Located in Howth, Ireland, this monument is titled The
Lost at Sea Memorial. This monument originally honored the five killed
crewmembers from The Geraldine, a non-military vessel sunk by a U-boat on March
30, 1918, during World War I. The statue now commemorates all individuals lost
at sea for any reason. The picture states the following inscription. The second
verse below is written in the native Irish language.
“The Cross represents the Love of God,
The rope edge and shell motif, His nets.
The anchor reflects our dependence on Him,
The rock…the safety of the land,
The swirling stones…the dancers of the sea
The 12 sides…the months of the year
The hooped railing…the rise and fall of the waves.
Ag ChÃost an mhuir
Ag ChÃost an t-iasc
I lÃontaibh Dé go gcastar sinn.
Christ of the sea
Christ of the fish
May we be gathered in the nets of God.”
Mathew Calhoun and I were touched by the monument
previously mentioned, especially with the symbolic Christian motifs from the etched
verses. I will emphasize more details about the Irish fishing village of Howth
and the elegance of this memorial later in the blog entry.
Mathew and I began our recent adventure overseas in
Dublin, Ireland, arriving on a Tuesday during the last week of July. We booked
a red-eye flight and were therefore very tired when we first arrived in Ireland.
An unexpected blessing occurred at Egan’s Guesthouse, the small boutique hotel
where we stayed. The hotel staff permitted us to access our room at 10:00 am in
the morning, so we could rest to eventually enjoy the latter half of the day
after staying up most of the night on the plane. We stayed in this guesthouse
twice during our travels. We thoroughly enjoyed it each time, especially with
these excellent acts of customer service.
While slowly waking up in the late afternoon, we got
ready to take a leisurely stroll through the city to enjoy our surroundings. We
made our way to the Jameson Distillery at Bow Street. While I do not typically
drink a lot of liquor, I enjoyed the décor of the distillery and the history of
the company, especially the information about the family who started the
business. The distillery was first named The Steins Family Bow Street
Distillery in 1780. John Jameson first served as the general manager and then
eventually took over ownership of the entire operation. This entrepreneur's
last name then became the company's title, Jameson Irish Whiskey. The Jameson
tour reminded me of the bourbon trail in Kentucky, where you can similarly tour
multiple distilleries.
On this first day in Ireland, we also climbed the
Skyview Tower, adjacent to Generator Dublin, an uptown hostel with contemporary
decor and hipster travelers spending time together in the lobby bar areas. The
tower provided a brilliant glimpse of the city skyline and some landmarks we
hoped to visit in the first week of our trip. From there, we walked a short
distance to the Temple Bar, a riveting riverside community with quirky
boutiques, live music venues, and crowded restaurants, filled with visitors
from all over the world. You could hear various tunes in the bars, including
pop, Metallica, and traditional folk Irish music. It was a diverse scene of
celebration for individuals drinking, eating, and generally enjoying themselves.
We ate at the Temple Bar Pub (a restaurant in the Temple Bar community with the
same name) and then walked back toward the hotel, still a little tired from our
red-eye flight the day before.
On Wednesday morning, we scheduled a historical
walking tour through a company named Sandeman’s New Dublin. Instead of an
upfront fee, the tour guides on these walking ventures live off the tips tourists
give them if they enjoy the experience. Our stops on tour included Dublin
Castle, the Chester Beatty Museum, the Dubh Linn Gardens, Trinity College, the
Spire of Dublin, and the Molly Malone statue. John, our guide's name,
constantly described various parts of the tour with references involving the
word, “craic.” “It was a craic’in good time last night.” “That is a craic’in
good club that gets busy around midnight.” “That was a craic’in good memory
when Queen Elizabeth delivered her speech in the Dubh Linn Gardens.” I asked
for an explanation since this term is most often associated with illegal drug
consumption in the United States. John replied that “the craic” referred to
“having fun” or “having a good time.” After our tour, at the recommendation of
the guide, we visited a restaurant near the Temple Bar district named Mulligan
and Haines. Both Mathew and I ordered the famed Irish dish, fish and chips.
Given the late afternoon hour, there were few people in the restaurant. The
food and service were exceptional, and the restaurant's décor was simple yet
uncommon.
On Thursday, Mathew and I visited the Guinness Beer
Storehouse. The building encompassed seven floors combined with a beer factory,
a museum, a large gift shop, and a gravity rooftop bar. The immersion
interactive experience involved the science behind beer-making and the
extensive history of Arthur Guinness and his family line. Arthur started
brewing his porter-style beverages at St. James’s Gate as early as the 1770’s. Guinness
is known for its creation from roasted barley, creating a rich aroma and a dark
ruby color. This original Arthur beer recipe now accounts for 45% of the
company’s global sales.
I am a huge fan of lighthouses for their beauty and
the symbolic nature of light in the darkness of a storm. Perhaps better said,
semiotically, lighthouses represent images of hope to me. At night, a ship
finds refuge when these symbols signify shallow waters that potentially could
cause harm to the boats.
As a result of my fascination with lighthouses, after
our tour at the Guinness Beer Storehouse, we visited the Poolbeg Lighthouse on
Friday. This structure sits on the outskirts of the city along the coastline.
The retaining harbor wall to reach the lighthouse stretches almost a mile and a
half long one-way. Upon the wall's initial construction in 1786, it was the
longest of its kind in the world and remained one of Europe's longest seawalls
to this day. The Poolbeg lighthouse structure is painted a distinct red,
visible from afar several miles around on a bright day. From the retaining
wall, one can also clearly see the North Bull Lighthouse (built in 1880) and
the North Bank Lighthouse, which is nicknamed The Tea Caddy due to its
architectural shape. Initially built in 1882, the North Bank Lighthouse looks
like a giant mailbox on four enormous stilts. The North Bull Lighthouse
resembles a classic cylinder-shaped lighthouse with a hazel-green tint.
On Friday morning, Mathew and I boarded a train to
travel across Ireland to Galway, a coastal city on the west coast. Before
heading to Galway, Mathew and I experienced a hiccup in our travel plans.
Literally, less than forty-eight hours before our trip from Dublin to Galway,
our tour company canceled our accommodations and planned itinerary for the next
two days. We paid a flat fee for a company to escort us on a bus to multiple
destinations on the west coast; however, I had to improvise with the sudden change.
The Galway Races Summer Festival (perhaps Ireland's most famous horse races)
occurred this same weekend we had planned to visit Galway, which certainly made
for a festive experience. However, the last-minute accommodation took a lot of
work to find. Thankfully, we found a modest-priced Airbnb to replace our original
accommodations.
We arrived in Galway around lunchtime, dropped our
luggage off at our host home, and walked to a local eatery named The Full Duck
Café. Our Airbnb host recommended this restaurant, known for its homemade
cuisine and gourmet coffee. Mathew and I both enjoyed the meal and ventured
into the main square again, where we stopped at the Galway City Distillery for
a few specialty mixed gin drinks. In addition to rum and vodka, the distillery
created multiple flavors of gin with different plants, organic ingredients, and
natural oils. The business owner provided us with a free tour, an oral history
of the company, and some local history about Galway as a city. We walked to the
Spanish Arch, a famous archway in the original city walls from the 1700s. Mathew
and I split up for a few hours to explore the city on our own.
I walked on the city's south side along the waterfront
through a green space called South Park, along the River Corrib (a small water
passage that flowed directly into the city from the ocean resembling a river).
From a far distance away, I could see another lighthouse. As previously
explained, I fancy a scenic lighthouse. Once through South Park, I reached the
Mutton Island Causeway. It was approximately another half mile to the island,
where a water treatment plant blocked access directly to the lighthouse;
however, one still had a pleasant view of the top of the lighthouse. The
scenery was majestic! It was getting dark, and I had several more miles to walk
back and meet Mathew for a few beers before returning to our Airbnb residence
for the night. Late into the night, the city thrived with eclectic pubs, local
boutiques with handmade products, specialty coffee shops, and restaurants with
exquisite cuisine. The town felt homey, sitting on the seaside, where most
local landmarks were within walkable distance from each other. I walked a
little over ten miles for the day. Exploration requires intense legwork. My
heart was whole, and I was grateful for another abundant day with my friend.
While Mathew stayed in Galway the next day, I booked
an excursion to the Aran Islands and the Cliffs of Moher, which would last most
of the morning and afternoon. My bus first left for Doolin, where we would take
a ferry to the first of the three Aran Islands, Inis Oirr (also known as Inisheer
in Irish). As one might suspect with Irish weather, this day was rainy and
foggy, making visibility difficult in some areas. The thirty-minute ferry ride
to the island made my stomach churn. Thankfully, I did not vomit off the side
of the boat or on anyone’s lap. I was sitting next to a friendly, loquacious
girl from Wales. So, my spit-up would definitely have been unfortunate.
When I arrived on the island, local tour guides
offered rides to the arriving tourists with horse-drawn wagons. The island is
only approximately three kilometers by three kilometers, meaning one can easily
ride a horse, a bike, or take a walk around the inlet in a short amount of
time. During the horse buggy ride, we visited a wrecked cargo ship, the Plassy,
which wrecked into the island's rocks in the 1960s. The ship still sits on the
wreck site with an old iron, rusted edifice. It resembles a true ghostship visual
experience with an exciting tale. No lives were lost in the accident due to the
bravery of local islanders. We also visited an ancient graveyard, where an old stone
church was built into the ground. This in-ground design was meant to provide
shelter from fierce winds and rain many years ago when people actually visited
the church. The structure had been vacated for several decades and is known as
Tiemphall Chaomha (Church of St. Keevauns or St. Kevin’s Church). Still, it
provided another example of beautiful, Irish-aged architecture that weathered rainy
storms and seas. Our ride ended at the bottom of a steep hill, where the ruins
of O'Brien's Castle provided a 360-degree panoramic view of the island, the village,
the docks, and the surrounding ocean. The island was one large rock, where
locals broke up the rock and built several square fence structures to place
soil and grow grass for livestock. So, much of the island looks like a checkerboard
with stone fences everywhere, adding to the scenery's unique charm.
The island’s population is approximately three hundred
people, with some churches, a school, stores, and a few café type restaurants.
I gathered much of the island depended on tourism, including our guide with the
horse-drawn wagon business. The island's first language was Irish, not English,
even though most were fluent in both languages. Irish was taught in the local
school. The island encompassed a freshwater lake centered in the middle of the
landscape that my guide said an endangered eel species lived in, but could no
longer be fished since now endangered. There were no other fish or major living
organisms now in the small lake. Inis Oirr was a unique landmark with many
captivating features that provided a glimpse into what some of Ireland might
have looked like thousands of years - rugged, seaworthy, untouched, and
splendid scenery.
The ferry ride back to Doolin stopped at the bases on
the Cliffs of Moher, a UNESCO global geopark and Irish National Park. The
heights reach as high as seven hundred feet in elevation. Ocean waters crashed
against the rocks below as my eyes soared to the cliffs above. I steadied
myself, so I did not get sick from the rough waters of the boat. After the
ferry returned to the docks, the bus stopped at the Visitor Center at the
Cliffs of Moher. Unfortunately, the weather had gotten so bad that you could
not see any mesmerizing vistas. The tops of the cliffs have a lookout area
known as O'Brien's Tower; however, again, nothing could be seen in the
distance. Upon my return, Mathew and I had a restful evening because we would
take an early train back to Dublin the following day.
We arrived back at Egan’s Guesthouse for our second
stay in Dublin mid-morning. Because we had such a wonderful time during our
first stay at Egan’s, we looked forward to seeing the staff and staying there
again. We wanted to make the most of our second stay in Dublin by visiting a
local, coastal fish town known as Howth, another popular destination many
advised us to explore. It took about ten minutes via taxi and then thirty
minutes via train to Howth from the Dublin city center. When we arrived in
Howth, we grabbed lunch in The Oar House, where I ordered calamari and fish pie
(naturally smoked Haddock served in a creamy vegetable horseradish sauce topped
with mashed potato). The meal melted in my mouth like a milkshake on a hot
Alabama summer day.
In a smaller fashion, compared to Galway, Howth
comprised one-of-a-kind seafood restaurants, craft vendors, and open green
spaces. Along the waterfront edges, Pier Street connected to Howth Pier Park,
which neighbored a picturesque yacht club and marina. The park led to another
longer seawall that reached toward the Howth Lighthouse. These areas were
easily walkable, surrounded by the townscape. Ireland's Eye is an island nature
preserve with several protected bird populations, a grey seal colony, and
several hiking trails. Ireland’s Eye was easily visible from the Howth
Lighthouse. The town felt like a majestic scene in a movie!
Howth is also known for a famous hike known as the
cliff trail, which circles the peninsula. Several planned loops range from
approximately four to seven and a half miles (six to twelve kilometers). We had
to walk a mile and a half uphill to reach the start of the trail. The trail was
hilly, with several ocean cliff views and waves crashing several hundred feet
below. For those who have not visited Ireland, it resembled many of the
California coastline hikes and landmarks along the Pacific Coast Highway. For
much of our hike, we could look back on the town of Howth, where the seawall
enclosed the marina and highlighted the features of Pier Street and the
lighthouse. It was a spectacle where the most detailed photographs might not
capture the illustriousness of the moment.
On our way back to the Howth town center, after hiking
several miles, we were hungry again. In addition to a few local beers, Mathew
and I shared a joint order of crab claws in savory butter and homemade cocktail
sauce at King Sitric Seafood Bar. We felt blessed to eat in this restaurant
because it was clear most patrons had reservations, and our wait time was
minimal. My mouth continues to water, recollecting and writing about our
cuisine experiences in Howth. Our day in Howth might have provided the best
food we had during our trip with these two meals.
Mathew and I felt strongly connected to Dublin and the
specific individuals we met during our first week of adventures. Thus, we
decided to tour Trinity College at our own pace in more detail than the
previously mentioned tour given by Sandeman’s New Dublin. As a prestigious
university known by name around the world, Trinity resembles a campus with
architecture similar to the Harry Potter school, Hogwarts, which is vividly
depicted in the movie series. We then visited the Dubh Lin Gardens one more
time before heading back to Egan’s, another distinct famous landmark of the
city.
When I was a child, I remember walking through plush,
soft grass at my favorite parks, massaging the bottoms of my feet like pillows
on my face. The sensation makes me feel connected to nature; the experience
created a spiritual connection between my childhood and that present moment in
those dignified Dubh Lin nurseries. The grass freshly soothed my feet as I
danced around the lawn like a sprite. On this occasion, I felt led to pray that
God would bless this stunning place and express my gratefulness for the singular,
unprecedented Irish personalities we encountered. On this last day of exploring
Ireland, we easily walked (and hiked) another ten-twelve miles in total distance
through Howth and Dublin.
Throughout my life, I have learned several lessons from
my adventures with international traveling. I have navigated all over the world
and thus experienced many different life perspectives. Sometimes people tend to
see the world as they want to see it, rather than for what it is. Traveling
breaks down a person's paradigm and allows an individual to see the world from
other viewpoints. An encounter with culture opens a person’s eyes to real life,
and these experiences, therefore, educate a person. It shows the beauty in the
shades of gray that define who we are as individuals.
These experiences exhibit that a world exists outside
of the United States. To be changed by this external world, an immersion
experience in a culture other than your own benefits the traveler with newfound
knowledge and information. The distinction between the well-traveled adventurer
and a local stateside inhabitant becomes noticeable in how a person
communicates, how they behave, and more importantly, what they think.
International excursions open a mind to consider the world through the lens of
another person’s journey. That open-mindedness is often visible in how an individual
addresses another person in conversation.
Traveling outside of the United States enhances personal
and professional relationships. When building relationships through cultural
experiences, an individual realizes people with opinions other than their own
might see things differently yet still live in harmony. In this approach to diplomacy,
by the very nature of conflict, discord takes a backseat in efforts extended by
people to understand each other. Sometimes there is more than one way of doing
things well and maybe even a better way than initially perceived.
Finally, when shared with the right person, these
experiences become lifetime memories. Mathew Calhoun is one of my closest
friends. On multiple occasions, when I have felt a little down in the past,
Mathew has spoken words of hope into my spirit. While together these few weeks,
we became close and got to know each other even more than we previously did.
(Portrait of James on the cliff trail in Howth, Ireland.)
(The Howth Lighthouse and the surrounding waterway on
the edge of the town and the marina.)
(An emblem on the stone inside St. Kevin’s Church at the first of the three Aran
Islands, named Inis Oirr.)
(The Mutton Island Lighthouse on the outskirts of
Galway, Ireland.)
(Another view on one side of the Dubh Linn Gardens.)
(A camera self-portrait in the museum at the Guinness
Beer Storehouse.)
(The Poolbeg Lighthouse – tall, bright, and red.)
(A glimpse of the North Bull Lighthouse from the
Poolbeg Lighthouse seawall.)
(A sailboat in front of the North Bull Lighthouse, visible from the Poolbeg Lighthouse seawall.)
(A cross tombstone at Inis Oirr.)
(A view of the countryside at Inis Oirr.)
(A view of the Galway, Ireland coastline.)
(The Dubh Linn Gardens walkway.)
(Mathew and I in the Gravity Bar, atop the roof of the
Guinness Beer Storehouse.)
#daddydestinations
#daddy #dad #blog #family #travel #internationaltravels #adventures #escapades
#destinations #memories #story #narrative #inspiration #JamesCartee
#Thanksgiving #goodness #lifelessons #CalhounAndCartee #Ireland #Wales #England
#TheUnitedKingdom #UK
