Thoughts on Ireland

Tis a bit intimidating to write anything at all about Ireland after the like of Samuel Beckett, James Joyce and others of course.  But if everyone let that stop them we would all be screwed out of much fine literature.  That being said . . . I'll move on.  We have been on our first and far too brief sojourn through this lovely and lively country and is is not enough to take even a month.  I think we shall have to live here for a few years at least to get a sense of the place, it's time and lovely people.  Others have said it far better than I but underneath all the laughter, jokes and limericking around there is, it seems to me, a deep vein of sadness and tragedy that permeates the land and people who have so tenaciously inhabited it so many thousands of years. Not that it curses them by any means but it makes them who they are of course . . . Just like the rest of us.

We visited a lot of places while here - must I even say that? I think not but it's done well there we are.  Among them, surprise surprise to those of you have been, was a circle of upright stones.  I forget where and I am not looking it up yet.  But over three thousand years ago people cremated and buried a female.  Around her, either before or after the burial they erected stones (think Stonehenge).  It quite touched me . . . Wondering who she was, was she loved, revered, hated or what was she?  I want to think it was love and respect but that's three thousand years of projection going into that.  Me, like many are prone to romanticizing the past thinking that people  were closer to the land or happier or somehow more in touch with something better than what we are or are Not in touch with.  I am guilty of this but I reject it's basic premise.  For what we know from all the evidence is that it was / could be a very difficult life under what we consider difficult and less than ideal living conditions.  All that and the complications of the threat and reality of conflict, disease, starvation and shall I go on?  None the less, three thousand years later I bear witness to what they left behind, stand where they stood, wonder at their lives and look at some of the same stars they wondered at (in far different positions though) I like to project and think.

In that same moment, selfishly I wonder who will build my stone circle and than realize I don't care and that in the end, three thousand years from now these binary digital bits of information will cease to have existed and it will not matter that they were written in the first place. It will not matter that I lived or died nor how many lives I saved or failed to save.  We are all dust comes to mind and the fleeting lives we live . . .it is good to be reminded of that, that our time is short and we better get on with it - whatever that means. I think what it means for me is that I want to cosmic good while I am rooted here and I think I have. . .for the most part!  I need to carpe diem baby and carpe diem fast now that I can see the end (I like to think) a bit more close than I have seen it in the past.  

Maybe the Irish and the land have a clearer sense of it than I or the Americans do because they are surrounded and permeated by it.  With the troubles not so far in the past and thousands of years of invasions by the Vikings and English they have known far worse than many of us.  It is reflected in their music, language (which I have come to love the sound of) and culture.

We have never felt more welcomed (except I have felt just at welcomed when I lived in Fiji from 1985-1987).  If you can - go to Ireland but go to just one to three places and linger in each as long at you can.  I respect and love this country and its people - they have taught me a thing or two and I am just learning what the hell that is and in a few years or so I just might know.  But go to Ireland, keep your mouth shut, your mind, eyes and heart open.  If your'e not careful - you'll turn into one of them, mind you . . . there are worse fates!