Reverse emigrants

First the departure……(written by Alanna)

It all started with an idea 

manifesting

to a penciled entry on my calendar

Later changing to ink.

As the date drew closer and closer

Loose ends started appearing everywhere

Coming out of crevices

I didn’t know existed.

I tripped repeatedly over them

And as one grabbed my ankle

I fell into a vortex

Of whirling procrastination.

Round and round I went

Until I grabbed the

Dangling loose ends

Pulled myself up

Then tied them all together in a tight knot.

I finished gathering all my belongings

And left.

Breathless, I found my seat, buckled up

And sighed with relief.

The door closed

We taxied and took off.

Peering below were a few more loose ends

Shrinking in the distance

Gyrating like frustrated cobras

Trying to bite me.

But it was too late

I was off.

We arrived in Dublin after a smooth overnight flight and 3 hours in the Amsterdam airport and took our first cab ride with  a chatty Irish cabby to Waterloo Lodge. Groggy, but determined to reset our body clocks, we walked around St. Stephen’s Green area in a fog. We stopped at Queen of Tarts for an afternoon tea break and a scone. Hard to believe, but Mary and Deb were served Stash herbal tea, our Portland tea brand. We made our way back to Waterloo Road in a thunder storm deluge, stopping at Searson’s pub for our first pint of the trip.

The next day we picked up our car and headed to Bru Ana Boinne to visit the 5000 year old passage tombs at Newgrange and Knowth. There was an excellent visitor center and a busy cafe where we grabbed a quick lunch.  Visits to the tombs are by shuttle and guide, all very efficient. Our guides were excellent and we learned a lot about the history of the sites. The most powerful experience was walking into the Newgrange passage, 18 meters lined with tall stone slabs that had been transported from the coast, 50 km away. At the the end were three burial chambers with large granite bowls for cremated remains. Above the chambers was a corbeled roof of overlapping stones that have kept out the rain and overlaying soil for 5000 years. The guide did an impressive demonstration of how the sunrise light on Winter solstice enters the passage and illuminates the back chamber. We started in darkness, then light slowly entered the passage, making its way to the back. So elemental, so powerful. 

Newgrange entrance kerbstone

The ancestral home

Deb’s mother’s family ancestors (Byrne) were from County Cork.  Don’s mother, Sheila Moher, was born in Kilworth, County Cork.  She’s the youngest in this family photo taken in the early 1920’s.  They raised hunter horses and racing greyhounds as well as cows, chickens, ducks and the rest of the farm menagerie.  Sheila’s father, John, with the horses. Uncle Naish and cousin Danny with the greyhounds.

Ireland 2017 – turas na mban

Planning a journey

 

We have been friends for over 30 years, sharing our children’s winding paths to adulthood, the joys and sorrows of day in/day out, celebrating  or commiserating milestones and passages.  We’ve embraced camping and hiking as the Mountain Maidens in the rich wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.  We have shared world travels in Peru, New Zealand, the Camino de Santiago, Paris, Tuscany.  Now the four of us, in our crone years, are traveling together to the Emerald Isle, focusing on the northwest corner: counties Mayo, Clare and Galway.  Alanna inspired the trip, enrolling in a printmaking class in Ballycastle.  Mary, Linda and Deb will meet her at the end of her week long workshop, then spend two weeks exploring.

We have booked airbnbs in Killcummin and Clifden, the Pier House BnB on Inis Mor in the Aran Islands and will spend six days in Ballyvaughn at Stone House.  We hope to walk and read and write and paint and soak up the richness of the Irish culture.

We’ve had guidance from our friend, Noel, who has visited  often and found her poetry muse in the Burren.  She shared this poem by Seamus Haney with us:

  Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park or capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open

Seamus Heaney

Mountain Maiden Memories:

Port Townsend 2010

Hurricane Ridge 2010

Copepod Lake 2012

Golden Lake 2002

 

 

Waldo Lake 2015

Hans at Anthony Lake 2008