[ Edited: 10/25/2025 this is a repost of a series i wrote in 2022, migrating it to the new nostr website ]

i finished the work zoom. that’s too kind: i finished frustratingly complaining to some vendors that were ignoring the issues that they caused on my network. to be taken from my vacation every night to deal with issues that shouldn’t be happening — and to get no response from these guys for hours at a time — i had to let them know that i was upset. while they knew i was out of the country, i shared with them WHY i was out of the country, that they were interrupting my ash-scattering journey. but enough of that. i chose not to dwell on it… i was HUNGRY.

i walked around the town, looking for something open around dinner time. the river’s edge restaurant had great reviews and food photos, but only opened thursday through sunday. american style diner, also closed. my choices narrow down to pizza, chinese, or takeaway unless it’s thursday through sunday. i pop into a pub, andrew redmond and sons, on the way to pick up some takeaway, in hopes that maybe they served some pub grub.

… they did not. this place was a hole in the wall, divey type of pub with one thing on the menu: booze. in fact, every head in the bar turned to look at me (record scratch! stop!) when i walked in. i think i found the locals bar! about 15 irish males, mostly in their 50s and 60s were watching soccer and throwing back guinnesses. while everyone turned to check me out, they quickly went back to what they were doing. so i hopped on a bar stool between an older dark haired man and a younger guy with wild unkempt hair. and promptly ordered a pint of the guinness. i finish two gulps of the beer in silence, trying to connect eyes with one of these guys to strike up a convo, but also keen to not interrupt their soccer match. i started to noticed a strong smell of urine, which made the beer taste off, and figure eh… i’ll cut my losses, finish the beer and head out to mick the chipper, the closest takeaway requiring the least number of body-numbing steps. as i am about to finish my beer, the wild-haired gent next to me hands me another guinness.

“ble blah ble per guinness ple bler,” he said.

“oh thank you! wow.” i learned his name was kevin, and that even took some time to grok, as only every 5th word was audible and understandable sounding very much like popeye the sailor man’s under-the-breath mutterings.

we proceeded to attempt a discussion, me cluing into every 5th word and assuming what he said around it.

“blah blur be poer bunclody frem?”

“i just came from clonegall, the end of the wicklow way. i’m hiking my way across the country.” he smiled and nodded.

“oh pla berr stu tent per you camp innera?”

“yep, camping in a tent wherever i can. or when i need a shower, finding a town with a hotel. i’m at the clody lodge across the street tonight.”

this continues on, with him saying in the most clearly defined sentence he spoke “he’s doing what johnny did!”, to the darker haired fellow. that guy let out a hearty laugh and joined in the discussion. he was even harder to understand, with his words all tightly joined together into one beer-laced irish brogue.

a younger man enters from the backdoor with a cowboy hat on.

“doinwhatjohnnydid!” they slur to him, nodding toward me.

i could easily understand this guy, who was maybe 50 years old at most, very fit, and hadn’t yet had 10 beers to change his speech. he hikes routinely, but not for the last few years as he has 2 young children at the house now. in fact, he just popped in for a quick pint before he had to go pick up his daughter at dance class. he gave me a few pointers for the south leinster way, which i would be starting shortly. but he also suggested, like others before, to skip the next few legs and go over to the ring of kerry or the dingle peninsula and hike that instead. “s’the best use of yer time here!”

i finished the second pint and told kevin and my new friends that would return after i got something to eat. i headed to mick the chipper and got some beef curry and then back to my hotel room with that new annoying limp, the guinnesses not helping my leg feel any better. (“guinness for health” my ass!) i downed the curry in 5 minutes: it was quite excellent or i was incredibly famished. i thought about my new friends waiting at redmond’s — but decided to go to bed instead. i didn’t have the mental capacity to decipher the conversation anymore, anyway. plus, i had to get up early to catch one of the only two buses out of town.

in the middle of the night, i woke up with a painful cramp in the calf of the gimp leg. i threw off the covers and tried to stand up quickly or i knew i would be writhing in pain and unable to get up to relieve it. walking around is the only way to get rid of them. i remember wondering where am i? with only a dim light coming from the crack under the door, i couldn’t make out the furniture based on the shadows. am i in tent? am i back in philly? am i in mick’s house? it takes 20 seconds for my mind to adjust and recall i’m in bunclody. i shake my head aggressively, as if to snap myself back to reality, and lie back down.

~~~~~

i wake up feeling groggy. i didn’t sleep well, tossing and turning constantly. that’s not like me; i am able to sleep anywhere at anytime. but between my ailing leg and my mind overly alert from a new place every night, i just couldn’t get comfortable. i see it’s 6 am on my watch. oh well, i missed the first bus. i pack up and walk down to the supermarket to inquire about the bus transit system. the store clerk was just opening his doors. he’s a very friendly fellow, more helpful than i had anticipated. he assured me i could pay with paper money and they would give me change, even though the bus websites said that they wouldn’t.

while waiting for the bus, i talked with an older woman, mary, who must take the bus regularly. she told me about how so many places in town closed from the restrictive lockdowns for covid (people couldn’t leave a specific, eventually expanding, perimeter around their hometown in ireland). she also theorized that there weren’t enough chefs or workers in general to keep everything open. she noted that on a random wednesday night at 9pm, the town center would be empty right now because people got used to (or even enjoyed) staying in for the night instead of walking about town. optimistically, she mentioned that several new places have already opened “on the edges of the town.” it’s a shame that they aren’t opening in the middle of town, but i imagine the rent is more expensive. you would think building owners would negotiate to get their spaces filled, yet many stores remained closed or boarded up. she mentioned that they were investing big money in a hotel near the golf course, too, again on the edge of town.

the loss of main streets has also hit america hard. when small towns lose their economic engines in the center of town, the whole town suffers. and, even more drastically, you start to loosen the threads that keep a tight-knit community together. when you’re not walking to the store and saying hello to your neighbors — catching up on town happenings or just generally keeping in touch — community seems to unwind. i have experienced this in america, and it would pain me to see it happen in small-town ireland. that’s one of the things, i think, that makes me enjoy going there so much. everyone knows everyone, and they all know when a traveler is coming through. i hope the world can recover quickly from this.

the bus arrives, the driver opens the door. “aw goo’mornin’ mary! headed to baltinglass?” “g’morning luv, aye i am.” he gives me a similarly affable greeting and asks where i am headed. i pay the €14.50 requested to city center and sit down behind mary. i listen as the bus driver greets every person getting on the bus by name while anticipating their destination. this happened not just in bunclody, but all along the route he has probably driven for the past decade or more.

“hiyya jackie, headed to dublin city center?” he asked.

“ye, i’m t’irsty and want to see if there’s any more rain up there.” he jokes, as bunclody just went through a 3 day rainstorm before i arrived.

“oh they had lots last night,” he replied. somehow i kept missing the rain. when i wasn’t in dublin, it was raining there. before i arrived in bunclody, it rained there. my path was optimally (by sheer luck) avoiding all precipitation.

i spent the bus ride writing, drifting in and out of thought, occasionally interrupted by someone getting on or off the bus. before i knew it, i looked up and saw the ha’penny bridge in dublin over the river liffey. oh! i’m right near st. michan’s! i told the driver i was getting off at the next stop instead.

st. michan’s is this hidden gem in dublin. it’s a very old, still-active church that has a crypt underneath it with often times stacked coffins. it is obviously illegal to bust open coffins and disturb the deceased’s remains, but sometimes the wood gives way and the coffin collapses on itself. during the cleanup of one such instance, the mummified remains of several bodies were exposed in the crypt many years ago. there are theories as to why the remains are mummified (limestone basement walls creating a dry environment, methane gas from being built on a former swampland). whatever is preserving their bodies is also destroying the wood. the main room has 4 mummies in it, two women and two men. the one man had his feet chopped off, suspected of being a thief (but later possibly becoming a priest, which would explain being in the crypt). the two women were well preserved. the prized jewel here is a 900 year old mummy believed to be a crusader. this soldier was incredibly tall (estimated to be 6′ 5″, which was giant-size in his world). his legs were broken in half and folded under him so that he could fit into the coffin!

the main mummy room

my dad went to st. michan’s in 2003, and he got such a kick out of the (quite excellent) tour guide that he refused to let people go to dublin without insisting that they checked out st. michan’s crypts. peter, as i later learned was his name as he is still doing the tours nearly 20 years later, starts the tour with a “so you want to see the mummies?” or a “so you are here to see the crypt?” in an impression of the ‘tales from the crypt’ cryptkeeper’s gait and voice.

when i came myself in 2003 (and again in 2012 and 2015), at my dad’s urging, the crusader had his hand extended out of the coffin. and the finger looked petrified. as the tour went on back then, a superstition was revealed to us that rubbing the finger while making a wish would ensure it came true. so of course about half of every hourly tour was not grossed out enough to rub the finger for luck. sadly, the hand was not extended anymore. i asked peter what happened, and he told us that in 2019, the crypt was broken into and desecrated. The Crusader’s head and some bones were stolen, the women were turned over in their grave, and the thief was decapitated. they eventually found the vandal, and thus the bones and head, but the extended hand collapsed and disintegrated to a point that it was no longer safe to touch. what a bummer! people can really be such assholes.

https://blossom.primal.net/51fbec9ed528067ef1a378f4a18e3d0d7714eda7f6f44234c2571eb20707e7e3.mp4

the cryptkeeper (so worth the €7 tour fee!)

i had a great chat with peter for 10-15 minutes as the other tour guests left. i told him all about my dad’s love of him and this tour, that my dad had probably sent close to 100 people his way… and about my adventure spreading ashes across ireland. i asked if i could drop some ashes down below in the crypt. he said “no” but winked when he said it… or at least i thought i saw a wink. so i dropped a small pinch of bill’s and my dad’s ashes sneakily so the other tour guests didn’t see. my dad would certainly love to know that a little bit of him is down there with the mummies. considering bill’s skull tattoos, he’d probably get a kick out of it too!

https://blossom.primal.net/cccab5029842b21c33fc8f83dc1e36667e903ba508d9b8a7fc91b296fc6710fb.mp4

scattering ashes in the crypt. oops busted, left my flash on!

walking out of the church, i remembered that my friend chalk (my housemate trevor’s girlfriend) was in ireland with her family. we had intentionally made no promises of meeting up while we both were in the emerald island; if fate brought us together in the same area at the same time, so be it! i shot her a text. “hey i am randomly back in dublin to ditch some weight for the night.” then i hopped in a cab to head back to mick and ann marie’s to drop off my bag. still wearing my hiking boots, i was somewhat desperate to put on something more comfortable for street walking. traveling as lightly as possible, however, i didn’t have any other shoes. ann marie graciously took me to the mall after we surprised the girls by picking them up at their schools. they were shocked to see me so soon! they thought it would be 3 weeks until they saw me, so i got some running leaps, hugs, and screams of ‘briannn!’.

uncle b hates his ice cream

at the mall, i bought some cozy nikes (pronounced with one syllable in ireland… rhymes with mike’s) and some ankle hugging thin non-hiking socks. my feet were feeling pretty happy (my lower leg was another story, but the pain was tolerable until i overused it by the end of the day). of course, we were at the mall with uncle b… so i treated the girls to some ridiculously large ice cream sundaes. we headed back to the house and drew portraits of each other. clodagh told me hers was “way better” than mine (and made herself a medal for beating me!). i let her win that one because chalk had just texted me back that she happened to be in dublin as well, and they were planning to go to a traditional irish music jam session. perfect!

got to hang with chalk without hiking boots

i hopped onto the bus and made my way back down into city center. we hung out at the cobblestone pub, staying for several hours to enjoy the live trad music. i was constantly impressed with how musicians joined and left the music circle so seamlessly that the melodious sounds never stopped. it was impressive and delighted my ears. pub patrons would sometimes get loud, talking to each other with voices rising as the ambient noise in the bar picked up. the bartenders would occasionally politely say “this IS a music bar, please be quiet.” and they would shut up for a few minutes until the sounds built to a crescendo again. enter the tin flute. this old white-haired jolly irish gentleman was playing the tin flute, and he seemed to have control over the crowd volume without effort. the second he started playing, the room got quiet. it was beautiful and peacful, or haunting and eery, but always melodic. he was a master. and he earned his respect, apparently. i couldn’t get over how no one dared make a peep the moment the first note left his flute, every time.

https://blossom.primal.net/6ed3209e408004231f228bb1b88b75536e61c97768cfff9e03eee59266e2c831.mp4

cobblestone pub

we had a fantastic meal around the corner at oscar’s cafe bar (thank you for the recommendation to the bartender, and to chalk’s aunt and uncle for treating!) and then mary pat, chalk and i went to brazen head, the oldest pub in dublin, for a night cap as mary pat’s parents went home. we were all pretty exhausted, but i could tell that mary pat, being younger than chelsea and i, was still ready to rip it. she had decided that she was moving to ireland and even checked out some rental properties while she was here. i wish i had it in me to stay out past midnight, but i was eager to get back on the trail the next morning, so i didn’t. we did however do a celebratory shot of whiskey with her before calling it a night.

this was a good diversion, a good idea to come back to dublin. i got to see chelsea (and meet her family) and reduce my load before continuing. consensus was that i should get my leg checked out before i headed south and continued my trek across the motherland.

so that became my plan.

do you agree, chalk?

she agrees.

#travel #ireland2022