The first time the Atlantic wind slapped my face raw, I was standing on the edge of the Cliffs of Moher, coat flapping like a surrender flag, wondering why I\u2019d ever left the safety of a desk job in my city. It was June, but the Irish summer had decided to play coy\u2014sun one minute, sideways rain the next. Below me, the ocean gnawed at the cliffs with the patience of something ancient and hungry. A puffin wheeled overhead, unimpressed by my existential crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d come with a backpack, a rental car the size of a toaster, and a vague plan to \u201cfind myself,\u201d which is code for running away from a breakup and a promotion I didn\u2019t want. Ireland, I figured, had enough myths to swallow one more lost soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dublin greeted me with the smell of peat smoke and fried things. I checked into a hostel in Temple Bar where the bunk above mine was occupied by a snoring Australian who\u2019d tattooed the Southern Cross on his calf \u201cfor the memories.\u201d That night, I wandered into a pub called The Cobblestone, ordered a pint of Guinness that tasted like liquid bread, and listened to a fiddler saw through a reel so fast his bow smoked. An old man with a face like a crumpled map leaned over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re American,\u201d he said. Not a question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGuilty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He nodded, as if that explained everything. \u201cFirst time in Ireland?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He raised his glass. \u201cThen you\u2019re already behind. Sl\u00e1inte.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I drank. The room tilted pleasantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South of Dublin, the mountains rise like the spine of some sleeping giant. I drove the Military Road through the Wicklow Gap, windows down, radio spitting static and snippets of trad music. At Glendalough, I hiked to the upper lake where the ruins of a 6th-century monastery sit reflected in black water. A tour guide told me St. Kevin once lived here as a hermit, praying so hard birds nested in his outstretched hands. I tried it. A crow landed, shat on my wrist, and flew off. Close enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That night, camping wild near the Sally Gap, I woke to the sound of something large moving through the heather. I froze, heart hammering. A shape\u2014tall, pale, four-legged\u2014paused at the edge of the firelight. A wolfhound? Impossible; they\u2019re extinct in the wild. But the eyes glowed amber, and when it turned, the moonlight caught a collar of rusted iron. Then it was gone. I didn\u2019t sleep again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Galway city is a fistfight between color and weather. I busked badly on Shop Street\u2014attempted \u201cDanny Boy\u201d on a borrowed tin whistle\u2014and made three euros and a marriage proposal from a hen party in Sligo. At the Crane Bar, I met Aoife, a marine biologist with a laugh like a cracked bell. She bought me a whiskey and told me about the currach races off Inishmore, how the Aran Islands still speak Irish like it\u2019s 1952.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou should go,\u201d she said. \u201cBefore the tourists ruin it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ferry to Inishmore bucked like a drunk mule. On the island, I rented a bike with one gear and the structural integrity of a soggy biscuit. I cycled to D\u00fan Aonghasa, a fort perched on a 300-foot cliff, stones arranged in semicircles like the ribs of a giant. The wind up there could peel paint. I lay on my stomach and peered over the edge. The sea boiled white. A French tourist screamed. I laughed until I cried, or maybe the wind did it for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later, a local farmer named P\u00e1draig showed me Poll na bP\u00e9ist\u2014the Serpent\u2019s Lair\u2014a rectangular hole in the cliff where the ocean funnels in and out with a sound like a dying god. \u201cRed Bull divers jump it,\u201d he said. \u201cMad bastards.\u201d I asked if anyone local ever tried. He spat. \u201cWe\u2019ve sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
West of Galway, Connemara is a place God sketched in pencil and forgot to color. I drove the Sky Road at dusk, the Atlantic on one side, mountains on the other, both lit the color of bruised peaches. In a pub in Clifden, I ate lamb stew so good I considered proposing to the cook. A man with a concertina played \u201cThe Parting Glass.\u201d Half the room sang. I didn\u2019t know the words, but I hummed the shape of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That night, I slept in the car beside Kylemore Abbey. The moon rose full and obscene over the lake. I dreamed of the wolfhound again, but this time it spoke with my ex\u2019s voice: \u201cYou can\u2019t outrun geography.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Ring of Kerry is a 111-mile loop of postcard abuse. I stopped at Ladies\u2019 View, where Queen Victoria\u2019s ladies-in-waiting allegedly swooned. I swooned too, but mostly from low blood sugar. In Killarney, I hiked Torc Waterfall and met a donkey named Seamus who followed me for a mile, braying every time I tried to take a photo. I gave him an apple. He ate it, stared at me with liquid eyes, and said\u2014clear as day\u2014\u201cFeck off, Yank.\u201d I swear on my passport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dingle town is a crayon box spilled across a peninsula. I ate fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, watched surfers wipe out in Brandon Bay, and learned that Fungie, the famous dolphin, had vanished years ago. \u201cTourist board keeps the statue,\u201d the chip shop guy shrugged. \u201cPeople need something to believe in.\u201d That night, I swam in the dark harbor anyway. Something brushed my leg\u2014seal, dolphin, my imagination. I didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The boat to Skellig Michael left at dawn, slicing through swells that made my stomach file for divorce. The island rises from the sea like a broken tooth. 618 steps later, lungs on fire, I stood among beehive huts where monks once copied manuscripts and fought off Vikings with prayers and bad attitudes. A puffin nested in St. Michael\u2019s skull, according to legend. I found only guano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the way down, the guide pointed to Little Skellig, white with gannets. \u201cFifty thousand birds,\u201d he said. \u201cWorld\u2019s second-largest colony.\u201d The noise was biblical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cork city smells of river and rebellion. I kissed the Blarney Stone\u2014hanging upside down while a man with a death grip on my belt shouted \u201cMind the gap!\u201d\u2014and gained the gift of gab, or possibly vertigo. At the English Market, I ate drisheen and white pudding and pretended to like it. In the Butter Museum, I learned Ireland once exported 80 million pounds of butter a year, packed in firkins. I bought a souvenir firkin. It\u2019s a coaster now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Northern Ireland sneaked up on me like a plot twist. The Causeway Coastal Route is a dragon\u2019s spine of cliffs and castles. At the Giant\u2019s Causeway, I walked the basalt columns\u2014hexagons stacked like nature\u2019s Lego\u2014and listened to the guide tell the story of Finn McCool, the giant who built the causeway to fight a Scottish rival, then disguised himself as a baby to scare him off. \u201cTypical Irish solution,\u201d she said. \u201cTalk big, then cheat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I crossed the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge in a gale. Thirty meters above the sea, it swayed like a drunk tightrope walker. I did not look down. I lied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Belfast is a city that remembers too much. I walked the Peace Wall, still dividing Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods, covered in murals and hope in spray paint. At the Titanic Museum, I stood in a replica of the third-class staircase and felt the weight of 1,500 ghosts. That night, in the Crown Liquor Saloon, I drank with a former shipyard worker who\u2019d riveted the Titanic\u2019s sister ship. \u201cWe built the world,\u201d he said, \u201cthen watched it sink.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I flew out of Dublin at sunrise, the Liffey glinting like a coin dropped by the gods. In my pocket: a pebble from the Giant\u2019s Causeway, a puffin feather, and Seamus the donkey\u2019s tooth (he bit me; fair trade). The wolfhound never reappeared, but sometimes, in the hum of jet engines, I hear its paws on heather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ireland didn\u2019t give me answers. It gave me better questions. And a permanent craving for soda bread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you go, bring waterproof everything. And a spare heart. The first one will get stolen by a fiddler, a farmer, or a donkey who knows your name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-questions-answers","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/forum.timesofu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/forum.timesofu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/forum.timesofu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forum.timesofu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forum.timesofu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11012"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/forum.timesofu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11014,"href":"http:\/\/forum.timesofu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11012\/revisions\/11014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/forum.timesofu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forum.timesofu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forum.timesofu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}