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| Aughris Beach |
Mid-August. The sun was making a very good impression on us all, having been out for most of the month so far. According to several people we know, this has been the best summer weather for decades. We took the road out west to the beaches of County Sligo to make the most of the fading summer warmth. Around here, autumn doesn’t just creep up on you during September. Oh no no no. It comes up behind you and says “boo!” and before you’re ready to put away the shorts, you’re taking the thicker coat off the hanger and ironing a few long-sleeve shirts.
The kids
were doing their best to sound intelligent by asking a lot of preposterous questions:
“Do dinosaurs brush their teeth?” “Do unicorns eat breakfast?” “Do boats fly?”
“Where does spaghetti come from?” I answered as well as I could: “Dinosaurs use
children to climb in their mouths and pick pieces of rotting flesh out of the
gaps in their teeth.” “Unicorns don’t eat breakfast. They have brunch
because they’re American and they prefer to prepare a huge and wasteful meal
later in the morning, then leave half of it.” “Have you ever seen a flying
boat? Nope, neither have I. Oh look up there above that mountain, it’s a boat!
You missed it, it sank inside that cloud. I hope the crew managed to fly to
safety.” “Spaghetti comes from Swiss spaghetti farms where they grow on trees.
Take a look at this BBC documentary on it.” For developing critical thinking, I
believe I’ve taken an extreme route, but it is actually working. Nonetheless,
it keeps us amused and allows me to flex my imagination every so often.
Anyhow, we headed
out west for a final fling on the beach before the whole summer curtain came
crashing down a few days later. I was going to return to the same location we
had visited the previous week but I changed my mind as I discovered a lovely
place called Dunmoran Beach, a little further this time, and not too far from
what seemed like a decent seaside rural pub. The beach experience was fairly
short-lived as the skies kept threatening to cloud over and ruin summer. The
children seemed content enough to play in the sand, albeit with some extra
clothing, but Livia braved the waves and ventured quite far into the sea. This
meant I also had to go in: I would need to make sure she didn’t hazard a trip into
waters where she couldn’t touch the floor. She is sensible in her own way, but
the current can play some awful tricks.
Once she had
had enough and the clouds were gathering, she went to wrap up and play on the
sand instead, so I took myself for a walk along the beach. The sun, obscured
and weak, was in a losing battle against the rampant forces of gloomy weather, but
we were determined to enjoy our day at the coast. We packed up our stuff and
made a move to the pub, called simply Beach Bar, in a hamlet known as Aughris.
It was heaving with people, as well as cars, camper vans, motorhomes, cyclists,
and coastal hikers. It was like one of those novels where you passed through a
veil into another dimension. Most people were there to soak up the sun, which
had mysteriously won its war against the clouds, albeit too late for us to have
enjoyed it. I drove around the precariously narrow roadways and parked in a gap
close to the pub.
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| Beach Bar |
They had space for us near a window, and we sat down to wait for the menu. And what a beauty it was. Proper beef in Guinness pie, Irish stew, and other culinary masterpieces stood out on the page. Bonny Bee and I had those two, and the children had some crowd-pleasing shiny beige fare. But then came the desserts – I took a warm dark chocolate brownie, which was a most arduous decision because of the constant pressure from the hot sticky toffee pudding and the apple pie and custard. But I did not regret my decision for one second, as it was one of those desserts, that when you put a piece in your mouth, you can hear the nearby playing of cherubim and seraphim on their harps and the voices of ten thousand angels in twelve-tone harmony.
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| Choco-gasm |
At the end of
the meal, it was still only half past three. We went for a walk along the beach
path to digest all the food. We had reached no more than about fifty metres when
we came to a shallow stream discharging its clear water over some
light-coloured rocks across the beach, and into the sea. Of course, the
children wanted to stop at this point and play in the shallow waters. I was
determined to get in some walking as after the substantial lunch, I felt like a
wheelbarrow with a tyre-flattening load.
The sea
front at Aughris is like a lot of Western Ireland’s coastline: just enough paved
area not to disturb the landscape, and what’s there looks like it’s supposed to
be there; it’s a good, honest compromise between human incursion and trying to
keep nature unspoilt. The path led from the car park to a grassy campervan park,
then having crossed a bridge over the stream, a boreen took us between a farm
and the beach, before landing at some windswept farmhouses at the far end. It
was quite lovely on this calm August day, but I am quite sure I would not want
to be here in the winter when the Atlantic storms blow in.
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| Boreen by the beach |
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| Seaside farm |
We walked
along the boreen for a while and greeted the cows in the paddock there before
returning to the stream, sheltered by the surrounding buildings and campervans.
The children played happily in that area for quite a long time.
Once
everyone had run out of energy, I proposed we all head to the car and take a
drive into Sligo, a place I knew nothing about, but was willing to get
acquainted with. And it was a markedly surprising encounter: the sun was
delightfully warm, and the city centre’s riverside bars were teeming with
hedonistic and soon-to-be impoverished beer guzzlers, getting tanked on
seven-euro pints and singing along to some famous Irish songs like The Fields
of Athenry and Tell Me Ma. We could hear them on the other side of the river as
we lingered near the main footbridge, a joyful and photogenic flower-festooned
pedestrian crossing linking the two car-free halves of the city centre. This
could have been Utrecht, Odense, Toruń or Lübeck, but it was north-western
Ireland on a summer’s evening.
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| Sligo Riverside |
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| Sligo road bridge in the background |
We stopped at a café terrace right above the water and sat next to the bridge watching the people go by, some stopping for photos. The handsome road bridge, about 100 metres further up, has seven arches and is a very well-used background for selfies. After cake and coffee, we sauntered around the riverside square where there is a city logo in huge wooden lettering with seating and ladders for children to climb up. Sligo is a fun, young city with a lot going for it. I would recommend it on any road trip around the island.
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| Weekend revelry |
On Sunday 17 August, we had our really last summer outing to Derrycassin Wood, sadly devastated in last winter’s Storm Darragh and Storm Eowyn, but still a haven of wildlife and a decent walk in the evening sun. The children have really taken to Ireland, and they have gladly accepted that there’s no going back. I don’t think they want to, in any case: they too had their issues with Spain.
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| Derrycassin Wood |
On the
Wednesday of the second week of the course, the children’s school term was due
to begin, making my days rather eventful. Nonetheless, the process pales into
insignificance when compared to the average routine in Germany/Luxembourg a mere
30 months earlier. That was the purest definition of strain: the day would
start a little before 6, which was its most harrowing in midwinter. We would
get ready in the bathroom, eat breakfast, then jump in the car a little after
half-past seven in order to go to another country to learn and work. The
journey to Luxembourg took a little under 40 minutes when the traffic was
clear, but could take well over an hour at peak times, especially if there was
an accident. Their school started at 8.30, and was nearer Belgium than Germany,
so I had to go round the ring of Luxembourg City and enter on the western side
of town. I created several playlists on Spotify in order to pass the time in
the car.
Now, though,
we are getting up after 8am, as it takes a maximum of two songs to reach the
school and the days pass so much more slowly than before. That means we can all
get so much more done if we really want to. Bonny Bee can spend a lot more time
translating, and I can get on with my writing as well as driving the children
around, grocery shopping, cooking, gardening, preparing the house, going for
walks, photographing the landscape, feeding my muesli to next-door’s lovely chickens,
staring at sheep, and other essential activities. In a way, I am now a full-time
author with a lot of side-duties.
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| School uniforms |
On Saturday 23 August, we wanted to go to a museum commemorating the Battle of the Boyne in County Meath, a good hour and a half away. The drive there was, as usual, very scenic – this still hasn’t got boring. However, when we arrived there, the place was experiencing a water outage and they were closing up. This was especially tragic for them, as they had been advertising a battle reenactment on the magnificent grounds of the stately home where this was to take place. We decided to get back in the car and go to Dublin, a mere 45-minute drive away.
There were
two things I wanted to do there: first and foremost, I wanted to view an art
exhibition in Dublin Castle. The family of a friend of mine, someone dear and significant
to me, had lent some works of art made by a Polish artist to the castle from their
private collection and I wanted to learn more about it. Second, I wanted to see
more of Dublin City, as each time we had gone there, we didn’t have enough time
to enjoy anything.
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| Dublin Castle courtyard |
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| Staircase at the entry |
Dublin Castle is dripping with history. It’s a place with a dark past: the seat of oppressive rule for seven centuries, it has nowadays become the location of state visits, EU summits, and presidential inaugurations. The exhibition was in one section behind the presidential gallery in a couple of spacious rooms, but we couldn’t stay for any decent amount of time because the children flitted from room to room not really paying much attention to their surroundings.
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| A reception room in the castle |
The city of Dublin itself is a mix of fun and business. Architecturally, it’s never going to rival cities in the same category like Prague, Kraków, Turin or Barcelona, and it doesn’t really have a famous building or landmark that represents it on the world stage, such as the Atomium in Brussels or the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. But it more than makes up for all that by being a playful and welcoming city, and the epicentre of joy. It flaunts shabby, swaggers in scruffy, and wallows in jumbled architecture where ornate terraced houses with colourful doors, stone steps and wrought iron railings are juxtaposed with former factories that have been converted into shopping centres, hostels, offices, more offices, fitness centres, car parks, offices. theatres and massive pubs with perpetual live music and endless sport on the TVs. Oh, and did I mention offices? If Dublin were a person, it would be a functioning alcoholic with a fabulous salary and a battered old Ford Focus parked in the street.
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| Dublin |
The streets of
Dublin were teeming with shoppers, daytime revellers over from the UK or the
continent, and in some places traffic roared very close by, loud and menacing.
The Dubliners have made the most of their city and its potential. It is chock
full of monuments to its past, but the difference is this: whereas London has
statues to its leaders both military and aristocratic, Dublin has two types.
There are still a few monuments to its military connections, but they are more
about revolutionaries than those of the time Dublin was the second city of the
British Empire. There are such illustrious warriors as Bernardo O’Higgins, the
Chilean freedom fighter with a Basque and Irish background; Theobald Wolfe Tone,
a very important figure in Irish independence from the 18th century,
and Admiral William Brown, who served in the Argentine navy 200 years ago.
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| Molly Malone |
But the vast majority of statues in Dublin are of prominent poets, musicians, philanthropists and fictional characters from Irish culture. Arthur Guinness, naturally, has a prominent place on the Green, but out on the streets and squares you can find Molly Malone, Constance Markiewicz, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce of course, Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy, and two of Luke Kelly. If you don’t know who Luke Kelly is, then you have definitely heard him at some point without knowing it, I promise. He was a larger-than-life member of The Dubliners, arguably the greatest folk band of all time. Luke Kelly had a striking face with a prominent set of teeth peeking out from behind his golden beard, topped with his abundant curly ginger hair.
But it was
his voice that identified him the most: his raspy, smoke-addled spoken tones gave
him an air of gravitas. When he gave orations, crowds hushed, put down their
drinks and listened. Search for his rendition of For What Died The Sons Of Róisin?
Likewise, when he sang, he had the audience in thralls. Listen to his versions
of famous songs like Dirty Old Town, The Wild Rover, and The
Old Triangle, and then try The Black Velvet Band, Hand Me Down My
Bible, and Raglan Road. Every performance of his was dispatched with
the kind of gusto that made it obvious he was having the time of his life entertaining
the crowds.
He also had that
rare gift of being able to make you both laugh and cry. Try not to shed a tear
as you listen to Peggy Gordon, a most heart-rending Canadian love song, follow
that with the sweet anthem of The Nightingale, where the crowd sings the
chorus, and then put on his saucy live delivery of Monto, about a notorious
red-light district of eastern Dublin. His uproarious interpretations of bawdy or
satirical songs would frequently bring the house down, and he could deliver
punchlines in song too, such as the hilarious anti-war numbers The Button
Pusher or Protect And Survive, or the raucous Maids When You’re
Young Never Wed An Old Man, which was made doubly funny by the fact he was far
younger than the other band members Ronnie Drew and Barney McKenna, who would
be cringing comically behind him as he looked at them gleefully. It was his delivery
of Phil Coulter’s Scorn Not His Simplicity, a song about the composer’s
son who had Down Syndrome, that endeared him to the nation. The Night
Visiting Song is the ballad that I think many will have heard before, and
was one of the last songs he sang in November 1983, two months before he passed
away.
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| One of the main roads by the River Liffey |
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| River Liffey |
He left us
far too early – and a piece of Dublin went to the grave with him. A brain
tumour, compounded by his busy touring schedule, hard partying, and love of the
drink was a fatal and malevolent blend that caused him to have memory blackouts
and episodes of fainting. Thousands attended his funeral in the north of the
city, including politicians from all sides, a tribute to his raw talent, and
confirmation of his importance in the hearts of many Irish people. Ronnie Drew,
the leader of the Dubliners, said at his funeral that he was the best singer of
the folk idiom in the world. That is why there are two statues dedicated to him
in Dublin, and I will always regret that I never had the chance to listen to
him live.
And this is
the important point about Ireland: it is the epitome of what it means to be human.
The nation’s priorities are clear – promote art and culture as an instrument of
unity, stand up for the little guy, give a voice to those who have been silenced,
encourage those in less fortunate situations, and let talent flourish. Luke
Kelly is the personification of this philosophy: he left school early and had
an extremely hard youth, but he had a very strong will, and could count plenty
more achievements than most by the time he passed. One does not need diplomas
if one has raw talent combined with the drive and passion needed to succeed:
one needs exposure.
School life
was about to start for the children in their new habitat – we were about to see
whether we had made the right decision. If my description about Ireland is correct,
I am sure they will be all right.
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