Cassandra Lewis

When we arrived at the airport near Galway Bay (on the west coast of Ireland) the clerk asked each of us to stand on a luggage scale. She wrote down my name and my weight, which included my backpack’s. After each person in our group of eighteen was weighed, she made a list in order from lightest to heaviest and separated us accordingly. To my surprise, I was the lightest and was taken to the plane first along with another woman, a very kind Dubliner named Mary.

This type of plane is called a Britten Norman Islander and only seats eight people. It’s so small that the seats, when they’re not occupied, fold on top of each other like a line of dominoes. Mary and I sat in the very last row. The plane seemed even smaller as the six others piled in.

The engine wasn’t as loud as I expected–I could still hear my heart come close to an attack. Even before we were off the ground the plane convulsed and there was a repetitive creak like metal grinding on metal, over and over. It was raining and I kept thinking of all the plane crashes I’d read about over the years that happened in small planes like these–bigger than these, actually. I calmed myself by remembering that the casualties were always famous and for ten minutes I was thankful that I wasn’t famous.

Mary made the sign of the cross as the wheels left the ground and she later told me that she carried holy water in her bag for this occasion.

We flew from Galway Bay to Inishmore, the largest of the three islands that make up the Aran Islands:

We thanked the pilot profusely after his successful landing.

After we landed, we waited around the one-room place called the airport in Inishmore to be picked up by a van. There was a funeral and since the island is so small this caused an impossible traffic jam and the driver couldn’t reach us on time.

We were there long enough to hear about the dead body that was found in the River Shannon. We crossed over this river on the train from Dublin to Galway only a few hours earlier. Many of the sites I’ve seen in Ireland and much of the literature I’ve studied are sobering collisions of the macabre and the beautiful.

Finally a van picked us up and gave us a very quick tour of Inishmore. Here are a few sites:

Even though the island is only nine miles by two miles, there are three thousand miles of stone walls dividing the place. Part of this is to prevent wandering livestock, but really they have too many rocks. The island used to be all rock, but over the years, the people piled the rocks and incorporated seaweed into their farming, making their own soil. Here’s what much of the ground looks like:

We hiked up to an old fort called Dun Aonghusa. It was made as a place to hide from and search for enemies. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.

Metaphor for life: If you’re not paying attention you could just wander off into the abyss.

I could have spent the rest of my life there, but we had to catch the van back to the airport. Here are some more in-flight pics from the sky:

I got to spend a couple of hours in Galway before catching the last train to Dublin. They’re having their annual arts festival and it seems like a very cool place.

I didn’t want to leave Galway. Even the train station is entertaining.

I took a day trip to Wicklow on Saturday. Railtours Ireland is the best invention since Guinness. They organize single-day to four-day trips that include all modes of transportation and accommodation. All you have to do is show up at either the Connolly or Heuston train station and men wearing bright yellow jackets will meet you with an itinerary and show you where to go (better men in yellow than the ones in white jackets).

We met at Connolly station and took the train to Arklow. Here’s the view from the train:

Our first stop was to Avoca, one of the last Irish factories where wool blankets are made. It’s also where the BBC decided to film a sitcom (Colin Farrell’s first serious role). They centered it around a pub that was originally called Kelly’s, named after the owner. However, the BBC didn’t think Kelly sounded Irish enough so Kelly renamed his bar to Fitzgerald’s and he never changed it back even now, thirteen years after the show was cancelled:

We drove to Glendalough, a truly mystifying place:

A strange thing happened. As I walked toward the water you see above there, I thought “Wow, this is where I want to be buried someday.” I’m usually pretty morbid, but I never think so specifically about death. And unbeknownst to me, shortly after I had this thought, we were led to a graveyard. (Unfortunately, it was only for monks). The graveyard is part of an old monastic city dating back to the 600s:

A king’s tombstone:

Then we went further down the road to another monastic city from the 600s, one that’s famous for its tower. The monks used to run up to the top of it when they were under attack:

The inside of the old monastery:

An old graveyard and church near the tower:

I finally learned about Celtic crosses. When the Christians came over to Ireland in the 6th Century the pagan Celts incorporated their intricate knotwork and art into the symbol of the cross and added a sun behind it. So it was the pagans who created the Celtic cross. Apparently, Celtic crosses are not accepted by the Catholic church, though I saw one on top of a cathedral out here. If anyone knows more about this, please enlighten me. I’m very interested in the history and the aesthetics of the art.
Here’s the road back from the bus:

Our tour guide, Jack Ahern, was so kind and insightful. He even gave my roommate and I his map and bus schedule and saved us ten euro by explaining how we could have a lovely walk by the grand canal from the train station instead of taking a taxi.

Seriously, if you visit Ireland and are deathly afraid of driving a stick shift on the left side of the road like I am, it’s best to go travel with Railtours Ireland.

While I’m advertising here, if you want to see more of my pictures, check out my online photo album.

Okay, now I have to get ahead on my final assignments so I can travel next weekend.

Jameson has always been my favorite drink. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I ended up at the Old Jameson Distillery.

It’s called that because they no longer distill the whiskey in Dublin. It’s now made in Cork, but they’ve kept the old distillery open for tourists to spend all their money on engraved whiskey bottles and Irish coffee (which I still believe was invented in San Francisco).

As long as you realize the tour is going to be filled with bad jokes, wax dummies of Irish workers, and an old cat that was once believed to bring luck (but has since been stuffed by a taxodermist) then you’ll have a good time.

Aside from reconfirming my love for Jameson-despite their tacky commercial endeavors-I learned the basic difference between Irish whiskey, scotch and American whisky (Americans drop the “e” in whiskey):

Irish whiskey is distilled three times in old port or sherry casks (hence its color)

Scotch is distilled twice (in who knows what)

American whisky is distilled only once in new barrels (the origins of its color?)

There’s your lesson for the day. I’ll be back later to tell you about Trinity College and the Book of Kells. And, what, you may be wondering is the connection between whiskey and old Christian manuscripts? Whiskey was invented by Irish monks to be used as perfume, but they soon discovered a much better use for it. Whether they were drinking it when they wrote the Book of Kells no one knows for sure. But I have my own beliefs.

Last weekend Siobhán Ní Chonchúir and Megan Markey took us on the greatest weekend trip of my life. We went to Killarney and Dingle in County Kerry, which is on the southwest coast of Ireland.

Friday 30 June 2006

The landscape from the jaunting car:

We arrived at the Muckross Estate and wandered around the gardens for an hour. The plants were unusual and oversized. I felt like I’d stumbled into a book of fairytales or Alice in Wonderland.

If you look closely you’ll see this tree has wrinkles like a human:

We explored Killarney National park by boat until we arrived at Ross Castle:

This is the only time you’ll ever see me in orange:

Here’s the Captain and Sam. (Sam is the dog):

Ross Castle:

After touring the castle we hopped on a bus to Dingle, where Siobhán is from.

These are shots from the bus window:

The program paid for our dinner at Paudie’s Bar and afterwards we took a walk around Dingle and ended up at Murphy’s Pub where there was an engagement party and live music.

Bosco O Conchúir gave us a tour of the Dingle Peninsula.

Here are some scenic shots taken from inside the bus and outside (see if you can distinguish just by looking):

We stopped to look at Ogham stones. Ogham was the Gaelic alphabet during pre-Christian times.

Many Irish-speaking writers have hailed from the Blasket Islands.

This one is nicknamed “the dead man” and you’ll see why if you examine its horizontal shape:

Along the way we saw Beehive Huts, stone huts that were inhabited from ancient times to 1200 AD.

The best part was the trip to the beach called Com Dhineol:

I thought of Drew for many reasons and the only one I’ll go into is that July 1st was our third anniversary. Here I wrote a note in the sand:

(By the way, there’s a comma after “anniversary,” but I lost it in the shot).

Sunday, 2 July 2006

Some of us closed down Murphy’s Pub the night before. We were almost seasick during our morning boat tour of Dingle Bay. The tour was to find the town’s dolphin named Fungie. We found him within an hour, but we kept circling until the captain realized some of us aren’t normally quite as chalky-white as we were that day.

We returned to Dublin via bus and train and made it back to Leeson Street before nine at night.

I’m going to try to take at least one day trip each weekend (I’d take longer trips but the workload is too demanding, and it just doubled now that I’ve switched workshops). Dublin’s a great city, but the Irish landscape outside of the city is truly remarkable. It’s an amalgamation of everything beautiful I’ve ever seen or imagined in my life.