Éire

For St Patrick's Day

My lovely friend and partner, Meg, has Irish parentage and an Irish passport, but had not been back there since she was a child.

I am one quarter Irish by blood, but had never thought of visiting.

A few years ago Meg was unwell and we were both exhausted by our work. Her Canadian Cousins were planning a trip to Ireland and I felt, instinctively, that M needed to go too. I tried to book her a ticket - I said that I would stay here and keep our little family business running without her - but M felt too tired to travel alone.

So the answer was easy. I booked two tickets and we went together. (We are always better together).

I think M knew what would happen but the result for me was….. revelatory.

The words below are transcribed from my journal - jotted down in the plane as we left Dublin, the fierce force of the engines tearing us away into thick banks of cloud which parted briefly before we cleared the coast…..

The pictures are from our travel diary - Meg’s art created rapidly on the spot, at various places we briefly visited, with my words, and sometimes some of hers, alongside.

Ceann Sléibhe (Slea Head) - Photo by Dave

Éire

Up - lifting leaving lofting

into the clouds above Dublin

which open to receive us,

close behind us then part again,

briefly revealing a glimpse of

green squares, black lines,

the good land of Ireland

composing itself at the end

into something like your drawings -

a semblance, an essence,

a mythical substance;

an offering and an understanding.

So many have left, so

few have returned. If it

felt like a loss to those remained

it was also, equally, a long giving,

a sending, out into the wide world -

of women, men, legends and children,

of stories and memories, music,

tears, laughter and longing.

A deep woven magic of living - given.

So now our arrival reveals itself

as something I never expected,

never comprehended. I thought,

all along that this was a going,

to a land I never had planned to see -

but of course it was never that.

This was the far flung circle curving,

turning, returning us to here.

The balancing, the receiving,

the Céad míle fáilte¹ -

the always, always, welcoming….

On St Patrick’s day last year, I wrote a post and poem about the experience of arriving in Ireland, and being there…. “Autochnous” tells that story.

1. “A hundred thousand welcomes”