Slieve League Cliffs and Donegal

You’d think these photos were colorized. But the changing hues are a constant in Ireland where the light is always shifting. Your world changes each moment. A bus driver told me that he loves his route because it never gets old, it never looks the same.

I chose the small village of Carrick as my base camp for hiking out to Slieve League Cliffs. The Cliffs of Moher are much better known, but the Slieve League Cliffs are actually much taller, in fact three times higher. Each section of the Wild Atlantic Way is dramatic in its own unique way. The coastline is jagged, with many peninsulas jutting out into the notoriously rough seas. It takes a bit of effort to reach some points, which only contributes to its allure.

To an American, it seems implausible that so many of these dreamy vistas are the homes of sheep. Well, herds of cattle here and there and some lucky horses, but mostly sheep. White sheep, black sheep and even golden sheep. The weather being so variable, the winds often fierce and the rain icy, there is definitely a domestic need for sweaters, hats, scarves, vests and coats. The home industries of knitting and weaving produce high quality clothing. In the larger towns heavily visited by tourists like Killarney, stores offer fee shipping worldwide. I was delighted and asked a cashier if this was too good to be true. Well, it is for Americans as our current president imposed a tariff which its citizens must pay. We don’t have a strong industry producing quality wool clothing. We don’t have extensive farmland for raising sheep. Our gorgeous ocean views are obstructed by high rises owned by millionaires. We don’t produce Irish quality knitwear or tweed. So who gains and who loses in this scenario? How could it possibly be that the end user wouldn’t pay for the tariffs? Thanks, pal. What was your point again? Oh, that’s right. World dominance. Number One. That matters. I’d rather be able to afford a warm sweater, thank you very much.

Carrick is much like other towns in that the buildings are old and plain, that is, lacking ornate architectural detail, but not charm. Some storefronts are in fact charming because they've lacquered on layers of colorful paint and they give the village a more whimsical air. But Carrick’s buildings were functional and it had the requisite number of pubs to serve its population. I found the post office very unusual. First, you should know that gambling is completely cool here and endorsed by the government. The post office (An Post) sells lottery tickets. They also offer currency exchange and certain banking services. They will not charge a surcharge for currency conversion. It’s a straightforward cashing in of your bills, in my case USD, dollars for euros at that day’s value. They will not accept coins or hundred dollar bills though. And hundreds was all I had. You need to present your passport for identification. None of that is terribly out of the norm. But when I was looking for a bottle opener at a convenience store, I wasn’t certain that I heard the cashier correctly when she suggested I check the post office. I was surprised again when I saw how haphazardly its odd assortment of dry goods was (or was not) organized. The post offices I have visited most do carry mailing supplies, but they are presented on racks in some semblance of order. But organization was not a core value for this post office. It was not even an afterthought. Theirs was simply a succession of junk drawers, you know the ones you stuff odds and ends that you might need someday and have no idea where else to store them, like the needles that go at the end of air pumps when you need to inflate a basketball, or a small or large O-ring in whatever containers or measures if space they could find. In addition to the shelves filled with school supplies sliding off each other onto the laps of dolls, there were plastic bins on the floor and on long tables, some with clothing and some stacked on other bins so you had to remove the top one to discover what might possibly be in the one beneath, and of course there were kitchen items and curious implements hanging from hooks on the wall. I determined that if there was a plan behind any of this, possibly evolving over years, there were three distinct possibilities where I might find an opener if I was persistent in my rummaging. Which I was. And I found exactly what I wanted, a small sturdy bottle opener. It wasn’t after all hidden beneath what I thought might be considered related items, but rather at the bottom of a bin of balloons and banners.

The hostel room I stayed in was more like a hotel room, but there were common rooms available to me as well which I didn’t use as I only stayed one night. It overlooked the rainy street and lights of its own cozy pub. Slieve League Lodge. I liked it. Nothing fancy, but it was clean. The female bartender was kind, hardworking and honest. There’s lodging a few miles down the road, The Rusty Mackerel where tourists stay and they offer music every night. Truthfully, had I not been exhausted and relishing time alone in my own room, that is, just lying down and watching a movie after a hot shower, I would have gone. I’d been going pretty strong hitting the pubs, mingling and dancing and picking up everyone’s viruses, fending some off, but not all of them and I really just needed a minute to let my own microbiomes regroup. So I opened my bottle of Guinness, drank half of it and got a good night’s sleep so I could hike out to the cliffs in the morning.

Carrick:

More colorful villages than Carrick:

Oh, the next morning, that I would have checked google maps to ensure I was going the right way kilometers before I did. The walk was pretty and interesting, but I did have a bus to catch that afternoon and it was the only one passing through Carrick. Thankfully, it had stopped raining. The direction I was heading made no sense and I kind of knew that, but I followed what I thought were the directions the bartender had given me. My folly did yield some rewards. 

First, I came across this garbage can and realized that my diet of bread, bread and more bread and potatoes was perhaps not serving me well when it came to maintaining a stellar level of fitness.

Secondly, I was surprised to realize that wakes are still held in Ireland and this set the stage for a conversation I would have later in a Cork City pub with some death doolas. Third, I met a swell fellow who picked me up when I hitchhiked back as he’d seen me on his way to drop his wife off at work and thought, “She’s going the wrong way.” If you’ve ever felt self-conscious, like everybody passing you by thinks you are foolish, well rest assured it’s not always paranoia. And I met a second swell fellow from Birmingham who had just moved to the area to work in that better-know pub and he was simply enamored with Ireland, slowing down past a lake and exclaiming, “Just look how beautiful that is!” My kind of companion. Fourth, it made me pick up my pace so I truly got a little cardio in rather than just drifting through this world as I am wont to do when slayed by wonder upon wonder.  Also, I made a discovery on this journey once I was actually on the right path heading toward the cliffs and actually getting close. A woman told me she didn’t know where they were but she thought they were way over yonder, and they definitely were not in the direction she was coming from and I was heading with a determined forthrightness. Thankfully, an official looking person in a neon yellow vest (maybe gathering trash bins together) appeared along the roadside and she assured me that I was indeed heading in the right direction. She did indicate that the cliffs were only twenty minutes away and on that score, she was pretty far off, but after an hour of pretty intense hiking, I was at the top of the cliffs. That discovery I would like to share is that the more confident a person sounds, the less likely they are right.

Again, the sheep owned this mountain. And they were pretty intimidating when they wanted to block the way. There was a lot of open space and they didn’t need to stand immediately in front of me and give me the evil eye for any particular reason, but several did. I know I have the heart of St. Francis of Assisi so I didn’t take their threats personally. I just thought what I keep thinking, “Boy, these animals in Ireland are lucky. The grass really is greener in Ireland. In fact, it’s kind of crazy how green it is. It often shines in the shifting light and it’s more than understandable why it’s known as the Emerald Isle. And the views they have are often stunning. Jaw-droppingly beautiful.

Despite my wrong turns and long hike, I was virtually alone at the top of the cliffs. The visitor center hadn’t yet opened and the tour buses hadn’t arrived. There were a number of private tourists who’d parked at the base, but none of them were working as hard as I was to mount the steep hill, so I got there first. I go to a lot of well-known natural wonders and I understand that there are over eight billion people in the world and we have to share, but I do enjoy it more when I can be alone standing in awe and not within hearing range of people chattering about things I don’t want to hear and in tones that grate my nerves. Then I feel badly about being such a sourpuss and frankly, I’d rather not feel like that either. Solitude is good for me. I hear song lyrics now and again that something isn’t worth experiencing if you don’t have someone to share it with, but honestly I have not find that to be the case.

I mean, look at that. These cliffs and the waves crashing against them are definitely worth seeing. The fresh sea wind is definitely worth feeling against your skin. 

There’s something about the relationship of the Irish to their land. I’ve seen it again and again on this trip, reflected in many different ways. In the ballads, in the many narrations I’ve listened carefully to in the pubs and in the way that they treat the land. There is virtually no trash here. When I told an Irish lad that people littered so much in the US that every roadside has piles of trash and most of the country literally looks like a waste basket, he was astonished. It simply doesn’t occur to them to trash the earth. They carry an inherent respect. They have Druid hearts. There aren’t a million crappy tasteless signs pasted and posted everywhere either. Many of the buildings in the villages are old, but the Irish don’t go out of their way to make them look tacky with cheesy lawn ornaments and signs and flags. They just have neatly manicured yards and window boxes with colorful healthy flowers. Am I in a dream. I’ve passed through many villages that hang planters of flowers in places that seem a bit random to me, like on a handrail on a bridge. But they are just there to brighten the place up a bit. And the flowers are vibrant, well-tended. By invisible people…. or? Well, you know who.

Still intent on polishing off that heavy six-pack of Guinness I bought in Derry when I was trying to offload my English pounds, I drank one on the street in Carrick while waiting for the bus to Donegal. Of course there was a pub with outdoor tables right there at the bus stop, so it wasn’t an out-of-the-ordinary offense. I had to switch buses in Charlestown where I had a light lunch in Jenny’s Cafe. I’d been resisting the omnipresent offerings of vegetable soup as I was picturing that awful broth crap in a Campbell’s can, but alas, do not falter, the homemade vegetable soup in Ireland is creamy and surprisingly good. It’s usually served with homemade brown bread, also mouth-watering. I must say here that I am not fond of soda bread, if it all tastes like the slices I had at my hostel in Galway. It tastes like baking soda, You know how disappointed you are when you’ve failed to crumble it well enough as it cakes in the cupboard (one of those things that happen in a household while you are asleep, like the Christmas lights so carefully packed in their boxes tangling) and a chunk ends up on your tongue when you were anticipating a perfectly delicious hot, sweet chocolate chip cookie? It’s that awful taste baked intentionally into a loaf of bread. I mean, it’s not the famine for god’s sake. If you like soda bread, don’t take offense, it could be the bakers at the hostel were just following a recipe someone slipped in as a joke. 

I asked a woman at the bus stop in Charlestown if she knew any Conroys and first she gave me ann odd look before hesitatingly asking me: which ones? From where? Well, a clan by definition all come from the same place, so that question bothers me. It reminded me of the families in the rural area where I lived recently. It had been settled by about eight families two hundred years ago and they’ve grown and interbred over that time, it being a remote locale, and there were several family members who denied being related to the others with the same surname, a truly preposterous proposition. No sense arguing. Anyway, I said I didn’t know because at that point in my travels, I didn’t. She said well Helen Conroy Lather lived in the Second Phase of Lacey Manor past the firehouse and she thought her husband still worked at the tire place up the hill. She pointed in the other direction and it sounded like I could easily walk there, except for the fact that we were both boarding the bus just then, and I doubted there would be another connection to Donegal that day. It wasn’t a very busy town.

When I alighted from the bus in Donegal, which stops next to a narrow sidewalk where everyone waits at the doorway of a hotel there (you can slip through their fancy lobby and veer down the right corridor to find the bathroom; it’s got good hand dryers if you need to dry your poncho), so it’s an experience weaving through the people there. Two lads standing against the wall there lit up when they saw me and asked me excitedly in their Polish accent if they could guess where I was from. I could see that could be an entertaining way to pass the afternoon if you are stuck in a small town where your uncle lives and your father sent you with no pocket money simply so that you could see Ireland: stand at the bus stop and guess where passengers getting off are from. I nodded, smiled and made the motion of zipping my lips so my accent wouldn’t clue them in

Their first guess was Tunisia. Tunisia? There are a lot of Americans abroad and generally considered to be easily recognizable for a number of reasons, but I’m in no mood to discuss this right now, and I was pleased not to be readily identified. Especially currently, as our current President does not come off as an eloquent and thoughtful statesman the world trusts and respects. Still, Tunisia?

I would recall this later after my discussion in Clifden in Connemara County and see it in a more meaningful light. Then they guessed France, Brazil and Latvia before guessing the US.

Before heading out of town to Dorothy and Paddy’s bed and breakfast, I stopped at a pharmacy. I love pharmacies in Europe and now here because the pharmacists are more like general physicians and they are willing to prepare magic potions to cure your ailments. In my case they would mix a batch of castor oil and zinc in a creamy lotion to apply to the blisters on my feet and I could pick it up before I caught the bus in the morning. I needed cash. I like to withdraw it on a workday from the lobby of a bank. Cards don’t get eaten by machines as frequently as they did when ATMs were first introduced to the world back in the early 1980s, but phobias die hard when you’ve had a bad experience. The Bank of Ireland was closed for no discernible reason and their ATM was out of order. A man pointed to a small sign that said aib, yes in small letters and told me that it was a bank. Truly, I would not have guessed. It worked out well as the cash machines were inside, and though there were no bank counters in sight, there was a woman who explained to me with a certain authority that the ATM for lodgements would indeed serve my purpose and that i was standing in a legitimate bank (they don’t typically pile on high surcharges like the private companies do - the one at the Spar in Ardara charged 15% ).

It was raining intermittently. My backpack was heavy and my poncho pretty wet. The bed and breakfast was less than two kilometers out of town and there was sidewalk the entire way. Along the walk I saw a brown street sign pointing toward the Famine Graveyard and made a mental note to see what that was all about. Dropped off my backpack in my small flowery room in the second floor, showered and headed back into town to walk around Donegal before ducking into the comfort of the Reel Inn where I’d share a couple pints with the locals before the trad music session started. Rivers run through a lot of the Irish towns and east time I am pleasantly surprised that there is no garbage in the water or looming the banks. No graffiti on the castle or the old walls. No garbage, no evidence of vandalism in the town square. Alleys don’t  smell like piss. The castle was as intact as an old weathered castle can be. Why do we have such a low bar in the US?

I sat at the pub in the Reel Inn with three local old guys and one cheesy traveling salesman from Limerick who sells sports geegaws and found himself clever. Guess this breed exists everywhere. But I had a really good conversation with Des, who might have been ten years older than me and told me that I’d inspired him to start parting with his possessions. All of us were captive to the young bartender who was a neo-Nazi and felt that it was God’s divine plan for Hitler to exterminate the Jews. We were all stunned. One old man told him, “That kind of thinking comes from not being brought up right.” We all sat there quietly nodding in agreement, but of course the young man hotly contested this. I tried changing the subject to the Titanic, but the bartender had a conspiracy theory about the Titanic saying that it wasn’t the Titanic but a sister ship that sunk. There is a lot of evidence that it was indeed the Titanic that sunk and I asked him if he’d been to the museum in Belfast. Thankfully, a lot of people came in then and the topic died. Des had to go, so I did my best to continue to ignore the salesman. The band was grand. It included a banjo and they played a heart wrenching rendition of Spancil Hill. I stayed until the bar closed, hanging out with another local old man, even going out to smoke with him, though after only two puffs I didn’t want it. He just smiled. Even though we talked a long time, I don’t think we bothered exchanging names. A lot of people start a conversation with introducing themselves but it just didn’t work out that way with the seating arrangement at the bar, the noise level and the way things flowed and there was really no point.

I’m consistently floored over the lack of garbage on the streets and in the waterways. These are not gated communities, but public spaces. People care for the earth.