Unpacking Ireland

Walking Home

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I don’t know where to begin. Life is not chronological or even logical. If anything this trip to the old country has strengthened that understanding or lack thereof. Since life makes absolutely no sense, we bust our asses trying to make sense of it, keep gathering to reassure ourselves that we agree that this is reality. The foundation of that thinking would be the nuclear family. If we can make that work for the most part or for the majority of the time we spend together, we all hope we agree that “this is good! this is working!” And since it has worked fairly well from my point of view for the last forty years, I figured it might work for the length of a trip to Ireland (even adding the wild cards of our sons’ significants)! And “motherfucking sonofabitch,” it worked for me! And as you know, that’s what’s most important: it is all about me.

So while I’m not ready to process this thing in a way that can be easily plotted or stitched together in a story fashion, I have begun following a few threads in my notes and my head. I will throw a few things out here because I can, and I haven’t been here for awhile. Anyhoo, here are two to chew. Slainte!

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3 Days in Connemara

Driving the north coast along
Galway Bay, the Aran Islands
in the distance, the gray Atlantic

our western horizon, we travel
past more rock fences, fields
of sheep, the occasional pony 

or donkey or goat or cows
grazing limestone green field
after field after field of green,

the same patchwork from Cork
to Kerry to Dingle to The Burren,
the rocky west of Ireland a similar

landscape with subtle changes in
stark rock like the crest extending
from Inishmore across The Burren.

Now we drive north toward Joyce 
country, the homeland of my people 
in the Inagh Valley at the foot of 

the Twelve Pins and Lough Inagh.
We scan the rock faces of Derryclare 
and Ben Cor from the stone house 

my grandmother was born in. A hay barn 
today, the thatch roof long ago replaced 
by rusty tin. Cows graze around us. 

John Joyce, my great grandfather was 
called John Doctor, an animal doctor and 
fishing guide. Mary Conroy Joyce birthed 

nine, my Grandmother Bridget Delia 
was her oldest. All of their children left 
Connemara save the youngest, Martin, 

who inherited the home place. We found 
the old bones in the Cloonacarten cemetery, 
mostly Joyces. Inscriptions older than

a century were too weathered to read.
Jimmy Gibbons, the last of our clan
died in Connemara, 1946, my grandfather's 

younger brother. He lived on Cloonabartan 
Lough, the locals named Looking Jimmy 
(or Little Jimmy) just north of that small 

pond on the old Gibbons place they called 
Jimmy's Height. He was well-liked. So we 
spent three days with the Joyces and Jimmy 

at the time when the veil between the souls 
of the living and the dead was at its thinnest. 
It was a magical encounter spent there 

together on the ground, in the bogs, on
the rocky green, and in the moist air—though 
we had met before. These souls had visited  

me previously, walked inside me for fifty, 
sixty years, always insisting I needed to go
home to meet family long dead and resting 

underground, know who and where I came from. 
So I came and found them, or they came to me.
Now we're home at peace—eternal company.

	for Mark Joyce

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Walking Home

At night after a few pints
we head out toward our bed
and turn uphill a couple
of streets too early,
discover the town grid
is laid out like a scallop shell,
the further we walk the fan
the further we get from our motel.

Eventually we dead-end on 
the crest of the shell, toddle
the long arc in the damp night air,
no one in sight. Not lost, but
seeking confirmation that we had
to be close, I spied some people
headed up the street, coming
our way. Two people and a boy
kicking a soccer ball. I say,

“Excuse me, we are trying to find
our way back to our motel.”

Visiting are ye? The man says.

“Yes, I cut up early and got a bit off 
track, but I know we're close. 
I remember driving this road . . .”

Is this your first time in Ireland?
He asks.

“Yes, we're headed to the Aran Islands
tomorrow. My family left Connemara
in 1916, so I want to go there 
and find their bones.”

I'll tell you what you need to do, he says,
O'Connell's pub down there on your right
is playing traditional music and dancing,
locals. Ye need to go down there, that's
what ye need to do.

“We'd love to if we didn't have to get up
early to catch the ferry in Doolin. 
Last night we caught some music
and dancing at Murphy's.”

No, what ye really need is down at
O'Connell's pub. That's where ye
should go.

“Ha!” I was beginning to wonder
if this guy was fucking with me,
“I wish we could, but we really
need to hit the bed.”

He smiled at me and didn't say
a word. His wife finally took pity
and pointed the left turn at the light,
bottom of the hill. She asked,
Where are ye from?

We told them Montana, and the wag
began: weather, work, politics, 
housing, the like. When you are jawing
the Irish, it's an easy time. The gift
of gab is the way of it. And we came
to the inevitable conclusion:
the landlords always get what 
they want in the end.

And being the good leftist
whose father had turned his back on
the church, I couldn't resist testing
the limits of their Catholic faith
by insisting the church was the first
government and corporation willing
to fuck the people to hold power.

They granted me the corruption
of man and his organizations,
but nothing could shake their faith
in God, their ultimate good, that
spiritual entity, the beacon of hope,
source of love, and the foundation
of meaning, the reason to go on
and keep up the facade of purpose,
if only to entertain strangers
on the street at night, to joke
and tease, to chat, pleased to meet,
to wish good things, good life.

I guess I found God lost on
the streets of Ireland. They were
easy, a family walking home.

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