Travel Journal: Northern Ireland
The little port town beside the cliffs, Doolin, also had a very impressive caliber of traditional music. Despite the constant tourist camera flashes, there was a strong sense of community among the Doolin residents that maintained a comfortable authenticity in the face of this foreign invasion. One of the highlights of the evening was an eighty-year-old woman arising from the lap of her drunk husband at the behest of the flautist and giving a recitation called “The Master’s Touch,” a silly story about a fiddle sold in an auction that turned out, in the end, to be a profound religious allegory about the nature of human value. The mixture of playfulness and profundity is one of the most curious and impressive aspects of the Irish character to Americans who, all too often, are conditioned to think of profundity as an exclusively serious enterprise.
The week of travel was a great way to get in touch with Irish culture. One of the main reasons I chose to come to Queen’s was because of my interest in Irish traditional music. Thus, the “musical pub crawl” in Dublin was at the top of the list of things to do. Unfortunately, the pub crawl was somewhat shortened due to the fact it was “Arthur Guinness day.” The timing was completely accidental, but as one of the musicians who led the pub-crawl explained, “The entire city goes mental” on the supposed anniversary of the invention of Guinness. However, other than this and the Doolin experience, we didn’t get to hear much traditional music. I was even laughed at in a bar in Cashel when I asked where I could find some traditional music. “Traditional music? Look in West Clare!” the man said dismissively. Cashel is in landlocked County Limerick whereas Clare stretches to the west coast and includes the port town Doolin.
Still, even where I couldn’t find traditional music, there were other things of interest. The ancient ruins, including towers, monasteries, and unidentifiable structures on the side of the road made every moment of travel exciting—and not just because on the narrow, winding Irish roads, death always seems imminent.
Another aspect of the culture I enjoyed was the balance of passion and carefree friendliness in everyone we met throughout Ulster and the Republic. Experiences as simple as trying to decode the thick country accent of the dairy farmer who sat next to us on the Doolin ferry, alternately asking about our travels and complaining that he “f***in’ hated” the sea, and our otherwise lighthearted Dublin tour guide’s impassioned speech about Michael Collins and the prospect of a peace that didn’t deny cultural heritage, and the gentle interrogation we received whenever we entered an Irish pub, all colored my experience.
But, of course, the most important part of my second week in Belfast was spending time with my mom. As much fun as I had already had in Belfast, and as much fun as I still expect to have, I am well aware that my travel abroad experience is thoroughly temporal. After all, I leave for home on December 20th, which is not that far away. So, the opportunity to share this great, though fleeting, experience with someone I love was truly amazing.
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