{"id":4907,"date":"2020-02-08T18:41:10","date_gmt":"2020-02-08T17:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4907"},"modified":"2020-03-09T07:24:09","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T06:24:09","slug":"back-to-eire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4907","title":{"rendered":"Back to \u00c9ire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always been drawn to Ireland. I think this is because as\na kid I was a firm believer in Brownies and Leprechauns. And by \u201cas\u201d a kid I\nmean \u201csince\u201d I was a kid. It has always seemed a mystical place to me. And\nwhile I am very aware of the fact that Ireland is far more than a land of light\nor spooky folktales and that the monsters and the horrors in Ireland have at\ntimes been very real, something about it has always drawn me. My favorite\nplaces are all over the place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On my first trip to Ireland, back in the last few months on\nthe last century, a perfect storm of weekend activities meant that instead of going\nto Galway, I went instead to Doolin. Doolin, a town of about 150 people, is\nright down the road from the Cliffs of Moher, and is home to two pubs known for\ntraditional Irish music. I got a room in the Rainbow Hostel \u2013 the same one I\u2019d stay\nin with two friend about 8 years later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

McDermott\u2019s Pub was right next door, naturally, and I found\nmy way there, naturally. While there I bumped into an old friend (Norm) from\ncollege and watched the big hurling tournament on TV, one of the reasons Galway\nwas a no-go (the other two were a boat race and an arts festival). We drank Guinness\nafter Guinness and I learned the stomach issues that can come with drinking the\nsentiment of the beer. I asked the band to play some Johnny Cash and was mocked\nby my friend up until they did. The town itself reminded me of Brigadoon (yes I\nknow that one\u2019s in Scotland). We walked through fields of mildly grumpy cows\nand bulls to the Cliffs of Moher. We hitched a ride back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eight years later there were three of us. PJ, Jake, and I. The\nThree Stooges. We rented a car, drove on the left, and did the dreaded Donegal\nPass to get to Dingle (very scary and stressful). We hung out in a pub-hardware\nstore in Dingle and a friendly guy at the next table told me with absolute certainty\nwhere my family came from. Did the ghost tour in Galway like typical Americans\nin Ireland. I was in heaven. We spent the night in the itty bitty \u201ctown\u201d of Cloghane,\nwhich boasts about 30 residents and two pubs. We did the pub crawl and hiked\nthrough the village in about a minute and half. We then walked around the\ncemetery of stone mausoleums and tombs until we were too spooked to stay and\nthen we ran home. While there we pretended that the wind blowing in the drapes\nwas a ghost. It was a joke, but we all peered across the street at the\ngraveyard before sleeping. Just to make sure it hadn\u2019t come any closer.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Surely the lure is the lore. The mythology. And the place looks\nlike something out a fairytale. The atmosphere. We have stayed in miniscule\nvillages and on a walk came across a castle. A little while later we walked to a\nvillage of cottages with thatched rooves. We found a pub where we ate dinner in\nfront of a fireplace. On the way back we came across a half caved-in ancient\nstone hamlet. The place begs you to believe in folktales.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On my last trip, about five years ago, we had a mission: to\nfind haunted places. We started in Dublin, rented a car, and drove south to\nBirr and Charleville Castle. This is supposedly the most haunted place in\nIreland and it was certainly ominous even in day. \u201cThe ladies used to hang\ntheir dresses over the soup kettle,\u201d our guide said, \u201cit used to kill the lice\nin their dresses.\u201d Jake elbowed me. \u201cSounds worse than ghosts.\u201d We met a seanachie\n(Irish storyteller) in Sligo. He carved us animals while he told us stories\nabout soldiers and banshees on the Burren. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Galway, where we found ourselves a little less charmed that\nwe had been the last time. We headed north where we found the people like the\naccents: nice, but a little harder than in the south. We spent the night in Derry\nat a hotel run by two Hobbitish Columbians, who were five inches shorter than\nme. I enjoyed the exceptionally novel feeling of towering over someone. Jake\nand I went to the pub and asked about ghosts. A man brought us upstairs to a\nvacant room and told us a story that neither of us could understand a word of.\nJake wrote in his notebook: I hope Damien is getting this, because I don\u2019t understand\na word of it. I had written the exact same thing, except I had put Jake instead\nof my own name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We went to the Giant\u2019s Causeway at 6 am before anyone else\nwas awake. We had ole Finn MacCool\u2019s walkway to ourselves for a good hour. On the\npromenade we had fish and chips so large that we thought one order was both\norders. As we walked away the shopkeeper shouted at me, \u201cLads, you forgot one!\u201d\nWe were stunned as we wandered across the street to the ocean and sat on a\nbench. Half of my fish and most of my chips went to the seagulls, who hung above\nme knowing exactly what was happening.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This trip will be about work. We\u2019re going to teach in the TESOL\nDepartment at the University of Limerick for a week. We\u2019ll spend a few hours a\nday teaching academic literacies and then we\u2019ll explore the bookshops and pubs\nand castles of Limerick. Anyone familiar with the area is welcome to send tips.\nSo far I have two secondhand bookshops in my sights. I have a stone circle, two\ncastles, a bridge, and about fifteen pubs. I\u2019d love a good pub recommendation\nand one for Guinness stew, black pudding, or cottage pie. Could go for a bookshop\nrecommendation too. I promise a full report on all recommendations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always been drawn to Ireland. I think this is because as a kid I was a firm believer in Brownies and Leprechauns. And by \u201cas\u201d a kid I mean \u201csince\u201d I was a kid. It has always seemed a mystical place to me. And while I am very aware of the fact that Ireland […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4908,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/irish-pub.jpg?fit=604%2C450&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1h9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4910,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4907\/revisions\/4910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}