Scrogall This!
So one of the most fun things I did in Dingle was this nifty interview for the community television station Teilifis Scrogall. I was asked to pontificate about not only myself (as we all know, my favorite subject), but also the perils and joys of travel writing. Michaél O Duinnsleibhe shot and edited the thing and I tell you what, that man is TALENTED. He makes me appear no only lucid, but actually sober, which, you know, since I was in Ireland was quite a trick.
Easter Rising
Sometimes it’s not only the grand, overwhelming moments that make your eyes burn with grateful tears and your chest ache from stolen breath. I guess that’s what I learned this Easter in Ireland.
He's A Fun Guy
Within a few minutes Fungie appeared, and we headed toward him, a few other tour boats following in our wake. For a while he eluded us, as if in a game of catch me if you can. After all, he was dubbed Fungie because, according to the first fishermen who encountered him, he is a “fun guy.”
Éirinn go Brách
I’ve never been one to shirk Paddy’s Day. Year after year I’ve met it square on, as if daring this, Bacchus’s favorite holiday, to best me. I’ve made some fine memories along the way…but nothing could quite prepare me for Paddy’s Day in Dingle.
No Rainbow, No Pot O' Gold, But A Leprechaun Nonetheless
I met a leprechaun tonight. Or a faerie. Or, a sprite, perhaps. Or maybe it was just an ordinary woman that this magical country sent to me, with a message. But I don’t quite believe that. There was too much enchantment in our exchange.
A Tale of Two Treks
This place, it’s enough to break your heart open wide, as wide as the endless-seeming vistas that unspool from the highest hills here, falling away slowly, past sheep and heather and little else, dropping down slowly, so slowly, to the silver shores of the sea. It’s a land that urges you to look upon it with the long, lingering glances of a besotted lover, intent on searing its image into your soul, lest you never look upon it again.
A Sort of Homecoming
The sky is the shade of worn denim – not quite as brilliant as robin’s egg blue, but a hopeful sign of spring and summer yet to come. The sun shines brightly, its warmth bringing the citizens of Dingle to the street; they saunter here and there, their smiles echoing mine. On the soft breeze drifts the scent of the sea, different now, more strongly redolent of salt, a washed-clean smell.
Wren's Day: 1, Jill Gleeson: 0
Even the Irish know how absolutely mad, epically weird, twisted like a candy cane in a five-year old’s mouth Wren’s Day is. They kept asking me, friends and strangers, over and over, “Have you ever seen anything like it?”
