Green Gem of the Silver Sea

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The Ferry to Ireland was completely unnecessary due to the fact that I had a plane ticket that would have taken flown me from Frankfurt to Dublin but the overwhelming novelty of it all made the sea voyage inescapable. For my first visit to Ireland I thought it’d be ironic to come by boat, even if it was from France.

Winter-like weather in Dublin was a cold reminder that I hadn’t been anywhere, aside from Nepal and that’s a whole different ball of wax, which required multiple layers of clothing in the absence of precipitation. It was sooo cold I was on the verge of buying a big woolly Aran sweater, not as a souviner, but as a necessity. I’m just glad that I held on to the corduroy blazer I bought in Vietnam, I’ve worn it religiously for the past week!

Ireland is the first country that has shown me that rain and simultaneous sunshine is possible and often a likely occurrence. I’ve always been under the assumption that one prevented the other but not on the Emerald Isle. No sir. But the one solid way I found to avoid the strange weather was to avoid it all together by spending as much time inside the local pubs as possible.

As I understand it, there aren’t many museums worthy of note (discounting the Butter Museum in Cork) to go along with some interesting churches in Dublin and throughout Ireland but the most religious of experiences that I incurred during my stay in the Emerald Isle was sipping on a Guinness trying to figure out just what the HELL kind of sport Curling is. There were World Cup matches just about every night, which if my last few blogs haven’t indicated, all of Europe basically stops whatever they are doing regardless of whether or not their team is playing and tunes into the game. So it goes that Pubs supplant Museums on a more bountiful ratio and Sports are like Religion though one might go so far to say that Sports in Ireland ARE Religion.

With all that explained as the canvas for the painting of my trip to Ireland, throw in some famous Castles, some train rides, a few bus rides, weird shepards and even weirder sheep, a lot of rolling green hills, (not just a cliché, they are breathtaking and everywhere you look) and you’ve got a decent idea what its like to run through the country of my Lynch ancestors in about a week.

After my birthday, my cousin Carolyn allowed me to be ‘the guy on the couch’ in the common room of dormitory style housing at Dublin City University for her summer internship. At about the point when people started to ask her and her roommate, “umm, how long is he staying?” we split out of Dublin and headed south to the land of Lynchs, Cork. I’m often surprised when people ask me what kind of name Lynch is. It is one of the most popular last names in Ireland. From what I’ve learned, there are two separate clans of Lynchs that are known to be from different parts of Ireland.

The first clan, the ones that loan our name to the term hanging someone, come from Galway where the King served as executioner for his son who was sentenced to death by hanging. The remnants of the Galway Lynchs are preserved at Lynch Castle, where you can apply for a loan and get a mortgage for your house. Lynch Castle is now a Bank and it is hardly a Castle. I walked past it three times without noticing it while referencing my map.

The Clan of Lynchs that good old Grandpa Cornelius Lynch left behind, stem from Cork County. In the town of Cobv, where Carolyn and I went to uncover some history, we found nothing but a small little museum commemorating the mass exodus during the potato famine whose staff was unwilling to help in our genealogical search, instead referring us only to a ten euro packet that contained passenger lists for steamers headed to America.

Blarney Castle was a major attraction for some reason, and like lemmings we stood in line and climbed the stairs of the barren Castle to the top where the Blarney Stone lies hidden inside the Castle wall. Now consider me foolish, but I thought the Blarney Stone would be some Sword in the Stone type of monument that was visible for all around. I knew that you had to kiss it in much the manner of a keg stand but I had no idea it was at the top of the Castle until I got there. It was not a disappointment, not at all, but more a right of passage for any Irish tourist.

Did you kiss the Blarney Stone?
Yes, yes I did.
Did you get a certificate that said you kissed it?
No, I took a picture instead. They wanted ten Euros for the certificate.

It is a crying shame that I didn’t get a chance to spend more time in Ireland but the simple logistics of my trip are beginning to elaborate from a see the world in seven months type of jaunt to a checklist of places I’ve shorted and will now need to return. I could have spent a week in the Ring of Kerry, in which we spent all of 30 hours.

I also missed a going to the Aran Islands which is apparently one of the highlights of the whole country. I’m excluding Northern Ireland for a few reasons, among them, as my Uncle put it, “Ah, that’s not Ireland, that’s just where all those Protty Bastards live.” Basically, the UK and their silly pound is just too expensive these days and while I’m seeing the highlights of most of the countries I’ve visited recently, anywhere in the UK would be limited to the bare minimum.

Though there are many places in this world that may or may not be considered more exotic or more desirable destinations for vacations, I do plan to return to Ireland in the near future to explore some more of my roots and give the details of this island more attention than the broad stroke this trip has turned into.

While in Ireland, I managed to get a hold of a friend of a friend who’s been living and working in Madrid so I hastened to get moving and meet up with him for the 4th of July. Next stop: Espana!

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