whole island there were a couple of long days of travel on the "coach".  We made stops, of course, but it's a bus, ya know?  At least we were lucky enough to get to sit in one of the first 3 rows most of the time.  There is a request that if you get the "front row" one day, you'll relinquish it to others the next day and so forth.  NO ONE wanted the front seat most of the time!  I guess they were partying in the back (albeit quietly since I didn't hear a thing from back there...maybe they were napping?) so after offering that prime real estate to others, we took it if no one spoke up.  I loved looking out the big front windows at the road ahead, which also helped with my tendency toward motion sickness.  (Highly sensitive to body sensation/movement.)

Breakfast is always provided but generally service started at 7:30, so we set our alarm for 6:30 most days.  If I wasn't already awake from not sleeping, the jarring alarm startled me upright with an adrenalin rush, pounding heart, feeling tired and disoriented.  The breakfasts were mostly buffet style, some really good, some really not so good.

About half of the dinners are provided, eating as a group in pre-chosen restaurants.  The restaurants were great and the food delicious!  (A couple from the Michelin Guide were particularly good!) I was amazed at the creative and really tasty vegetarian meals I had.  I go into any restaurant and give the menu a quick look;  I don't want alcohol, rich sauces, most cheeses, pasta generally, too many "hot" spices, red meat (or chicken most of the time).  That leaves usually 2-3 things to choose from, plus my go-to "cocktail" of sparkling water.  I was super happy to have some great meals in spite of these limitations to accommodate my (highly sensitive) constitution -- and health-conscious eating.

Note on alcohol.  I was the only non-drinker.  It seemed everyone was delighted to do my share of drinking.  No drunks or anything like that; very moderate drinking. But I'd say the group still put a little dent in the Guinness kegs and whiskey barrels at each stop.  My travel partner drank at least one Guinness a day (and on our own in Dublin we did a 3 hour tour/tasting at the 5-story Guinness brewery), leaving me thinking he'd found a new fave after years of saying he didn't even like it much.  But coming home he said it was an Ireland thing and he still wouldn't choose it at home, which surprised me, but I guess it's like "everyone is Irish on St. Pat's Day". He did bring back some Irish whiskey, another thing he almost never drinks, but I think that will be a passing fancy too.  He'll be back to his usual wine and micro-brews soon. What was annoying, again, is how much conversation centers around alcohol, no matter where I am.  Vintages, brews, distilleries, the subtle taste differences, the stories, the lore...urggh...Enough!

Back to the restaurants: so noisy!  Generally we were ushered to a room of our own for the group, or sat at long tables in a part of a busy restaurant and always we were rather jammed together.  While lovely to meet new people and chat over dinner, it's hard when it's so noisy.  And it's hard at the end of a tiring day to socialize with enthusiasm.  (See, again, highly sensitive traits around too much noise, crowds, people!)  There were a number of times I just didn't want to be social, or go out at all.  But instead of choosing to stay behind and miss something (including a delicious meal instead of take-away food to eat in my hotel room), I went.  But this pushing on in spite of needing down time took a toll on my energy level.

Our itinerary was FULL.  Rick Steves, if you've seen his PBS program, listened to his radio show or podcast, read his syndicated column, Zoomed into his Monday Night Travel, or watched any of his specials (he's everywhere!), is a supreme extrovert!  And his tours reflect that.  He packs the schedule with really cool places to visit, experiences to have, people to meet, food and drink to enjoy, and miles to travel.  It's great fun, but for me...well, sheesh.  Is there a similar tour for highly sensitive introverts where we cover the same itinerary in, like, a month, spending a little longer in each place with lots of time to just hang out?  I'm not sure that would help, but I do know I need A LOT more quiet, alone, "down time" than his tours afford.  Some of my favorite memories of this tour were the times when it was just Hub and me alone on the "non-tour" afternoons or evenings not scheduled with the group. There were times my sensory overwhelm led to being teary, bitchy, and sad.  But only in our hotel room.  Otherwise, ONWARD because "no grumps" is another RS tour rule.

Hub and I travel well together, with only a couple little tiffs in our three weeks away.  One, though, was significant.  On the last day he said he was sorry I didn't have a good time; that I had struggled and numerous times I said I wanted to go home.  I was shocked to hear his summation that I didn't have fun.  Nothing could be further from true.  I actually had a really good time!  But travel is hard and stressful for me, so I could (eventually) understand his assumptions.  

In our two hour "debrief" of his comments (and my tears), I realized he's my "safe place" to vent, perhaps unfairly.  And when he hears my distress it distresses him because he can't fix it for me.  And I realized by saying I wanted to "go home" I didn't literally mean I was grabbing my suitcase and heading for the airport; it meant I needed refuge.  I needed homelike peace and quiet; not the constant stimulation of information, sites, socializing, schedules, new beds, restaurant foods, alarm clocks, etc etc.  We talked it all through and came to a better understanding of what "big" travel can look like for us, making plans for our NEXT European trip, whether a tour or not, with more insight and clarity on what works best for us and how to best get through the hard times of being 'on the road'.  

So, you see, not every moment was Leprechauns and rainbows.  But like Rick, we do plan to "keep on travelin'".  Just know that every reality might not show up in the highlight reel.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit:  Hub, Official Trip Photographer, at Dunluce Castle Ireland