See Me Squeegee

Two years ago my brother, Sean, made a similar – and much grander – Irish journey, which among other things elicited this incredible story:

http://irishsafari.blogspot.ie/2014/08/indiana-jones-adventure-to-tully-cross.html

(Note: Please read…not only is it much more entertaining than this current post, but this current post won’t make much sense without the context.)

Of course, when I found myself in Ireland this week a similar journey was a must. That had been the highlight of Sean’s trip; the pub had initially been “discovered” (for our purposes at least) by our good friend Rory; and part of the Irish allure has always been getting way off the beaten path away from tourists and deeper into the homeland.  This pilgrimage would of course be a day well spent.

Having learned from my brother’s adventures, I was able to avoid the bus to the wrong town and the need to hire a bike some 15 miles away. With some advanced planning I managed to reduce the commute to a 5km walk after a 2-hours-and-change bus ride, but even so the journey was part of the destination. Ireland is gorgeous!  The bus from Galway first runs along the largest lake in Ireland, then progresses past lakes and mountains to “Connemara Loop” – a road that loops around Connemara National Park.  CityLink wifi be damned, virtually no one turned on a phone or tablet…all eyes were glued on some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. The ride through Clifden to Letterfrack went too quickly, if you ask me…that’s right, rural Ireland makes you beg for more time on the bus.

Alas, while you’re walking for 45 minutes into a cold headwind to begin drinking in the early afternoon, a man is forced to wonder whether the destination is worth the journey (which is the destination itself of course, but still…).  Sean’s experience at Paddy Coyne’s was amazing, but lots of that was due to its uniqueness and improbability; would mine be anywhere near that great?  And this was a whole day affair – bus station by 8:30 to make sure I caught the 9am bus to get to Letterfrack before noon and the pub before 1, with a pretty hard 5pm cutoff to walk back for the only return bus of the day at 6:05.  If it’s closed, or they’re not all that happy to see me, or it’s just a bummer, I’d have given up a whole day simply to have a few beers alone.

The scenery continued to make it a trip well-spent; Tully Cross is on the Atlantic coast with mountains and bays and greenery abound.  And there was history to be seen, too – along the walk I encountered a subdivision that seemed horrendously out of place in the more traditional countryside – a place well more suited to Novi or Grand Blanc, Michigan.  Walking closer, I saw a sign that the entire not-completely-finished neighborhood was going to auction – the Celtic Tiger boom of the early 2000s and bust of 2008 was staring me right in the face within a mile of Paddy Coyne’s.  I felt a mixture of sad – such stark evidence of how the global recession had affected my homeland, and even more so evidence of how global corporatism had blighted this amazing landscape – and of schadenfreude: how dare those developers think they can profit off of Irish tradition and natural beauty!  And how wonderful that a centuries-old pub nearby was thriving and attracting Americans (well, three of us now that I know of) for its authenticity while the bankers and opportunists suffer just down the hill.

As I turned the corner into the small town of Tully Cross, I saw two men setting up for the coming weekend’s Mussel Fest, and they immediately smiled and greeted me.  This was the small town hospitality I was looking for!  And just beyond them the ocean gleamed below and the green mountains – including one where, legend has it, Saint Patrick himself would go to pray – were illuminated by sunbeams poking through the light clouds.  But now the moment of truth: Paddy Coyne’s.  I walked past once just to get a feel for the town before taking my place on a barstool, and then when I circled back and walked to the door it was…closed.  And locked.  And a sign nearby mentioned that “food service resumes March 15 (it was late April, so I was in luck!) from 5pm each day (uh oh…even if I can kill 4+ hours here I only have time to slam one beer before I have to hustle back to the bus or risk being stranded).”  I returned to the men setting up the fair and asked when Paddy Coyne’s would open: they both knew that Colin Coyne (son of Gerry, the owner) was “around today” and that the pub should open later in the afternoon.  I sat on a bench out front and contemplated my next move.

Hunger intervened, and I had seen another pub – Anglers Rest – a few doors down, and it was open.  I popped in to grab something to eat and wait it out. I sat at the bar and a waitress came to take my order, and a few minutes later the bartender entered and greeted me. I felt the need to tell my story:”I’m here from the States and took a bus up to Letterfrack this morning to see Tully Cross.  This town – and Paddy Coyne’s down the street – has some legendary significance to my friends and family.”  He indulged me and I told the story further “a couple years ago my brother took a crazy trip here to see a picture that our friend had left of his grandfather in the bar.  It probably sounds crazy but that was the highlight of his trip and I’m here to see it for myself.”

The bartender, Naill, smiled and said “I tend bar there, too. I remember your brother and I know exactly the picture you’re talking about.  I’m opening there at 3…I’ll take you right to it.”

I was amazed – I had been hopeful that I’d find the photo and talk to Gerry Coyne about the story, but didn’t dream that the stories would remain so significant here years later.  I described Sean and Rory to Naill and he remembered them exactly. He brought out the guestbook – from the 1970s to the early 2000s this volume spanned – and had me read looking for Rory (I didn’t find him) and sign on behalf of the three of us.  He introduced me to some regulars and we talked (mostly about Donald Trump, but also about Ireland’s current political problems of its own), and at 3pm we headed to Paddy’s.  Gerry Coyne bought me a Smithwicks and they gave me the grand tour, including Rory’s grandfather’s photo. I took a photo of the photo to send to Rory, and via the magic of modern technology I was able to text with him and relay his thoughts to the bartenders and owners he had befriended more than a decade before.

In “that’s Ireland” fashion, I struck up conversations with locals and they implored me to stay past my 5pm cutoff for one more pint (which turned into two) and they’d drive me to the bus.  They knew my family names – the Bentons from County Tipperary and the Galvins from County Kerry – and some of the histories, and in this tiny town on the edge of Ireland, I felt that sense of family and belonging in Ireland that had been my primary motivation for wanting to visit.  Thousands of miles away from any mailing address I’ve ever had, I felt at home.

“Norm!” – everyone at Cheers

“What I love most about Dublin is the diversity, the blend of cultures.” – Patrick Hughes, Dublin tour guide

I came here searching the former, but at first it was all the latter.  And, believe me, this isn’t a pro-Trump (or pro-Cruz) post, but I was disappointed.  Enter Seinfeld: not that there’s anything wrong with that, variety is the spice of life, etc.  But a huge part of my excitement to travel to Ireland was to discover my ancestry, to go to a place where most people were just like me.  If I wanted to see people of all walks of life gather together to bump into each other while looking at their phones walking past TGI Friday’s, I could have gone virtually anywhere else.  But here I was, Irish in spirit but more of a mutt in practice, in a city that pretty well echoed that same composition.

But travel is the primary way to spend money and end up richer.  And I did both.

As I wandered around the city of Dublin, past Thai and sushi restaurants, past bars advertising Budweiser and Carlsberg, past hordes of non-redhead, not-befreckled humans, I felt like something was missing.  And as I walked I realized what it was: my O’Bama’s Irish Pub t-shirt, of course, guaranteed that it wasn’t abject hatred of multiculturalism, but it was indeed a longing for an increased sense of belonging and exclusivity: this was the land of my ancestors, and I wanted to fit right in.  Nevermind that my most recent direct forebear left more than a hundred years ago (when the land I walked upon was still called “England,” but I’ll get to that), or that at least a quarter of my blood was non-Irish.  I – far from “pure Irish”- wanted a pure Irish experience.  So I soldiered on, and discovered:

There’s no such thing.  That “Viking Tours” duckboat I had scowled at? Perfectly at home: the Vikings are a huge part of the early foundation of Ireland.  As were the Gauls and Normans: Galway, from where I type this?  “Gaul” meant “foreigner” to the early Irish…this was French/Norman/Gaul territory in the 1200s.  So I wonder about the prefix to my last name, Galvin…  Then, of course, there are the British, who are responsible for the majority of nice-looking Irish architecture (but then again also the potato famine…Irish farms were producing tons and tons of other cash crops, but the Crown would only allow the Irish people the potatoes).  My middle name, Patrick – named after Patrick Benton – is as Irish as a name gets…right?  Except for that St. Patrick was English, and only returned to Ireland – after having escaped jail here – upon God’s request to convert and save the Irish people.

As I learned about the crooked family trees of Irish bloodlines and of my own, I thought more about my place in all of this.  Even at its purest, Ireland was the land my ancestors left because of starvation and poverty; why had I glorified it so much in my mind?  And, as with most nationalities, “Irish” is a blend of several bloodlines and influences; the Ireland of the 1000-1500 era saw immigration like the United States did centuries later.  So why my – and “our” – fascination with Ireland?

The more I get to travel internationally, the more I realize this: we’re all very similar.  I like being Irish the same way that on any of these trips I make a point to pack a Detroit Tigers hat and a Michigan shirt…I want to belong to something, and to be in a position where someone will recognize that we both belong to the same “exclusive” club. Our families and towns are a bit too small; the world itself is way too big (unless aliens attack, of course, and then we’ll all band together). We’re all looking to belong to something bigger than ourselves but smaller and more exclusive than the whole. Here in Ireland, “we” (can I say that?) identify by the counties our ancestors are from (Tipperary and Clare for me…at least I think); in the States we identify by our primary nationalities, by the colleges we went to, by the regions we’re from..

Which brings me back to my first day here.  I came seeking belonging, a place where “everyone knows my name” (and they do…I’ve seen it on buses and signs!). And I’ve found that, but differently and more so.  My Irish roots are far from “roots” – I belong here as much as I belong in Michigan, where I grew up, and in England, where I know at least some of my Irish ancestors are from. And today some locals mentioned that the Bentons – my grandmother’s father’s family that we assumed had some English origin – of County Tipperary were a Jewish family.  So my roots may extend even further out of Catholic Ireland through Protestant England to Jewish…who knows where? Patrick Benton escaped Irish poverty the way that someone farther back than him escaped religious persecution, and before that I’m sure there were plenty more instances where my ancestors moved around for a better life.  Your family lineage – whoever you may be and wherever you may be from – is probably similarly erratic.

Every time I travel to a new place, I’m reminded that we’re all global citizens, much more alike than we are different. In different places I see similarities; this time I went to a place where I thought there would be more similarities and learned about differences in my homeland and ancestry.  As I continue this journey, I’m proud to be Irish – I still need that belonging – but just as proud to be whatever else I am along the way. And while I can’t smile walking past a freaking TGI Friday’s in Dublin, I can certainly smile at whomever is walking the other direction…whether we’re long lost relatives or just complete strangers, we have a lot in common.