Coole Park; Aran Islands; Galway; Cliffs of Moher

Rachel faces writing about places that famous people have already described

We left as a class a week ago today for the Aran Islands, with a four-hour stop at Coole Park, the retreat of Lady Gregory, famous Irish writer, whose guests included Synge, Yeats, Wilde, and nearly every other writer of the period. We then got to the ferry, took it to Innis Meain, and after spending two nights there got back to the mainland, into Galway, and saw the city for a day before taking a bus tour of the Cliffs of Moher. Friday and Saturday nightlife seen in Galway, then back to Cork for the first week of class.

The lead-in is a tipoff: I don't really know what to say about these places that hasn't already been said, much more beautifully and articulately, by dozens of famous writers throughout history. So, just to put everything on the table, I'll borrow their words to start.

Coole Park

'Under my window ledge the waters race,

Otters below and moor-hens on the top,

Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven's face,

Then darkening through 'dark' Raftery's 'cellar' drop,

Run underground, rise in a rocky place

In Coole demesne, and there to finish up

Spread to a lake and drop into a hole.

What's water but the generated soul?'
W.B. Yeats 'Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931'

Innis Meain

"...the sun is shining with a luminous warmth that makes the whole island glisten with the splendor of a gem, and fills the sea and sky with a radiance of blue light. I have come out to lie on the rocks where I have the black edge of the north island in front of me, Glaway Bay, too blue almost to look at, on my right, the Atlantic on my left, a perpendicular cliff under my ankles, and over me innumerable gulls that chase each other ina white cirrus of wings."

J.M. Synge, The Aran Islands

The Cliffs of Moher

"Look! The Cliffs of Insanity!"

The Princess Bride (probably misquoted; I couldn't find a transcript :) But they're one and the same!)

So, I saw these things, and I couldn't stay in any of these places long enough, and if I was told I could hike around Ireland for the rest of my life without starving to death or being maimed by wolves (foxes, I think, are actually the largest predator here) I would totally do it. Well, I would do it if I could still visit home regularly. Okay, maybe I wouldn't commit the rest of my life to exploring Ireland on any realistic condition, but I know that all I'm seeing now will probably become my most cherished memories, and I'm very grateful.



Coole Park is unequal parts manicured gardens and lawns and wooded trails through a forest so dense it would be difficult to stray from the dirt paths, paths formed and maintained by footsteps alone for hundred of years. Lady Gregory and her contemporaries are world famous as those who revived the Irish literary tradition and made it internationally known, and they communed in this space and composed much of their work in the shade of these trees, in the hush of this solitude. I thought about that when I walked alone down the lake path and almost stumbled into the water. There was a suddeness to the surroundings, a strange silent immediacy. Across the lake, cattle grazed unaware by the ruins of a stone fort. I looked over my shoulder to find the sun producing a visual warmth in the uppermost branches of the impossibly tall trees. Accustomed to prairies and evergreen forests, the height and sprawl of the deciduous trees here often startles me.



It would take days to walk every trail and appreciate every detail, to trace through journals of writers long dead each of their favorite spots to contemplate and write. We had a few hours, so we shed sweatshirts and enjoyed the strangely warm weather, then got back on the bus.



I found myself pensive, a little withdrawn from the company of my classmates but still happy they were there. We boarded the ferry in the chillier air coming off the sound of the Atlantic that separates Galway bay from the three Aran islands. Aran, or Innismor, is the largest and the primary tourist destination, offering the usual comforts of popular Irish areas: restaurants, "authentic" pubs, hotels and hostels. Innisoirr is the smallest, and between then is Innismeain, which translates to "middle island" in Irish (more commonly called Gaelic, but watch what you say over here!). It was too cold to stay on the deck so we retreated below and watched for the island to appear through a crest of mist. We missed it, and then we were confused as to which shore belonged to which island, but we did go up to take some pictures as we approached and docked. My impressions were specific: the contrast of gray rock and vivid grass so common in this country, a silver beach, the elevated center of the island crowned in a ring of rock wall our instructor identified as one of four pre-christian fort ruins.



Struggling with our luggage, we divided into three groups after dismounting the ferry. Aside from our class, there had been two other passengers, residents of the island who worked on the mainland. Some overturned boats were rowed on a rack at the foot of the dock, and I could see a very old unoccupied building with a sign on the wall facing us listing the distance to the nearest hotel - a joke, since the island doesn't have one. What it did have was a narrow paved road clotted in that moment by two cars testing the capacity of its width as they slowly passed one another in opposite directions, side mirrors within inches of the bordering rock walls. Houses also appeared, stucco walls in white or soft pastel, slate roofs, reliably rectangular in their architecture.



With a population of 250 people and a land area spare enough its circumference can be walked in a little more than two hours, the island has only recently emerged from pre-modernity. Some homes still have thatched roofs, literally bunches of grass positioned and then secured by a net attached to the vertical walls by pegs. Electricity was introduced in 1975 but not widely used until a decade later, and the people, like others in rural western Ireland, primarily speak Irish and are awkward in English.



The home myself and the other vegetarians were assigned was nearest the dock, overlooking the beach. We towed our luggage the short distance to its door, greeted by a friendly border collie cross of some kind (naturally I stopped to take her picture). There were bedrooms enough upstairs that we divided into pairs. Our room had one double bed my roommate was kind enough to let me have, a second twin bed, a dresser and closet and a window with a lovely view out over the island and part of the coast. Dinner was immediately, and even though our vegetarianism hadn't been disclosed before our arrival and we wound up eating plain noodles with salt in lieu of the tomato and meat sauce, it tasted great after a long day on the bus.



Instead of visiting the island's one pub, we fell asleep after showers and woke up for breakfast the next morning. Non-vegetarians had a full Irish breakfast - this includes blood sausage, regular sausage, ham and bacon - and the rest of us drank fresh hot tea, ate fresh brown bread with marmelade, with an optional bowl of rice crispies. The overcast weather of the day before had burnt off to a beautiful clear blue sky. Every islander appeared to be outdoors to enjoy the sunshine, and several of them mentioned the unusual warmth of the day. Deb, Hailey, Meg and I donned short sleeves and flip flops and rolled up our pants to wade in the gentle waves off the metallic beach. Then we napped, read or wrote alternately the rest of the morning on the warm sand. After lunch - also provided by our hostesses - we walked some trails and went to the Aran Knitwear factory, where we avoided the regularly priced cable sweaters - up to 1000 euro! - and found some good deals in the clearance bins. For a world-famous clothing store, the place was modest. We had to go to the factory entrance and ask for the store to be unlocked, since there aren't visitors enough to keep it staffed all the time.



That evening we did make it to the pub, trying not to associate too closely with our 20 plus classmates in an effort to experience the day to day ambience of the place. By the time 11 pm hit we were ready for bed, as we'd made plans to get up early enough to see the sun rise.



It was pretty cold at 5:30 am, and we wanted to get up to the apex of the island - the fort we'd seen on the ferry coming in - for the best view of the eastern sky. However, we couldn't see the signs well in the penetrating dark of the unlit island, and after a few wrong turns and dead ends, finally went near the eastern shore on a platform of rock to look out over the dock at the horizon. It wound up being a good vantage point, and the way the light interacted with the water and the silhouette of the neighboring Innismor was breathtaking. We waited until the full spectrum of pinks and blues had layered themselves before walking back for a nap before breakfast. (It's difficult, here, to convince any Irish person breakfast should be eaten before 10 am.)



We packed our things and hiked up the uninhabited northern shore, where the true island shows its face. Settlers thousands of years ago on the east coast stacked rock into intricate networks of fences, walls of barns and sheds, in an effort not only to produce necessary construction but also to expose the rock-choked soil for some degree of agricultural utilization. They still farm these patches by hand, with scythes, and only the occasional ancient Massey-Ferguson tractor barely larger than a stationwagon. Anyway, to the north traversing the landscape literally involves walking from one large rock to the next, avoiding the unstable smaller rocks that will cave under one's weight. It's worth it, though, to find the cliffshore along the northeast edge. It was slippery there with a neon-bright green moss, and a more troubled day - clouds, a stiff wind - produced pearls of waves below us. The day before had been wonderful, but finding the island today in a typical, and more characteristic mood also felt good.



Too soon, it was time to leave. The ferry rocked violently as it turned its longside against the waves in order to dock. Girls were dispensing dramamine in large numbers, but I've never been seasick, and thought I would be okay. The passage wound up being very exciting, though the ferry staff never seemed alarmed. We learned from a classmate that we were aboard the only ferry company never to have a vessel sink in an attempt to reach Innis Meain. I suppose that was meant to be reasurring. I thought of the journal we read for class, by JM Synge, author of Riders to the Sea and Playboy of the Western World. He wrote dispassionately of the island of his age, when lightweight boats composed largely of canvas were the main mode of reaching the Galway bay, and the drowning of husbands and sons was an understood element of life on the island. I could easily see how this was so, as our large, heavy modern craft was pitched carelessly about by the modest activity of the water.



Back on land, we reloaded our bus for the return trip to Cork, though almost all of us had asked to be dropped off in Galway. The city was beautiful, but I was still daydreaming about islands and all of their literal and symbolic solitude, so it took me a bit to warm up to it. We met other friends there, and some of us went out that night while others of us (me included!) recovered with a modest dinner out and familiarization with our hostel, a small 40 bed operation with naked women painted artfully on its stairwell walls.



The next day we wandered Galway and bought supplies for some hostel cooking. Meg chopped and then I sauteed a stir fry while they readied themselves for our much-anticipated Galway night out hosted by our one and only native acquaintance, Bryan, who tolerates us en masse because he's smitten with Megan. (Who can blame him? So am I!)



Anyway, while I was heating up the wok I met a beautiful couple from Israel, part of a group of four visiting Ireland for one month. He spoke excellent English and I'm pretty sure she did not; that or she wasn't interested in talking to me, though she seemed friendly. They were preparing a kosher meal for their Jewish passover, to be eaten at sunset, complete with wine and candles. Their table setting inspired me to organize a sit-down meal with my friends, and it was interesting to talk to them about their experience of Ireland and thoughts about the US presidential election.



After dinner, which was large but delicious, we went out. There were twelve of us staying in two hostels, and Bryan had only assembled four friends. I scolded him halfheartedly for this, secretly glad he hadn't managed to get together the matching number promised. On a roof in a beer garden is the prime place for a fun night out, and I was amazed as always by how much I genuinely like every girl in this enormous pack of "biddies," as we've come to call ourselves. We stayed until shooed out by management, collapsed at the hostel, and woke up at 9 am for the Cliffs of Moher tour bus the next day.



I know what I said about never getting on a tour bus again, but I do have a history of issuing second chances despite my best instincts. Anyway, this one was not so bad, although the leadup drive through the Burren en route to the Cliffs easily lost my interest. I fell asleep a few times but when we stopped in Doolin, the little city just by the Cliffs themselves, I took a walk to refresh myself while the others ate their lunch. I was ashamed to enjoy so much finally being alone. In my brief Doolin stroll I took in a tiny record store that only sold music produced in Ireland, several fair trade coffee shops, and a spot for horseback rides along the beach and minor cliffs below those of Moher. I made some mental notes and mentally planned a solo trip to this little place on the walk back. Blackberries sprung up from the roadside in such multitude I barely had to slow my step to pick them as I walked by. There's something to be said for a free lunch.



At the parking lot off the Cliffs of Moher there wasn't much to see except a disappointing abundance of fellow tourists and a walled cement walkway along the edge of the earth along which the cliffs presumably ran, but the angle was wrong to actually see anything but the point at which the grass ended and the sky began. A few cement stairs later and they came into view, as vast and breathtaking as anything can be, stretching up a colossal 700 feet from the turbulent ocean at an almost perfectly vertical incline. It was hard to hear the water, but that might have been less because of physical distance and more because of the presence of several tour bus loads of people. Even in this kind of company, barred from reaching the actual edge by the newly constructed wall, the experience was powerful.

Of course, then we climbed over the wall and went to the physical edge, but I won't write too much about that, since I expect aunts, a mother and a grandmother to read this. :)

Now I'm home - in Cork! at home in Cork! - and tired and going to my introductory English class Wednesday with nothing else to do all week except laundry and some cooking...and blog posting! Sorry about how long this one got, but there was much to say and probably more I could have said that I avoided saying precisely to prevent myself from writing a novel-length blogpost. And now my mind is exhausted; the evidence is in the previous sentence, which is grammatically convoluted, a direction this sentence seems to be heading, too. Love to all!