Ireland: Day Seven and Eight - Brigit's Garden and driving

Day Seven: Brigit’s Garden

It’s funny how this already seems so long ago, but before I lose it I must write down the details.

Our last full day in Connemara.  Half of the group wanted to see The Cliffs of Moher and head back into Galway to visit the tea house we saw on Sunday.  I have already been to the cliffs twice and wasn’t excited about being in a car for several hours when I knew the next day was going to involve being in a car for several more hours.  So I stayed with the other group who wanted to revisit Letterfrack and head to Brigit’s Garden in Rosscahill.  

It rained that morning.  Indeed, the forecast was pretty dismal so we rather lollygagged a bit before heading out to do anything of our plans.  I stayed behind while the others went into Letterfrack to visit the local community radio station (basically a public radio station) - as two of my friends work for radio stations.  It proved a good opportunity for me to do a load of laundry before I started off on the next leg of my trip.

We decided to eat lunch in, as we had purchased more groceries than we ended up consuming with our pub visits and dinners.  It was a simple tuna salad and fuel enough for the remainder of our afternoon.  The drive was about an hour.  It seemed longer because the sky was gray and the surroundings rainy as we followed a large oil truck.

The rain lingered a little bit when we got out of the car. Once we did a duck and cover under the awning of a cottage roof. But within minutes, the sun was glaring again in a blue sky, making me quite warm in the sweater I was wearing.

Brigit’s Garden is a collection of gardens and sculptures that honors the feminine spirituality of ancient Ireland.  One set of gardens represented the four main ‘seasons’ through the Celtic holidays of Imbolc, Beltaine, Lughnasa, and Samhaine.  It was a beautiful landscape, with some wooded areas and a giant sundial and quite a number of spiritual places where appropriate celebrations occur throughout the year.  I suppose if you are in Ireland for your Irish Catholic roots, this is not the place to go.  I enjoyed some of the old trees and the Titania’s lair spaces.  But I will confess it seemed more like fairy gentrification.  I’m not saying that as a bad thing… just rather like visiting a castle when you want to see the kitchens.  Everything was pretty and nice.  A few flies, but not too obvious.

There was a wedding taking place that day.  It meant the kitchen in the tea shop was closed, but we were able to get some tea and desserts.  I had a pear almond torte and a look around the gift shop.  Gift shops are another place in traveling that reminds me of my work life.  You can tell when they buy from museum catalogues.  You can also tell the few pieces that are representative of the place that you are visiting.  Usually the books.  That said, I resisted.  I only have so much weight in my backpack for the plane ride home left to use up.

We headed back to the house and plotted out how we were going to use up the remainder of our food.  Our other group promised to be back by a certain hour to join us, but we decided to have a cheese tray and glass of wine before starting on our random, not so random dinner of bangers and mash and rice and stirfried veggies.  This was my first time cooking.  We had a lot of cooks on that trip, but I was pleased with my let’s put the sausages and an onion and some beer and random spice and a pinch of sugar in a roasting pan and how it all worked out rather nicely.

As I stood over the stove stirring potatoes and veggies, our other half arrived back from their day’s trip with very big news.  While at the tea house two of them got engaged!  That sealed the deal on this trip.  We will never forget it.  We raised our glasses in a toast to them and then consumed our last meal around the dining room table.

After washing the dishes and packing, I stayed up with the last glass of whisky.  I was excited and scared for the next part of my trip, but too consumed with the thought of getting out on time to think too much about those things.  So I shared a bit of conversation and headed off to bed around midnight.

Day Eight: From west to east to north

The morning was a bit of a whirl.  Breakfast.  Cleaning.  Packing up.  The others had a plan for their stay in Dublin.  I had to get my car and get on the road to head up to Ballycastle.

Our landlord came up to check us out and was thrilled with the engagement news. It clearly made her day.  We packed up the cars and headed back to Dublin.

I spent most of the day in the car - half as a passenger, half as a driver.  I can’t say that there is anything exciting about being in a car.  Except that we were in Ireland.  We were on highways, but everywhere there are sheep and green hills.  I wonder if people who travel to New England are awestruck by our trees - certainly in October.  Maybe it’s what you know and what you don’t know.  But there is a value in that observation of something outside of the norm.

It was mixed emotion when I parted ways with my friends.  On the one hand, I was excited to get going.  On the other hand, I was going on my own.  I got my car and set off on the M1.  My drive was almost entirely highway to Ballycastle.  And even then, it is another country with a different infrastructure.  The roads are wider in Northern Ireland.  The sheep stayed within the confines of their fences.  There are a lot more roundabouts.  The traffic signals operate as they do in Great Britain (with the red yellow warning before green).  

I will probably reflect more on these differences.  Some are so subtle you might miss them - especially if just looked through the lens of well, this is different than the US.  But then again, any country is different in different regions or between rural and suburban and urban.  I didn’t have to go through any customs or show my passport as I passed through the border.  It was like crossing a state line.  But then a couple miles along, I saw the Union Jacks flying high.  Flying everywhere.  

But I wasn’t much interested in pursuing it too much.  I got my room settled and went out for a smallish dinner so I could stay in and sleep off the long day to prepare for the week to come.