Arriving in Dublin, I looked out the windows of our charter bus expectantly. Not that I had firmly decided upon expectations of what Ireland would look like, I simply wanted to see how different everything looked on a different continent. I had seen pictures of steep cliffs overlooking infinite, grey ocean, of crags and sprawling grasslands; I saw very little of that on our ride to Griffith Halls of Residence, where we’re staying. The romantic country! That’s what I wanted! As we began to settle into the city for the next few days, I began to put those ideas in the back of my mind. With the romance of rural Ireland tucked quietly away, I began my love affair with the city of Dublin. The winding, sporadically named streets packed with shops and pubs and churches and museums. Something to see or something to buy, landmarks to remember and places hard to forget. Being swept away by the character of this city written for by passionate poets and spinners of stories and songs has been rattling, to say the least, and, in the quiet moments of the all too early morning, I’ve found myself joyously giggly at the very thought of having had the opportunity to have spent that very night in her laughing and electric embrace.
I soon learned, much to my delight, that the ideal I’d held originally for the Irish coast did indeed exist, and it was waiting for me in a place called Howth. As a group, we walked through Trinity College to the train station and soon embarked on a short journey that would lead us to the seaside village of Howth. On the train, we passed suburban Dublin to the north of the city centre. The suburbs of Dublin are exactly what one would expect of a residential area outside of a major city, which, curiously, was somewhat unexpected. Arriving in Howth, there was an immediate change of pace. The roar of the Irish Sea seemed to warrant a slower, calmer pace of we who visited her shores. We began with a long hike around stark cliffs and crags, similar, but more painstakingly raw and beautiful than I had originally imagined. Our hike took us farther from the mainland on a wide peninsula. As we walked, the Irish Sea below became more and more undeniably infinite like some great mystery feeding and growing from centuries of rumour. And there it lay, all around us, grey and tragic and unmovable. As our visit continued, we hiked through neighbourhoods and villas along the outskirts of the village. We took note of remarkable houses and churches and cemeteries that were undoubtedly beautiful and most likely older than our country. Lunch in the city was grand for its quietness. As it turns out, the dead of winter is not the peak of tourism season for oceanside Howth which meant that aside from the occasional locals or Dubliners, the village centre was not crowded much which allowed us to have a relaxed lunch, talk to Irish vendors, and take in the finality of our arrival to this incredible country. The juxtaposition of urban Dublin to rural Howth has, I’ve decided, been my working metaphor for my experience thus far. Trying to pin down Dublin in a word or with a simple cliché is impossible, Yeats knew that, Joyce knew that and, I’d like to imagine, suffered through Finnegan’s Wake trying to explain it all. I’m learning the importance of broadening my scope if I’m to make anything of sense out of this city. Until then, you’ll see me running the banks of the Royal Canal. Sláinte!