Ireland 2025 – Day 1 – Friday September 5th – Travel Day
Today, before leaving for Ireland I spent much of the afternoon outdoors at our Lake house swimming in the lake and soaking up the late summer sun. I sometimes forget how wonderful this time of year can be in Virginia. I soaked it in because this will be the last day I will see this much sun until I return to Virginia. You do not go to Ireland for sunshine. The weather in Ireland is all over the place. As one of our backroad leaders on my last trip to Ireland said, “Ireland has one season all year, but you can get all four seasons in one day.” He should know because he is Irish – originally from Dublin. On some of my bike rides on the last trip, I would get rained on three times some days with shower bursts, which drops the temperature immediately. As a result, the temperature ranges from lower 50’s to upper 60’s during any point of the ride – and this was in August! But even then, it can feel like 80 in the sun with no wind and feel like 40 in the rain with wind. However, those intermittent rain showers interspersed with warm sunshine is what makes Ireland, especially southwest Ireland so lush with a myriad of shades of green.
As we drove to the Richmond airport today, Elizabeth asked a very sensible question, “Why in the heck are we flying two hours west to Chicago to turn back around and head back east to Dublin?” My answer – “The price was right.” But fear not, luck was on our side. Somehow we got upgraded to First Class on our leg to Chicago – and even better – we were given passes to the American Airlines Flagship Lounge. I think it is for American Airlines customers flying First Class or Business Class internationally. I do not know why we got bumped up, but we are enjoying it! It has amazing lounge seating, including food and drinks from local chefs at various food stations. The program is in partnership with the James Beard Foundation, which celebrates and supports the people behind America’s food culture. I think I may have been to one of these once or twice before – London Heathrow and Atlanta when we flew to South Africa. It has a Bloody Mary station, all the liquors you want, sushi, champagne upon arrival – crazy!🤪
As I sit here in our fancy lounge waiting to board our flight to Dublin, I would like to share a few observations about Ireland.
The Sports. Hurling is the second most popular sport in Ireland. In terms of attendance figures, hurling is second only to Gaelic football. Like Gaelic football, hurling is a sport native to Ireland, but has been played much longer, evidently for several thousand years. Hurling has similarities to field hockey and although played on a large grass pitch, the ball is rarely played along the ground. Hurling is the fastest field sport in the world. The Irish love sports, especially their Gaelic Sports. Fifteen years ago I attend a hurling match in Ireland being played by two local clubs.
The Language. Irish Gaelic was the native language for Ireland until the 1800’s, when English took over as the dominant language due to English occupation. Some fun Irish linguistic oddities. Cookies are called biscuits and biscuits are called scones. French fries are chips and chips are called crisps. We can thank the Irish bogs for the term “boogeyman”. It came from bog-man, used by Irish moms to scare their kids from wondering into the bogs, which are numerous.
The Irish are great story tellers, and it is a tradition that has been handed down for centuries. Irish storytellers are called Irish seanachie (storyteller). A seanachie is a rare breed of storyteller, a spinner of tales who was once responsible for passing Irish history and legend from generation to generation. I am currently rereading a book about Irish storytelling that I read many years ago. Frank Delaney’s “Ireland” is a magical story of a young boy, who once exposed to a traveling seanachie, eventually becomes a storyteller himself and goes on a quest to find the storyteller who had influenced his life those many years ago. Like the book “The Alchemist”, it is a coming-of-age story that also embeds a lot of Irish history. You should read it if you plan to visit Ireland.
The History. Irish history is both rich and proud, and sad and ironic. Let’s start with St. Patrick. Born in either England or Wales, he is captured by the Irish as a slave, returns home, dreams of converting the Irish to Christianity, returns to Ireland as a Catholic Bishop in 432 and does just that.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, as an island, Ireland is able to save much of western civilization with its monasteries that remained intact. After the Normans invade England in 1066, a chieftain (Strongbow) helps the Normans invade Ireland in 1170.
All of Ireland is securely Catholic until the late 1600’s. King James, who is Catholic, flees to Ireland in 1688 after being chased out by William of Orange, who is Protestant. King James raises an Irish army and enlists the help of the French. King William enlist the help of the Dutch, who are very Protestant. Although King James, who is leading the Irish is Catholic, the Catholic pope at the time backs Protestant King William because the Papal States at the time are at war with the French, and the Pope is not happy that the Irish are being backed by the French. How does the saying go – the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The backing of the Catholic Church is very helpful to King William, who ultimately wins the war and makes Catholics in Ireland second class citizens.
The Battle of the Boyne, which was fought in Ireland between William of Orange and James II in July 1690, was the last time two crowned kings of England, Scotland and Ireland faced each other on the battlefield. William of Orange won a crushing victory, which secured the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland for generations, which began centuries of oppression by the Protestant English over the Catholic Irish.
The irony runs to this day. Although the Catholic Pope and the Catholic Church were partly responsible for the rise of Protestant religion in Ireland, people in Northern Ireland, which remained a part of Great Britain, still burn images of anything Catholic.
The Religion. The Republic of Ireland is very Catholic. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Ireland became a haven for Christianity and the Universal Church. As Rome was being sacked by Visigoths and its empire collapsed, Ireland became ‘the isle of saints and scholars’ that enabled the classical and religious heritage to be saved. Some historians believe Ireland played the central role in maintaining European culture and religious heritage when the dark ages settled on Europe in the fifth century. Irish monks and scribes copied the manuscripts of both pagan and Christian writers, including Homer and Aristotle, while libraries on the continent were lost forever.
One extraordinary example of this is the Book of Kells at Trinity College. One of the most visited places in all of Ireland is Trinity College because of the Book of Kells. The Book is a 680-page illuminated Gospel book written in Latin around 800 A.D. that contains the four gospels with other texts and tables. The text of the Book is largely drawn from the Vulgate, which is a late 4th century Latin translation of the Bible, which has become the official translation of the Catholic Church to this day. It is regarded as the finest book of its kind in the world because its illustrations and ornamentation surpass that of other similar Gospel books in extravagance and complexity.
We spend tomorrow in Dublin before heading to Tralee on Sunday, where we will begin our 112-mile hike along the shore of the Dingle Peninsula.
