Problems in pilgrimages

You’re always going to have problems, sometimes the problems are big or small, they can be deep problems or superficial ones, they can be personal problems or grand, existential ones which have no clear answers but the hard truth is that they’re always going to be there.  When you’re climbing a mountain your problems don’t go away but they do look very different.  I learned this about five minutes into my journey up Croagh Patrick when I realized that I was already in way over my head and had a long way to go.

The pilgrimage began at a quarter to four in the morning as myself and Basil ate breakfast and contemplated the day ahead of us, we had a box of sandwiches and biscuits prepared along with two flasks of hot water which would be miraculously transformed into mugs of tea once we made it back down from the peak.  Sitting in that warm kitchen, munching on a bowl of corn flakes it didn’t seem like all that imposing of a prospect, Basil had done the trek around forty times and every member of his family had done it along with him an odd time or another, all told about 20,000 people climb the peak annually on the last Sunday of July so how hard could it be?  I’d been implored numerous times since coming to Ireland that I had to climb ‘The Reek’ as the hill is informally known and these people certainly wouldn’t try to put me in harm’s way unnecessarily, right?

We set off before dawn in a spattering of summer rain, never mind that it’s the dry season in Ireland there’s still going to be rain and of course it had to fall on the one day we were planning to climb a mountain, the day before was reasonably clear and the day after has been blissfully sunny but someone up there has a great sense of humor so we began belting down the tarmac as rain pelted against the windshield.  We’re leaving so early because Basil wants to be at the summit for first mass, starting at 8 am every year a series of catholic observances run all day in the chapel atop of Croagh Patrick, the eponymous saint made the ascent himself and fasted for 40 days upon it helping to solidify his position as the island’s patron holy man.  While St. Patrick’s day is known internationally as the most Irish holiday, Reek Sunday is the day which the more devoted inhabitants of the island pay their respects and say prayers at the feet of his statues all over the country, furthermore, all those who make their way up Ireland’s holiest mountain are believed to have completed their penance for the year and are duly forgiven for the past year’s transgressions.

For my part I’m just in it for the craic.  Not being a catholic I’m not looking to absolve myself of any wrongdoing or make good in the eyes of a merciful God, but I am an amateur avid outdoorsman so the opportunity to haul my bones up a pile of rocks to a wonderful view of the surrounding landscape is all of the motivation I need to get this done.  Just one year prior I took a stroll up past Lake Annascaul while down in the Dingle peninsula, the weather that day was generously suboptimal as well but the reward of amazing overlooks and peaceful mental state was more than worth the effort, so I was expecting much the same from this hike, a long road and a wet one, but all the same not one outside of my comfort zone.  The day before Basil produced two branches from a recently cut down Ash tree which we trimmed to serve as walking sticks, he says that walking sticks are an absolute necessity and many enterprising individuals will be selling lengths of wood to unprepared pilgrims at a modest markup of three to five euro a pop.

After a little over an hour of riding in the ‘jeep’ we pull up to the mountain itself true to Basil’s word the road is lined with men in vans offering sticks for The Reek on hand drawn signs, just past daybreak we pull into a local farmer’s field transformed into a parking lot with a five euro entry fee.  I strap on my boots before loading up with a bottle of lucozade and a pack of biscuits for energy, grabbing our sticks we set out under a ceiling of drab grey clouds lightly drizzling down on the whole affair.  The mountain doesn’t look so bad from the bottom, then again the sky is closed in as a thick mist of cloud cover shrouds everything but the first rise of the hill, there’s a paved path, a gift shop, a flight of broad, shallow steps that finish up at a statue of the man himself St. Patrick.  Basil starts walking circles around the idol, and I gaze out across Clew bay, a stretch of the Atlantic ocean which  reaches inland and holds in its waters a series of small islands all with sheer, low faces on their western sides trailing down towards the waterline.  It’ll be a fine view from the top if the weather clears up, Basil says once he’s finished his circuits, that’s a big ‘if’ I think as things get well underway.

The first stretch is the hardest, they say, and this is where I hit my first wall, barely 100 yards up the hill and I’m already flagging, my body is betraying me as I’ve let it go soft over the past few months, too many big dinners, too many beers, not enough time spent jogging or chopping wood.  All of that is taking its toll as I’m using muscles I’ve let go to seed without realizing it, hamstrings and calf muscles are complaining and my lungs try to figure out just what the big idea is.  To cope with the burning in my chest my body puts into practice all sorts of measures in the hopes of settling out the breakfast churning in my guts and the unstable build up of lactic acid which there isn’t enough oxygen to pull out of my muscles.  I start yawning and burping, spitting out the contents of my sinuses as the fresh mountain air needs new avenues to get into my system, this trail isn’t want I expected as water washes past my boots while they crunch through the fist sized rocks which make up the path.  Up ahead I can see how the mountain curls around a ridge and ascends higher and higher up into the unknown space within the clouds, whatever is up there is going to be harder than this if only for the fact that it will have come after I’ve already taken a beating.  My big problem is that I underestimated this, my small problem is that my systems aren’t properly calibrated for the exertion, I’ve just got to find a balance of bodily functions which work for me and I’ll be alright I just keep moving. 

We’re not alone on this hill and the people we pass and see pass us up are a strong motivator, I’m not yet thirty and Basil’s just over sixty but we’re joined by children too young to drive and those who grew up before the country had electricity.  I’m not exactly struggling my way up the hill but it’s a hard fight, everyone else seems to be managing alright even once the rain begins to fall more earnestly, chalk it up to experience and  heritage, I’ve heard that Italians climbs mountains wrong as they do more wrestling than dancing and if this is true then I’m going much to form while all the Irish around me keep pressing forward as though their feet are lighter than my own.  Perhaps this is literally true as my boots are unwieldy and rub painfully on my feet, I’d been looking for proper hiking togs but again and again got turned away in shops that didn’t carry clod hoppers in my size.  What I end up with are my Civil Defense issue steel-toes which refuse to give and flex as I pick my way through the rubble of glacial movements from millennia gone by, I can already feel the blisters forming on the backs of my heels and by the time they come off one the size of a Kennedy half dollar will have formed and broken. 

The sticks we brought were for more than just show, every step uphill is aided by a healthy push off of the support and when we finally stop to rest we use them as a brace for our weary and whining bodies, Basil asks what hurts the most and after a moment of consideration I answer ‘my head’.  The truth is that I’m already starting to get a little altitude sick and we’re not even up to the halfway point, my head feels heavy and light all at once, I want to vomit and sleep but then again that’s not unusual for being awake and active at six in the morning.  As we take a breather I reluctantly take up my bottle of lucozade, to the uninitiated this is the Irish equivalent of Gator-ade, it’s a staple of hard partiers on long nights out as it’s absolutely loaded with sugar to keep your energy up.  Typically I loath the stuff as it’s thick and sucrose laden, to me it’s as if someone added maple syrup to orange soda and then claimed it had healthy benefits and it utterly fails to quench a thirst that begs for cold water or at the most some lemonade.  Resentfully I figure I’ll rinse my mouth out with a swig and spit off the side of the hill just to clear the taste of exertion and instant coffee off my tongue, but once I’ve got a mouthful of the tingly yellow liquid I begin absorbing the concoction through my gums and a light goes on in my brain.  “We can use this!”  it exclaims as the short term energy gives some life back to my tired limbs. 

Further up the hill the weather turns for the worse and the rain starts flying sideways across the path, there are the ubiquitous sheep which have free roam of the mountain and much to my surprise there are exactly zero safety measures in place to stop people from falling off the edge of the cliffs.  A bigger concern to me is the possibly of a rockslide, most of what we’re walking on is loose gravel that could easily give way and cause a climber to become a faller really fast.  Mixed in amongst the more manageable stones are jagged rocks about the size of bowling balls, if one of those breaks loose and gets some speed behind it there’s nothing to say it couldn’t snap a leg bone or take an odd hop and crack open a skull.  The prospect of a mini-avalanche doesn’t seem to bother anyone as I start to see people who have brought their dogs with them, will wonders never cease?  Around what I assume is the halfway point we pass a small stone and tarp structure where a few men are taking refuge from the winds selling snacks and sodas, we’re well equipped and press on, Basil tells me it’s going to get easy for a while as the inclines level off and we can practically stroll down the trail for a good stretch, more stone structures sit on either side of the hill some of which have fallen to the passage of time while others stand as restrooms for the more adventurous hikers. 

Speaking of which we run into a group of mountain rescue volunteers who are stopping everyone heading up for a quick word.  They’re telling us that up ahead the winds are quite severe, it’s dangerous to keep going and mass has been canceled, they’re not saying we can’t go up but they’re strongly advising against it.  We nod and move along, in fact, no one seems to be letting the warning stop them from making it up to the summit, the young and the old alike are pressing on having acknowledged the dangers as they’ve already accepted that the walk was going to be unpleasant and the degree to which they’d be uncomfortable was irrelevant.  Big problem, this is going to suck.  Small problem, you might die.  The solution of course is just to keep pressing on, we’re approaching the last leg of the journey and despite what I was told earlier it’s going to be the hairiest section of the entire climb.

Combine every rough bit of the climb thus far and compact it into 400 yards of pain, if the trek was any more vertical it would require serious mountaineering gear, if the wind was any more vicious you’d have to go it at a crawl, if the terrain was any more treacherous it would have simply been undoable.  All of this is compounded by the encroaching fog which isolates you in the 25 yard sphere around your present location depriving you of the opportunity to look back on how far you’ve come but also to look ahead in anticipation at what you’re going to go up against next.  Of course you should be keeping your head down as a misstep could absolutely sprain your ankle or endanger those around you, you have to pick your line well because at this stage lateral movement becomes the enemy.  Not that there’s any ‘easy’ way up and any route you pick is only a tradeoff between the worst of each world, I adopt a two-handed stick method which essentially consists of stretching my twisted bit of Ash three feet uphill and dragging my body behind it until I have a stable point of balance from which I can stab out my stick once more.  We’re still not alone as people keep coming up and going back down having reached the top, if they can do it, so can we and there could be nothing worse than giving up now.

There is finally a crest to the insanity and we’re there, the peak of the mountain and I must say it’s not what I expected.  They told me there’s a church up here but it’s nowhere to be seen, there’s a sign that I can’t read due to mist and something about the size of a coffee table which has been sectioned off by rails with a stone plaque at the far end.  For all of the people who have been making their way up the mountain over the past few hours I can’t see them, for that matter I can’t see anything and that’s probably the strangest aspect of the whole hike, around me there’s nothing but the impermeable clouds which encroach in around you in every direction.  There is an edge to the place where the rocks and dirt fall away but beyond that there is the oppressive white space which robs you of your depth perception and sense of place, it is staring into a gentle abyss just as awe inspiring as the deep ocean or outer space but somehow comforting and reassuring, the emptiness given form.  After a bit of purposeful wandering the church appears, not all at once, first come the edges of the thing, the roofline peeks out and then those long black shapes come into focus as windows, the doors are two black holes and stairs which lead up to the place reveal small clusters of people huddled together in conversation.  The building itself is painted white but it’s a different white to the clouds so there a soft glow coming off the bricks and it’s altogether ghostly.

We make our way to the sheltered side of the church where a line of people are finding reprieve from the wind and reveling in their victory, that may be a stretch to say because the mood isn’t exactly joyous so much as it’s resolutely finished.  Some people are making cell phone calls to tell friends and family that they’ve made it but it’s so matter of fact, ’Yes I’m at the top, yeah no, there’s no view, I’ll be home in a few hours,’ and more confirmations that there won’t be any mass that day.  In fact, this is the first time in living memory that the ceremony has been called off at the top of the mountain and thusly there’s nothing worth waiting around for, but still we mill about and for the first time on the mountain Basil drinks some of his lucozade and eats one of his biscuits, this must be his version of St. Patrick’s fast which he can finally break.  I discover that if you lean up against the building itself you’ll find what little warmth you have in your body being sapped away and so I lean on my stick and wait for the appropriate amount of time to pass before we can head back down again.  When I get the word from Basil that we can head back we reverse our course and find a new way to experience the misery of the mountain.

First thing that happens, my hat flies off, I’m not even off of the flat summit of The Reek and it’s chosen to slap me right in the face for my troubles, I grumble as I go to retrieve it, thankful that it got wedged in a small depression of stones and didn’t go careening into the netherworld off the side of the earth.  Instead of putting it back on and repeating this process over and over again during the descent I stick it in my pocket along with my wallet which was fortunately on the dry side of my pants on the way up but would get absolutely wrecked on the return trip.  I place all of my hopes in my light waterproof hood  yet unsurprisingly it fails absolutely to protect me from the onslaught of angry weather heading my way, the wind whips a bitter spray of cold rain directly into my eyes and for the first time in this whole exercise my body actually whimpers.  The entire way up I was painfully aware that every step up the hill would be one step which I would have to take back down, but those downward steps are vastly different form the upwards ones, for one thing, those blisters forming on the backs of my heels are replaced with ones now forming on my big toes.  The painful slog to make progress is replaced by an earnest effort to resist gravity and not let the head of speed take over, the bigger difficulty is managing to move against the mass of pilgrims working their way up along the same paths you just took, only now they’re an obstacle which has its gaze cast down on its own feet and can’t really do the correct calculations to clear your path.

That’s the true spectacle of the day, the human highway of the mountain which has only gotten more crowded continues on unabated even in the higher reaches of the hill.  Not long into our descent I spy for the first time a barefoot pilgrim, there is a small contingent of climbers who opt to make the journey shoeless for reasons I can’t understand, there is no amount of sinning one can do in a year to justify a penance so severe.  The man I see is absolutely miserable as he leans heavily on his stick, his face is on his bruised and bloodied feet which I hope for his sake are numb from cold, his entire body is wracked with exhaustion but on he presses undeterred by mortal toils.  I think that’s rather the point of the whole exercise, as we all have our problems in life which we must deal with and for the most part they consume our days and nights but for a few hours, on one day of the year you can forget your little problems if only to replace them with the big problem of getting up an absolute monster of a hill.  We stop and chat to people on their way up, Basil’s stick seems to be the talk of the walk as it resembles a shepherd’s hook and he’s painted the tips of it red.  We run into people we know and make polite conversation, I have to laugh when we ask how it’s going and people respond with ‘not so bad’, that’s truly the Irish spirit, nearly 2000 ft. up in the air being rained on and utterly out of breath they’ll still say it’s not so bad. 

The Sound and The Fury

There are some things you have to do just once in your life.  Typically they show up on bucket lists as the fantastic, the outlandish, the expensive, places like Las Vegas and experiences like sky diving come up often as do activities that fall on the more elicit end of the spectrum.  One time, when I was in a mindset more focused on opportunities never to come again, I decided that I had to, just one time, be in Dublin for Saint Patrick’s day.

I wasn’t alone in this, we composed as a group the whole of Duquesne University’s inaugural Galway foreign exchange ensemble and although none of us had seemed to grasped the concept when we landed in Ireland as a whole we saw an opportunity to do something truly memorable and grabbed onto it.  Luckily we had the forethought to book hotels and planned to get in a few days of casual exploration before the big celebration, Dublin doesn’t have the best reputation among the people in the rest of the country, it is a deep seated dispute which began with Dublin having a low opinion of the island outside of its borders.  Despite that I enjoy Dublin as it at least feels in some small and impossible to connect way like my home in Chicago, its width and breath, its hustle, its self important air that doesn’t care for you and thus allows you to dissolve down its back alleys and main thoroughfares are all familiar in their cold callousness.

Through the shops we poked around, amongst the architecture we took pictures, in the pubs we drank pints and had a few good days on our own little adventure, despite what people from the ‘real’ Ireland will tell you Dublin is a nice place and isn’t too big or too up its own hole to enjoy.  If you’re ever in this neck of the woods feel free to have a poke around for a day or two, see a museum, relax in a park, do some touristy things because when you get to the heart of things Ireland markets itself as a nice place to come and visit.  The Irish Brand is what you see on postcards, rainbows over rolling hills, livestock as part of the scenery, quaint pubs full of weathered patrons, castles, ruins, the Guinness brewery, the thousand welcomes are all things that the Irish know bring in visitors-along with their Euros-to see what all the craic is about. 

Saint Patrick’s day is probably the biggest export of the Irish experience, as the day when ‘everyone’s a little Irish’ä it’s instantly recognizable as an opportunity to put on a silly hat, dust off that horrible accent you can’t do, and act the maggot with zero repercussions for your excesses.  In truth, it was the New York and Boston immigrant populations that popularized the celebrations as a way to keep connected with their heritage, cut loose, and be proud of where they came from all in a massive display of ancestral spirit.  So paradoxically, in Dublin, Saint Patrick’s day is when all of the foreigners come over to visit.   

In the couple of days leading up to the big event things had been relatively quiet, we were young so we stayed up late, we explored the nightlife, we satisfied our taste for a different culture and all it could excite us with.  All the while there was an undercurrent of something more sinister looming, the calm before the storm, the tension before the final push of a big battle.  The locals and the working people all knew that the tide would start rising that morning and would not recede for many hours thereafter.  Seven years ago today, we awoke to the spectacle of St. Patrick’s day in the heart of Dublin, and to this day I have never seen anything like it.  There was a parade, somewhere, I am sure of it, but I was not there to witness it for between me and it was a wall of humanity which took onto itself a presence that no addition of its individual parts could account for. 

Were there a million people on the streets of Dublin that day?  Perhaps, easily there were more than anyone could count, could make sense of if they tried to imagine them as a single unit, we’ve all seen crowds in stadiums, at concerts and rallies, we’ve been crammed shoulder to shoulder with busloads of strangers and waited in endless lines at amusement parks but this was something altogether different.  If there was anything which could earn itself a fair comparison would be a religious pilgrimage, the Hajj at Mecca as a swirling fervor of devotion and praise meets to cement their collective faith, Dublin felt that way only drunken, and unruly filled with incomprehensible people who moved as a great river waiting to sweep away all those who fell in under its pull. 

There is an Irish phrase which you’ve probably never come across, it’s not terribly useful and lacks the cheeky fun of Pog mo thoin, but I like it nonetheless.  Rí rá agus a ruaile buaile ( Ree-Raw Awgus a Roo-lah Boo-lah ) translates into something like a great noise and much movement although more liberal definitions of the term can mean a cacophonous catastrophe, a noise of terrible destruction, or a massively great time.  Language is one of the many things that the Irish play fast and loose with, I think they do it just to mess with the foreigners.  It’s how I would describe the scene in Dublin on St. Pat’s without hesitation as every vein of the city was clogged  with sound and color, voices yelling and singing-though the difference was negligible- and a never ending procession of arms and legs working against one another jostling, embracing, expressing, and rollicking to the beat of some intrinsic festival drum.

Dublin on Saint Patrick’s day is a once in a lifetime experience in so far as I feel no need to go through it again, I actually have a problem with big crowds, loud noises, and sensory overload give me something like an anxiety attack and my nerves will quickly fray if I spend too long in the middle of it all.  On that day I took refuge in the many cathedrals of the city which were oddly deserted on that very Catholic holiday, away from the madness my wits returned to me and my sanity was saved by the welcome respite religious sanctuary can offer.  Galway isn’t like that on March 17th, sure people get drunk, there’s a parade, and we all have license to go a bit overboard, but it falls far short of madness, of chaos, of the unbridled exhibition that a big, unfeeling city can get away with once or twice a year.  It’s no rí rá agus a ruaile buaile, and for that I am thankful.

Murder Most Fowl

‘Tis the season once more.  No, not Christmas, not quite yet despite the fairy lights and commercials you may be starting to see with increased frequency.  Not Halloween either even though that one is a perennial favorite among my clique of twenty-something revelers.  The season to which I refer is like both of those holidays combined for me with a healthy dose of thanksgiving thrown in for good measure, I find my anticipation building as I can’t wait to wake up in the early morning hours and climb downstairs as if to open my presents.  I will don my outfit and trek tirelessly though the cold eagerly awaiting my next prize, and after all of that I will sit down with unparalleled satisfaction to a hot meal which fills me with such gratitude for everything I have.

Yes my friends, it is nearly hunting season once more!  Those of you who know me personally know that I a bit nuts about guns and try to take up every opportunity to head to the range or into the field for a shot.  There’s something so relaxing about being out on a hunt, the way your concentration become absolute, your senses heighten, and all of the problems of the world melt away as you wait poised for your quarry to make its presence known.  Hunting to me is meditation and I can’t find anything quite like it for that feeling of pure, uncomplicated oneness with my surroundings.  Plus I get to shoot things, which is fun.
In honor of that most wonderful time of the year I’d like to share with you some of the stories of hunts I’ve had while here in Ireland, the highs and the lows and the funny things that happen when afield.

My very, very first actual hunting experience in Ireland was an interesting one, some years back, knowing that I had a fair appreciation for the finer arts of firearms Regina’s father said we should wander out across the fields behind the house and see if you could scare up a pheasant.  First went on the wader boots, up scaled wellies that reach up to your thighs and are fastened up with a belt, then there was the ammo belt itself, lined with dozens of shotgun shells-enough to hold off a small army- of varying loads, finally there was the gun itself, a well worn and traveled side by side 12 gauge that was probably made around the same time I was.  We let the gun dog, Shadow, out of her pen which may or may not have been a poor decision as her training had gone a bit lax as of late.  Off like a shot she bounded into the field and proceeded to run and root with no sense of restraint.  It was obvious that my experience in Ireland was going to be much different from the States.

When pheasant hunting in the states you could easily wear sneakers if not a sturdy pair of sandals on a good day, the terrain is largely flat and often cultivated into rows for easy navigation, wheat has been planted specifically to give the birds cover and attract them, and since in most places in the Midwest game birds have been hunted until they’ve practically disappeared most of what you actually hunt is farm raised and planted before you set out.  The first obstacle we faced that day was the electric wire used to keep cattle from roaming, placing the butt of his shotgun against it and stepping over Basil warned me that I’d get a mighty shock if I inadvertently touched it.  Not enough to do me permanent damage, hopefully, but certainly enough to put a damper on the day.  After that we had to take a short hop across a water-filled trench and into the marshy, uneven, shrub-filled areas adjacent to the river that we’d be hunting through.  It quickly became apparent that the biggest challenge I was going to face was not in hitting a bird but rather in simply navigating the ruts successfully and not ending up face first in some dirty water.

In retrospect the challenge of hitting any birds was non-existent as Shadow, the gun dog, did her best to run a good 50 or 60 yards ahead of us in a completely unpredictable pattern while ignoring any commands we futilely barked in her direction.  What she did manage to scare up was thus well out of our range and was probably not even aware of our presence as it took wing towards the safety of the far treeline across the river.  We saw no pheasant that day despite the numerous occasions when I’d seen them in local fields, crossing the road, or startled them bursting out of hedges while I walked by, we did, however, kick up snipe during our safari.  Snipe are one of the odder birds I’ve happened across in my travels, although I did not get a very good look at any of them that day I estimate that their bodies are about the size of a baseball and they move like a combination of hummingbirds and electrical currents.  When disturbed they immediately shoot up to shoulder height and dart in an erratic zig-zag pattern away from whatever is perusing them before disappearing back into the bush like Vietcong.  About three quarters of the way through the hunt I decided to take a shot at one of the snipe just to be able to say that I had, I think my chances of hitting it would have been the same as if I’d discharged my shotgun directly into the ground in front of me but at the end of the day taking a walk where you fire a gun beats taking a walk and not firing a gun any day.

I think Basil knew that we weren’t going to actually get any pheasant that day but just wanted to see how I handled myself in the field and for myself it was a good opportunity to try out a new experience even if it was nothing more than a trial run.  This year has been the first one that I’ve been in country for the entirety of bird season and with my entry into the family in a official capacity I’ve been brought out on a couple of hunting excursions that have been a bit more formalized.  I haven’t done much (any) duck hunting in the states but my understanding of it is that the common method is to build a duck blind-a camouflaged shack in the water- set out decoys and use specialized calls to bring the unsuspecting targets in for a landing.  You are welcome to watch some Duck Dynasty for a more elaborate run down.  Duck hunting here involves a Jeep (truck) apparently and I found myself riding in the back seat next to a pair of 12 gauges in the predawn hours one morning. 

The method for duck hunting we employed was based around driving to different locations, ponds, rivers, flooded fields, where ducks could be expected to be resting, getting out of the truck, sneaking up on them, and opening fire at will.  I’m not sure if this is more or less sporting than sitting in a cold metal box employing subterfuge but I will say it was a bit more entertaining, especially as it allows you to see some more exotic sights of the country.  The sun was just coming up as we drove down a back road adjacent to a farmer’s field when we spotted it, a fox, the first fox I had ever seen in the flesh in my whole life.  I had expected a small and somewhat adorable animal, I expected it to have a nice red coat and perky ears and a fluffy tail.  The animal I saw was big, I’ve seen many coyotes in my time and this animal rivaled them, for the first time I understood how one could kill a sheep as I’d been told they do frequently.  It was black as well, or at least predominantly so as it seemed patchy and mottled, a wild animal in every sense of the word it must have sensed our intention as it bolted across the field away from us.  Basil mashed the gas pedal and we lurched forward into pursuit.

Even with the engine at full rev we barely kept pace as the fox had the better line towards cover, we bounded around a corner and it was explained to me that foxes are considered a pest and it is always open season on them.  Pulling to a stop we piled out of the jeep and took up positions on a small stone wall, even though we had the whole of the briar patch covered it was neigh impossible to get a bead on the beast.  At most I would glimpse a set of ears and a second later a swish of the tail could be seen some feet away, it’s cunning and guile was evident as it flitted between hiding spots with the ease of an apparition, we called out to each other to little effect trying to anticipate its movements and designate who would have the best sight should an opportunity present itself.  Evan, my brother in law, had perhaps the best chance but it was gone in the blink of an eye and within the span of 30 seconds our window was passed and we saw the fox bolting back up the field making time in a way we could not hope to match.  It was for the best, Evan said, he wouldn’t have felt right shooting it.  If we had gone out hunting fox that would have been a different story, but we were there for ducks and it seems as though nature itself shared his sentiment.

The fox eluded us that day and if he stayed cagey he may still be out there today in his den or out causing trouble, and if our spirits are up to it we may meet him out lamping one night and we’ll truly test his luck.  That’ll be a story for another time though, as the one I want to finish up on is a story from the end of the season, the story of the last duck of the year.   It was, in fact, the very last day of hunting season and we resigned ourselves to one more attempt at the fowl as it would be many, many months before we’d get another crack at them.  Basil, Evan and myself loaded up into the jeep once more for an evening hunt and motored our way off to an isolated field which was reasonably flooded and in many places impassable.  Somehow I’d drawn the short straw and was suited up in the standard issue, mid-calf wellies while the more senior partners were clad in the two pairs of functional waders we possessed and thus at a reasonably stranded spot out in the swamp I was told I would have to wait there alone while they went ahead across a deep drain and into the more secluded sections of wetland.

Sure, no problem, I perched myself upon a protruding hill of mossy earth and waited for them to start shooting, the plan was for them to locate a flock and start the assault, theoretically the birds would circle somewhere in my vicinity and I’d spring a secondary ambush on them.  It seemed like a solid plan, or at least a solid explanation as to why I shouldn’t feel bad about being left behind.  I heard their first shots some ten minutes later after they’d walked out of my view and waited patiently for my first chance at a kill, in short order I saw a pair of mallards winging my way.  I pride myself on being a crack shot and with confidence I unloaded my barrels in quick succession, but to my dismay the birds kept flying and as I ejected the shells and fumbled for replacements they first two birds broke away and were out of range in seconds.  Birds kept coming sporadically as shots rang out from my hunting companions at odd intervals, yet time and time again my aim was untrue and I managed to miss birds coming at me from all angles and altitudes.  On more than one occasion it seemed as though the drakes knew I only had a double gun and would cut directly towards me as I tried desperately to reload after throwing up ineffectual volleys.  It was a chronic case of “I should have hit that” that played out over the next couple of hours.

Darkness began to settle upon us and the efforts of targeting took on new dimensions, what had been dark silhouettes of game outlined against a grey sky became undefined shapes out the corner of my eyes.  It was thus that as the light faded I relied less on my eyes and more on my ears to track inbound ducks, an exercise which was chaotic at best.  The sound of a large bird in flight is quite distinctive, the whooshing of wings on the beat can be heard at some distance, combine that with the gentle, low quacks they emit regularly and you have a reasonably sure sign of ducks nearby.  What makes tracking them difficult is the fact that they fly two or three at a time in unpredictable arcs and trajectories.  So what you perceive is less “Aha!” and more “Huh?” as your mind figures out: A, If that really is a duck I’m hearing; B, Which way is it heading; C, How fast; and D, Is it worth shooting at?  All of that before trying to aim and shoot passably, which I mentioned before I had been struggling with all day so far.

The light kept fading and I soon found myself thinking that if a duck didn’t make itself obvious in the next five minutes my chances for the season were effectively kaput.  I crossed my fingers and hoped, shotgun in one hand, flashlight in the other, like an air raid marshal during the blitz on London.  Seconds turned to minutes, I willed ducks to come my way, so many had seemed to swoop by almost in arms reach, I was sure a small flock had landed nearby yet across the insurmountable drainage ditch.  If just one more would give me a clean line I would take it and be satisfied that I had tried my all and the odds simply were in the birds’ favor that day.  The five minutes passed, it became impossibly dark and I resigned myself to failure.  Yet I couldn’t head in until Basil and Evan returned and I was sure they had given up hope just as I had.  Five more minutes passed and somewhere off in their general direction I could hear a faint slogging of boots possibly heading my way, it was then that I heard ducks incoming. 

Heading straight for me I did my best to track them without any sight whatsoever, I poised myself to trap them between myself and the only slim hope of light left to me, a weak glow of streetlamps coming from a distant hill.  I could hear they were just a few yards from me, coming in low and oblivious to my presence, putting everything else out of my mind I focused in on my target zone.  In a single instant I saw them, three perfect black outlines of ducks against the hazy orange glow on the horizon, I moved my barrels by inches to mimic their flight pattern and pulled both triggers in quick succession because there is no reward for bringing home the most ammo.  I cannot say today which shot stuck home, I could not say then either for all I cared about was the solid splash of a dead duck hitting the water.  I whooped and hollered and danced on my little dry mound as I reached for my flashlight, the duck had fallen across the way and I could do nothing to reach it but I diligently focused a beam on where I heard it fall so that Basil or Evan would be able to collect it for me. 

They come to me after a time, apparently their eyes are better than mine or they are simply more stubborn in their habits, but they did no shooting after me, and after they picked up my duck presented to me their only success of the evening, a woodcock Basil had shot with great skill and luck.  I suppose our take that night was not so impressive and by rights I should have made half a dozen shots that went wide, but I felt confidant that no hunter out later than us could have made a kill without the aid of night vision goggles, so when that bird was roasted and basted I took extra pleasure in knowing I was eating the last duck of the season.

Ya Like Dags?

Lassie, Rin Tin-Tin, Ole’ Yeller, man’s best friend.  Dogs are loved the world over and their connection with mankind in social circles and working relationships is ubiquitous.  How we see this relationship and how we adapt it into our lives changes from culture to culture, sometimes that happens because our needs change, our living conditions differ, or sometimes it simply comes down to our mentality towards our animal companions which shape them and us both.

Here in Ireland, people treat dogs very differently to how I’d grown accustomed to in the states.  At first I was astounded as the distinctions are so wide my brain had trouble grasping just how it could all seem to work so fluidly.  In the states a dog is perhaps the oddest member of the family, like a five year old it must be looked after constantly, fed special foods and bought the best toys, never allowed to stray far from a parent’s watchful eye, even put into doggy day care and obedience classes so that it knows always how it is supposed to behave.  We all too often make the dog fit itself into our world on our terms, with doggy beds and crates, with tethers and invisible fences, our leashes and harnesses seem to convey that we have tamed this animal, that we possess it and while we love its personality and playfulness we will only abide it as long as the dog understands that we rule it.

As with many things American, I have come to realize that we do not exactly do things the wrong way, but merely we find a harder way, a more complicated and expensive way, to arrive at ends which would have sorted themselves out.  Here dogs are no less loved, no less part of the family, but they occupy a more specific place, that of an honest to god dog as opposed to an especially furry and illiterate child.  I have read, and accept, that in the very early ages of the dog’s domestication that it was the canine which chose us, feral animals finding safety and purpose in the tribal life of herdsmen, it was the dog which adapted itself to our lifestyle all on its own.  In Ireland, that fact seems to not have been forgotten.

The dogs I know fall into different categories, there are Country Dogs first and foremost as I have gotten to know them the best.  Regina’s family has three dogs to their home and each fills a specific role, you will first meet Rambo, the guard dog, as he spends almost all of his time outside on their land, watching the comings and goings of cars on the road and barking to alert the family of any visitors.  He is the doorbell and the butler, vetting anyone who approaches and following them while they go about their business.  He’s a full coated Collie dog and almost all guard dogs are some variation on that breed, keen, loyal, quick and tireless they lope after anything that comes into their territory but are happy enough just to chase cars off down the road.  This habit, however, can be quite disquieting when driving-especially at night- as the sight of a dog lunging out of a driveway halfway onto the road as you cruise by at speed can make your heart skip a beat.  In the States you might say to yourself that that dog needs to be kept in the yard but here it’s the dog’s prerogative to now his own boundaries and dodge the traffic he jumps into.

Guard dogs get their fair share of affection and appreciation, their work is essential and they all seem to take their job seriously, a pat on the head and a plate full of chow are all the thanks they need, at the end of the day they make do with a doghouse or maybe a bit of a bed in the shed.  House dogs, on the other hand, live almost exclusively in the cozy confines of living rooms and kitchens.  Rocky, a white West Yorkshire Terrier, sits in the lap of luxury in the family house.  Allowed up on the couches and chairs, having not one but two beds available to him, in just his size, and gets the little lion’s share of table scraps tossed to him.  He has adapted several begging strategies which are variously adorable in order to get the handout he has his heart set on.  He is constantly underfoot or on a lap, possessing no sense of personal space, he has learned just exactly what he can get away with.  Like a precocious grandchild he is doted on and knows any sin will be forgiven with the right combination of cute facial expressions and innocent whimpering.

Most houses I’ve visited have a companion dog, never more than knee high, it is the lap dog or purse dog without the prestige.  Often from the working Terrier breed their origin as a pest control pet isn’t forgotten, Yapper, the old family house dog, started out as a vicious killer of all kinds of varmints and only retired to the cushy couch life in his last few golden years.  On the other side of the coin are Field dogs whose entire existence revolves around hunting or herding, their instincts given precedence to socialization they live in pens almost exclusively, being let out only for exercise or to fulfill their expressed purpose.  The unfortunate truth is that if a working dog spends too much time in the company of humans or other, fully domesticated, dogs it will begin to ignore its instincts and training, thus becoming another mouth to feed while not providing to the wellbeing of the homestead.  It is not the easiest life for a dog, and for those of us who know only fully domesticated animals it may seem cruel, but these are the hard ways of the world and of mother nature, and those laws still must be obeyed on the farm.

As you travel further from the fields, into the neighborhoods where dogs don’t have to earn their keep, you’ll see a sight all the more alien to American eyes.  For far from our conventions house dogs are allowed to roam the streets completely unaccompanied by their owners, yes, it is not at all uncommon and rarely if ever a cause for concern to come across what yanks would look upon as dogs gone loose.  This is not to say that stray or feral dogs roam the streets terrorizing the locals, but rather that households let their family pet out in the morning and let them go wherever they please throughout the day.  Typically these dogs keep to themselves, barely even bothered to give you their attention, never begging for treats, staying on the sidewalks, and distaining to root around in trash cans or in any other way cause trouble.

You would think this would cause trouble for the responsible people out walking their dogs on leashes but you would be even more surprised to see that most dogs walk with their owners unfettered and sans tether.  A trip to the park is almost guaranteed to include the sight of dogs playing fetch or jockeying with other dogs while their owners watch placidly, unconcerned with the potential for fights or run-aways.  I try to explain why this is strange to my Wife, that in the states we have universal leash laws (typically enforcing a 6’ maximum length) and that dogs are only allowed off leash in specialized dog parks, fenced in and regulated, some even requiring membership passes to get into.  She shakes her head at the folly of it all, Irish dogs are raised to behave, expected to be responsible, they’re all so well behaved not because of some rigorous obedience school with compulsory attendance but rather because they have known no other life than loyal but free. 

This adherence to obedience doesn’t just end at the park, dogs walk off leash in the busy city centers sometimes with their owners but also just on their own.  These dogs know how to keep out from underfoot and will even use crosswalks correctly, they don’t steal food from tables and perhaps most amazing of all will sit quietly at the entrance of shops waiting for their masters to conduct their business and emerge once more.  Sights like these give me that ‘not in Kansas’ feeling on a regular basis but it’s not so much a case of culture shock as much as a recalibrating of my expectations. I’m seeing more and more that the way things have always been done for me represent less of an ‘only way’ and more of one choice from many.  Ireland once again encourages personal responsibility rather than zero tolerance, because the own gets to decided for themselves just how far their dog can be trusted so among the free wheeling carefree canines you see the occasional hound leashed and muzzled. 

Because there are laws governing dogs here, it’s not a free-for-all, but the restrictions are put on dogs which have been known to act dangerously.  If the breed is known to exhibit ‘lock jaw’ a trait associated with Rotwiellers, Dobermans, German Shepherds, and others characterized by a strong, clamping bite then it must be muzzled in public.  Similarly I’ve seen electrified fencing put up around houses where aggressive and powerful dogs reside, and the penalty for a dog known to bite a person is to put the animal down without a second warning.  Now this may seem cruel, or unduly harsh, but that is the dichotomy of dogs in Ireland.  The dog is a servant to the house but also a beloved family member, it is given every advantage of its own independence, and that is only possible when the dogs who would jeopardize the safety of others are regulated and tightly controlled.  A dog here is allowed to be its best self, a little domestic, a little wild, and all around man’s most loyal companion.

The new kid in town

It has been said that even bad pizza is still pretty good.  The person who said it wasn’t me and they probably weren’t even of Italian origin yet it still seems to be a fairly popular opinion as most people get excited at the mere mention of a pizza pie regardless of its individual merits.  For those of us who well and truly appreciate Italian food, the pizza is a gold standard, a level playing field by which we judge restaurants and by association the people who recommend them. 

In my time I have tried many a parlor and found that even if no pizza is truly bad there are some which are certainly better than others, you have your Domino’s, your Papa Johns, your Pizza huts, the many chains that provide a consistent, if underwhelming product on a mass scale.  These pizzas represent what I would consider “C” grade pizza, adequate in that they are edible and to some degree enjoyable but certainly they do not stand out in the pantheon of Parmesan.  The myriad of frozen foodstuffs available in your grocer’s freezer tend to occupy the “D” range of the scale, if you search enough you may find one or two that breaks out of the pack and at an affordable price with an ease of use with enough drink in your system one can actually look forward to eating it.  That is not the norm however and in the opinion of this author we’ll all be better off not mentioning them further.

Thus we come to the “B” range, probably the widest ranging category for it encompasses the great wealth of pizza shops one can find in any American neighborhood.  These are the places with family names on them, ones which pop up in ones or twos, ones that have a long running but good natured feud with another pizza shop in the same area.  If a franchise is the ‘bread and butter’ of pizza, then these shops represent the ‘steak and potatoes’, each in and of themselves ranging from fair to exceptional but wholly satisfying and bestowing upon the diner a very real satisfaction with what is in front of them.  That moment when you take your first bite and say to yourself ‘I have made a good decision’. 

A good “B” range shop looks largely unchanged since the 1980’s, proudly displaying their lack of upgrades as if to boast that they’ve been doing things right for decades, that the original recipe is the only one they need and that the worst business decision possible is trying to improve on success.  They understand what anyone who truly meditates on the qualities of a pizza comes to know, that a good pizza is not defined by enormous size, loads of toppings, or sides of garlic bread.  A good pizza is focused on the synthesis of its most basic elements; Crust, Sauce, and Cheese.  One needs only to make these three main pillars strong and your house of pies will stand the test of time.

In Galway, and as far as I know the island as a whole, the scale is a bit off, for by and large the only pizza you can find comes either from a freezer or a take away shop.  By this point the Irish are not so isolated as to be afraid or standoffish towards this Italian invasion, but by whatever missed connection the people here do not take their pizzas-let alone Calzones or Stromboli- as seriously as I do.  Your average pizza is stuck firmly in the ‘C’ category and, not to be insulting of the locals, they simply don’t know or care that this is the case.  There was in this city one shining example of a pizza done with care and crafted with that steady hand that does not waver in the face of convenience, Pizza Cabin sits on the far end of town, tucked discreetly into a wall amidst the clubs and pubs of the town’s party district.  They do not deliver and they do not serve anything but reliable and uniform quality pizzas which come in two sizes and offer you the choice of just cheese or with toppings, a mix of onion, mushroom and green pepper which cannot be altered in any way.

They were, for me, a faint beacon of hope, though far flung and inconvenient there was always the possibility that this yank could get himself a proper slice in a foreign land and for the length of one meal, not feel so out of place in his appetites.  Enter, The Dough Bros.  My wife had been telling me about them for a month or more impressed by a presentation they gave at a small business conference she’d excitedly told me their set up;  Two brothers and one friend selling made to order pizzas out of a food truck at the local market on weekends.  They intrigued me from the outset because their scheme was bold, it was unprecedented, it was wholly unlike an idea which I would expect from the Irish and furthermore, it stunk of the kind of madness that only the confidant and capable are willing to aim for. 

And so it went on for a few weekends, I thought about heading to town and seeing if they lived up to the expectation but again and again finding reasons not to go, be it the rain or chores or just general laziness.  Finally, last Saturday I walked in to do errands armed with a coupon for a free 10” pizza and a growing hunger in the depths of my gut.  I wrapped up my business and walked through the busy market, past the felafel stand, the creperie, the guy who fries doughnuts one at a time, but didn’t see the Dough Bros anywhere and figured they were busy in another town or at a private function as they do.  Coming back into the heart of town, however, I spotted a new façade it was simple, striking, straight to the point, green and white with a sign reading The Dough Bros above the entrance. 

Stepping inside it was much the same, a Spartan seating area composed of bare wood and simple chalkboards displaying your menu choices, black and white tile floor, green trim on white tile walls, and a small section just off of the cash register where three lads whip together each pizza with rhythmic efficiency.  A slot in the back wall reveals the all critical oven, logs glowing at the back, where a constant stream of cheesy bubbling creations enter and are retrieved minutes later.  Still, the shop doesn’t feel cheap or shoddy, it could benefit from 50 euro’s worth of bits from Woodies and a few touches of paint but as it stands there a charming ‘make do and mend’ attitude to the décor that fits with the start-up idea. 

I order the daily special “Marioghertia” and take a moment to check on the other patrons, it’s the end of the Arts Festival and almost every seat is occupied, the diners are mixed in age and background, everyone seems comfortable and a low pressure atmosphere is maintained.  Among the fare on offer are a Tandori pizza with lemon chicken and herbs, a Pepperoni and Jalapeño, a take on the Cesar salad which is topped with rocket and croutons, and a couple of classic staples like the Marghertia and Neapolitan.  Some of the combinations are daring and tending towards the “curry chips” area of the scale, but seeing them come out one after another it’s clear that these are balanced and topped with a careful consideration given to each element.  Clearly there was forethought put into their invention and it’s easy to imagine many tasty nights spent in the test kitchen getting the portions just right.

My pizza comes up and I got a bottle of cider to go along with it, keep in mind this isn’t a glass of Bulmers but a proper 500ml of craft cider, which is available alongside bottles of Galway hooker and other local brews and bottles of Peroni and Sol with plenty of sodas to round out your selection.  I decide to eat in their upstairs section and find a converted beer garden, tent covered with a fair shake of sunlight coming in from the open wall.  It’s one of those charming spaces you couldn’t know existed as its sandwiched between the surrounding buildings, and while it is again, simple and a bit roughshod, it’s an easy place to settle in and enjoy a nice meal while a fine mix of modern and classic tunes are piped in from what I will assume is an employee’s Ipod. 

Now all of this doesn’t amount to much if the product which I have come for, the sought after pizza is substandard.  Mine is a simple affair because I want to judge their workmanship without distraction by the bite of an olive or the sweetness of a corn salad, adorned with sprigs of Thai basil and two types of succulent tomato it is the essence of a pizza amplified by one degree.  The Dough Bros pride themselves on their crust, as it is advertised to only contain real 00 flour, water, salt, and yeast, no oils and no fats, and proofed for three days in the refrigerator before baking.  That may not translate for everyone reading this but in the shorthand of the Pisano elite, they got it right.  It is crunchy, and chewy, and sweet, and satisfying in all of the right ways, it holds up well but does not overwhelm, it provides without stuffing you to the point of lethargy.  Their crust is just the right vehicle for a solid sauce-not overly sugar laden or watery- and the well spoken mozzarella as a cherry on top.

It is an altogether pleasant experience and dare I say a revelation to eat something created with this much care and attention.  The art of a good pizza is in its balance, between what a trio-formaggio lacks and a penta formaggio overdoes is the perfect blend of a quattro formaggio, it’s understanding that a sausage pizza is not improved by the addition of pepperoni, ground beef, Canadian bacon, ham and barbecued chicken, and an imbalance in the trinity cannot be fixed by a side of chips.  I finished my plate and relaxed with a good book while finishing my pint, I even reflected on how nice it was to be asked while I was eating if everything was alright, a custom which seems often to be missing from the Irish hospitality industry.
And so the question must arise, where do the Dough Bros rank on the great scale of pizza supremacy?  I did not mention before the “A” range of pizzas, for perhaps that is a place of rarefied air occupied only by theoretical pizzas, a condition that is possible only under exact circumstances which cannot ever be replicated in the lab.  Maybe that “A” grade only came from your grandmother’s kitchen, or from that one café in Rome which you couldn’t pronounce and will never find again in a million years.  It is the pizza you share with your biggest crush across a linoleum table over a deep conversation. 

The Dough Bros are, in my humble and completely objective opinion, quite high “B” grade, and now share a spot in my esteem with the venerable Pizza Cabin.  I can’t quite say if one is better than the other, that question may become the ‘New York style’ vs. ‘Chicago style’ of western Ireland and hopefully the Dough Bros will be around for years to come so that future generations of college students and affable drunks can debate it at length.  With the energy and ingenuity of youth behind them I hope the lads will go far and keep the promise posted in chalk inside of their ten week pop up restaurant experiment to stick around if it works out.

The gnarliest thing I've ever driven.

I am no stranger to motor vehicles, I’ve driven cars and trucks, delivery vans,  box-trucks, RV’s, boats, motorcycles, jet skis, snow mobiles, go karts, dune buggies, fork lifts, scissor lifts, boom lifts, lawn mowers, tractors of various size and spent enough time on horseback to know to fall off of one with the greatest of ease.  On top of that I’ve been a passenger on a few fairly harrowing journeys such as the ‘Road to Hana’ in Hawaii, a truly cliff side drive that negates the warranty on your rental car agreement and risks plunging you into the ocean at every turn.  There was also the spin I took on the Silver Lake sand dunes, where I leant my goggles to my brother, the driver, and was subsequently blinded by a spray of muddy sand, continuing on in my ride up and down 40 foot hills dodging 4x4’s and ATV’s in near total darkness.

But despite all of that it was, of course, the job of the bog to give me the most nerve wracking, and surprisingly short, drive of my life.  As I usually get into these situations, Basil told me that we needed to move a tractor from one part of the bog to another, as the turf is growing dry and was ready to be collected.  There were a few hiccups from the outset, the first being that the battery of the tractor was dead and we needed to lug out a replacement, the bog itself was still too soft from recent rains so we would have to walk part of the way, and finally Basil’s back was a bit banjaxed so I’d be in the hard metal seat when it came to the actual moving.  No matter though, since I’m a Yank I figure it’s nothing I can’t handle.

We borrow a battery out of a spare tractor, grab the jumper cables and head out to the very end of one fork in the bog road and there, at the far end of the field, the tractor in question sits.  This is where things start to get a bit difficult as the industrial battery has to be lugged out by hand only to discover that our spare battery also lacks the power to provide a satisfactory jump so it’s hauled back to the bed of the truck despite complaint on behalf of my hands.  We consider next to take the battery out of the truck and use it as a surrogate, only we lack the proper wrenches to extract it.  So it’s decided that, with no other easy option, that we’ll risk getting literally bogged down in the muck and reverse the truck in for a direct connection.  With fingers crossed the truck is backed in and by god it does not get stuck and leave us painfully screwed, walking back towards the house to arrange a tow out. 

Lo and behold the tractor turns over with the help of a two Euro coin in lieu of a key and I’m given a quick run down on just how to handle the beast, it has three gears and reverse, a throttle, a clutch, and brakes which I suspect are mainly for show.  It is windowless, rusted, moss covered, and feels less like a tool of agriculture and more like a bygone machine of war and from atop its steel seat it sounds like a pack of deep throated and angry dogs inhabit the engine compartment.  First gear edges it steadily forward though, and soon I’ve left the security of the open turn and am on the unpredictable bog road. 

Now the tractor may be a bit out of date, not perfectly maintained, and slightly unwieldy.  But off of the soft turf and onto the stony ruts of a road it is the trailer I’m towing which really starts to put me on edge, you see the trailer is in fact wider than the doubled up rear wheels of the tractor making it just ever so much more liable to slip off into one of the ditches on either side and pull me down towards an ugly wreck.  I have to hold my concentration as strongly as possible on correcting the tires off of the uneven and ugly ruts, bumps, and potholes, but there is one slight distraction, for added to the din of the rough old engine turning, the trailer is conveyed along on a pair of steel drums which produce a sound like grim, catastrophic death echoing just ten feet behind me. 

First gear is all well and good, but it’s only prolonging the suffering, throwing it into second is achieved after a fair amount of grinding and shoving and now we’re fairly flying.  The howl of metallic churning intensifies and the worrisome shaking continues as I try to drive thoughts of one ill timed slip of the steering wheel out of my mind.  I’m following behind Basil in his blue pick-up truck but we’re not alone on this road, for others are collecting their own turf and have parked their cars on the shoulders of the road, I can feel their stares of apprehension as I carefully navigate my oversized load around their relatively new, shiny, undented cars.  A fender bender under these circumstances is not the first impression I want to make on my new neighbors, not exactly because they’ll hold it against me forever, but because they’ll never let me forget it no matter how long I live there and how many rounds of pints I buy them.

I navigate the parking lot without incident and look ahead to the one, last, decisive obstacle to overcome.  At the turnaround in the road there is a narrow bridge, with a low wall on one side and nothing to keep things from tumbling over the other it is the literal embodiment of a rock and a hard place for me and my contraption.  But with a combination of nerve and those brakes of suspect effectiveness I creep over the span, holding my breath and saying the shepherds prayer.  We’re in the home stretch now, heading for the far end of the bog again I throw caution to the wind and shift into third gear.  This may have been a mistake I quickly realize, because while the speedometer is pegged permanently at zero I estimate I’m now traveling somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 miles per hour.  That speed may not seem all too unsafe and when you’re in the security of an enclosed and safety feature equipped vehicle it is nearly a grandmotherly pace.

But when the wind is blowing rusted bits of metal into your face as they fall from the deteriorating roof of tractor, you can look down to see the stones flying by underneath your feet, you’re trying to figure out how best to free yourself from the wreckage if it rolls over, and behind you trundles a great mass of angry metal and wood, 35 miles per hour may as well be the speed of sound.  There’s no going back now though and the finish line is in sight  I pull past the turn in for our bog with its rows of footed turf waiting to be transferred to the big pile around the back of the house and begin the process of backing into place.  After the 8th or 9th point in the turn I’m finally in position and can shut up the irritable motor, angry at being called into service for yet another year. 

We’ll leave the actual loading for another time and head back home.  My constitution is just starting to settle as I tell Regina about the experience, how it was the hairiest thing I’ve ever driven and how it took everything I had to keep it on the road.  I show her a picture and she laughs, “Oh, the turf cart.  Yeah, when we were kids we used to ride in the back of it, it was loads of fun.”  Yet again I am humbled, for as often as I think this country is trying to kill me, the locals see it as one big playground.

The lay of the Land.

I take it unto myself to tell you all about this place I now call home, this emerald isle, this great Erin, Hibernia and all of its glory.  Some part of that is explaining what is different here, what strange and exotic natures rule and how a corn fed, red blooded American such as myself deals with these changes.  I try not to just think of the obvious things to get under the surface of culture and find what exists at the heart of a people, a place, a spirit that defines Ireland and the Irish as I have come to know them. 

One thing that I think defines the Irish is how they find themselves tied to nature and the land around them.  As a yank, I see our colonization of the states as a process of hammering the land to fit our needs, of pulling its resources up form the crust, of harnessing rivers and bringing the world to heel.  I don’t mean this is an exactly celebratory way, but for better or-more honestly-worse I conceptualize our ‘settling’ of our continent as a process of lacing it over with asphalt and power lines until one must journey many hundred of miles, with full intent and drive, in order to feel overwhelmed by nature once more. 

Although man has inhabited Ireland for around nine thousand years, since roughly the end of the last ice age, they have not yet bulldozed and dynamited their humble island into commercialized homogeny.  They have instead worked it out, quite by accident or perhaps simply not desiring another way, to live within their land, hand in hand with their earth and content in many ways to find harmony with it. 

Take the roads oft traveled, I have noticed, or rather, not noticed, that when driving through the country that often the only road you are able to see is the one you’re riding on.  Even then it’s often not possible to see past the next bend of the tarmac, giving you an experience of being isolated from the industrialized world, alone in your car on fifty meters of pavement surrounded by the vast expanse of green space on all sides.  The Irish word for road is ‘Bóthar’ which when broken into segments translates into Bó for cow and thar for path with the story going that the land was mapped by herdsmen whose cattle were naturally able to find the easiest way to traverse the geography.  Over time the routes pioneered by steers were formalized and paved over as cars became more common. 

Thus, when driving, you will find yourself diving through hollows in the woods or keeping to the ridgeline as valleys stretch out beside you for miles and miles.  You get a sense of exactly what’s around you even if it’s simply field after field, a patchwork of grass dotted with sheep and etched with the grey stone walls which are ubiquitous.  These walls are, to me, more impressive than a castle or monolith, as they defy my conventional American notions of land management.

The American west was settled by means of barbed wire (invented in Dekalb Illinois) as it was a cheap and efficient means of fencing in herds of heifers and helping to end the process of cattle rustling and the range wars over land rights.  The Irish accomplished this same feat utilizing loose stones and vegetation.  The walls stand about three or four feet high, in vast networks over whole regions, cobbled together using no mortar or means aside from gravity and engineering.  I have tried many times to puzzle out how this was achieved, staring intently at the craftsmanship trying to prize out some order, some method to the madness but all I can see is a mass of free standing, unhewn stones assembled in accordance with the nature of Celtic gods of chaos and trickery.

In their own way, the walls are symbols of the people’s presence on the Island and their reverence and understanding of nature’s unconquerable permanence.  They are simultaneously a natural extension of the earth and a means of domesticating it.  Largely unchanged since the first surveyors carved fiefdoms and lordships from the settlements and holdings of free farmers the walls dictate who owns what just as reliably as the hedges do.  Hedges, of course, being dense and inhospitable barriers of shrubbery groomed and contained until their thickness approaches the properties of a thatched roof.  They line the roads and keep animals on their parcel, throughout the year they are maintained by councils and individuals  in just another example of the people living hand in hand with nature, neither commanding the other fully but both bending to suit the other. 

Finally, I must bring up something mythic and vital, a lifeblood and building block of the Irish way of life.  For within the color pallet of this Island there are the greens of the fields and forests, the grey skies and stones, the white and black clouds, the white and black Guinness pints, red hair and blue eyes, and all the colors of the vibrant rainbows which cross the sky with welcoming frequency.  There is one color which gets overlooked more often than not, as valuable as gold, as sought after as diamonds, two things, both brown, are to me inseparable from life in Ireland.  One if the cup of tea, and the other is the bog.

Cups of tea need no explanation (although I may rhapsodize on this later) but I imagine bogs are an alien concept to most of my U.S. readers.  First off, no, they are not where Irish cranberries come from, they are where turf comes from.  Turf being a piece of dried organic matter burned for heat during the winter, you may remember it from a past column on the art of building a fire using it, I actually have that article brought up to me quite often over here.  It’s not surprising because turf is a way of life, and my new family in the west of Ireland, the heart of bog country, often lives their life around it. 

My father-in-law, along with his brothers, have designed and built turf processing machines for decades, these mammoth contraptions are one part tank, one part dump truck, and one part cement mixer as they take raw peat pulled from the earth by a backhoe and churn it into long lines of uniform bricks.  These machines have been exported all the way from Minnesota to Mozambique and work tirelessly for years providing the local people with fuel and warmth.  Much of the area gets its electricity from a turf fire plant which consumes it on an industrial scale, and as a commodity around the neighborhood, turf is traded and exchanged among the locals when the weather demands it.

The Bog itself is something of an oddity, amidst the green hills and fields the bog is a strange stretch of land, low scrub brush growing in shades of grey and brown motley it is as alien as the Burren, the renowned tracts of limestone pushed up from the seafloor eons ago, said to be among the rarest land on earth it has more in common with the surface of the moon than other earthly biomes.  While the bog seems uniform from afar once you get up close you will see that massive pits are dug out and deposited into rows where those aforementioned bricks bake in the sun over weeks on end.  First, as those lines of uniform construction, the turf stands out as an undeniably man made invention, dominating the landscape and tricking the eye just like an orchard of evenly spaced trees. 

Work, however, is not done on the turf as first it must be turned over, allowing for an even drying from its dripping, wet, initial stage.  If the weather has been good, then after it’s evenly cured the turf can be ‘footed’ or stacked into piles and allowed to air out even further.  This process is all done by hand and I’ve only recently found myself employed at it.  There is no set way of footing turf, so I am told, but there is method and art to it which I am assured I’ll get the hang of eventually.  Watching native Irish do it is a wonder to behold as stooped and steady they are able to arrange the turf in neatly balanced piles in a matter of seconds.   Surely half the skill is feeling out the density and dynamics of an individual sod and carefully determining where it should sit on the pile, while the other half is doing so with any square meter section in an orderly and efficient manner. 

Struggling with these two aspects, I again appreciate the skill and art involved in making those mortar-less walls many ages ago.  Basil demonstrates for me the ‘old way’ of doing it as he effortlessly constructs a pyramid of turf which resembles the poles of a teepee, Evan (my brother in law) says he got good at it when his legs got long enough to span the rows, now he lays out long arched lines of peat in orderly ‘furroughs’ at a pace which seems inhuman.  My handiwork is uneven and slow, crude and haphazard, prone to tumbling over if you walk too close to it.  They say I’ll get it in time, and that any bit helps, but I am not so sure.  As we leave from footing the bog now looks Martian, I have thought before that a landscape of footed turf looks like row after row of ancient temples, it is mountains and a geography wholly unfamiliar to myself, again, half the hand of man and half the force of nature.

Later the turf will be tossed into a great hopper on the back of another machine and driven to barns where great piles are amassed over the years and slowly picked away at over winters.  In 25 years they say the pits fill back in, that left to their own devices the people have grazed from the bogs and let them replenish, a renewable source of energy as old as the runes and free as the birds.  In the states we say that chopping wood warms you twice, but here you work for the turf and when the howling winds of a winter storm blow in you can settle yourself in front of a turf fire, a bit of your homeland burning steadily away, and with a hot whiskey in your free hand appreciate how you worked for the turf, and now the turf works for you.

Eat your heart out Galway

So last weekend was the Galway food festival, and I, possessing both a tongue and teeth, of course made my way down to it for a day.  Galway, hidden gem of the West, hosts several such festivals each year.  This summer I’m looking forward to the Galway Races which promise to bring drunk people, horses, and Mongolians, and the Galway Arts Festival, which will bring drunk people, floats, and crusty jugglers.  Recent conversations have revealed that Galway is in fact bad at tourism as most of the locals have no idea what out of town visitors would be interested in seeing, this fact is balanced, however, by how well they do festivals which are accessible and enjoyable, as long as the weather holds out and sometimes even when it doesn’t.

Last Saturday was certainly in the ‘good weather’ category as I was actually able to go on my first jog in this country without being pelted by sleet in 30mph winds, what little calories I burned would surely be sacrificed to the gluttony gods as we eagerly made our way down to the city center.  To our delight it was not overcrowded and rowdy, just busy and happy and full of people who were ecstatic to be out on a lovely spring day.  Passing quickly through an outer market which could have easily drained my wallet several times over by means of locally cured sausages and organic cheeses we pressed on to see our first free event, ‘Craft Beer and Cidre Talk and Tasting’ hosted by Martine’s of Quay Street.



The talk was actually hosted by Martine’s dad, Eddie, who has been making his own potent potables for decades in home and shed.   He was wonderfully helpful and brisk as he walked a cozy roomful of interested parties through the relatively simple process of smashing 20lbs of apples into 1 gallon of sweet, sweet alcoholic cider.  Of course the main attraction was the tasting portion of the ‘talk and taste’ wherein he uncorked a few bottles of his own golden ambrosia, his secret is to use champagne yeast in the fermentation stage which resulted in an absolutely crisp and dare I say elegant end product.  This was followed by a selection of personal preserves picked from the local bushes around Eddie’s country home all of which were exceedingly succulent and more potent than anything you pick up on the local shop shelves.  He finished off the talk with more samples, this time a homebrew ale which despite the greater outlay in time, materials, and equipment, failed to stack up to the cider’s standards.


No worries because I had to dash off to the next event, this time across the river at ‘Aniar’ a tres hip boutique kitchen and cooking school which was doing a talk on pickling, curing and fermenting called ‘Making the Old New‘.  This talk was fairly lackluster, as our host was not exactly the showman I would have wanted and the fare he presented was actually not all that original-seared lamb with boiled carrots, beetroots and bits of greens.  I wish I could have learned more as I expected an informative session outlining how to cure your own meats and store foods in creative ways, instead there was a bit about sticking veg in salty water and using seaweed to make crusts.  No matter because once again it was free and lo and behold in a totally Irish way I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen since my college days and we shared numbers before dashing off again.

With a bit of down time before my scheduled dinner I dropped in on the wife as she enjoyed the usual charming atmosphere and stellar sweets at Cupan Tae, our favorite lunch spot on the bay.  As busy as they were we still managed to snag a table and I enjoyed a cup of tea, while their deserts looked as tantalizing as ever (must get a slice of that later) we decided to go out for ice cream instead after we hit the market for fresh veg.  After stocking our larders 99’s were in order, the ninety-nine being local shorthand for soft serve ice cream with a bit of chocolate stick shoved in the top, just the thing to enjoy in the sun on the river walk commenting on passersby.  Once those were done and deliciously dusted we milled about the Spanish Arch where most of the demonstration tents were set up, there I got to witness first hand the delectable creations of Gail from Lizzy May’s cookies, it would have been a sin to bite them however no matter how delicious I’ve been told they are.

I was reserving space in my belly for a bit of heavier fare, a proper appetizer before the main course, so I ventured forth to locate Il Vicolo, which advertised a spread of Venetian street foods to take the edge off of my hunger.  Much to my dismay I found the Café entirely closed up without a hint of the promised edibles to be found, fortunately I was spoiled for choice and this was a perfect opportunity to try out a little tapas bar I had had my eye on.  Cava Bodega was as charming and bustling as one would hope for in a drop in wine and bite type place, their festival deal of 2 Euro pinchos (small bite crustinis) matched perfectly with a reasonably large glass of red wine.  What a lovely experience it was to sit and sup in solitude while a dozen conversations danced around me, one of my pinchos consisted of anchovies and a Spanish almond spread called Romesco, the other was a more simple chorizo and Manchego affair which was of a perfect dry pairing for my Spanish Red.  As tempting as it was to double down and spend another half hour mulling over combinations of flavor I decided instead to make a proper evening of such frivolity and jetted off to re-up with my Mrs.  She was checking out cooking demos courtesy of Thai Garden in the main square, due to her insider cred and natural charms she was actually able to score their curry paste recipe and now insists we get a mortar and pestle (so excited) in order to recreate it.

While she studied their technique with a keen eye I took the opportunity to grab a little afternoon sun and by the looks of the opposite bank there were plenty of festivalistas who had the same idea.  After a suitable period of reptile style digestion, I hopped up and breezed over to Creole for my main event of the day, a ’Slow and Low cooking with Craft Beer’ tasting which had caught my eye as soon as I saw the fest schedule.  Having even made a reservation I had no problem plunking down a tenner for the chance to be wowed and made a bit tipsy by the three pairings they’d prepared;  Pressed pork belly with a local pale ale;  brazed Lamb with Mango chutney with a Rye; and finally BBQ brisket mated to a Coffee porter.  I took this very seriously, perhaps too much so, as my inner poncy bastard came out.  While some of the blame lies with food which had obviously sat a bit before being served I surveyed the fare thusly:

Pork belly on the dry side and lacking that savory note one desires, while its roasted red pepper relish was very well executed it didn’t quite meld with the meat.  The beer was nothing too special but helped to give it a summer cook out feel.

The lamb, served on a bit of tortilla crisp, was overpowered by the salsa, which was really a shame as it was properly sweet and moist.  The biggest misstep was not switching the preparations of the lamb and pork, I’ve had vastly better agnello experiences while shredded pig is a latin staple.  The N17 Rye was bland as I found it lacked the strong hop notes at the finish to really round it out and demand another sip.

Maybe I was spoiled by some truly good down home Bar-B-Que back in Chicago but probably not, as the Brisket was dry and stringy, the sauce severely calling for bourbon and the cornbread square it all sat upon  not passing any kind of muster.  The porter, on the other hand, was the strongest standalone of the lot.  Well rounded and subtle it was truly something to enjoy slowly with due consideration, I’ll be on the lookout for Galway Bay’s Stormy Porter in the future.

A bit disappointed as I’d heard absolute raves about Creole I chalked it up to the idea that this was an introduction to what they could do, recognizing that what I’d been served was only a few small missteps away from being a truly satisfying plate.  In any case it had only cost me 10 Euro and had come with the equivalent of about a pint of beer, so I can’t whine too much.  In any case it was 4.30 in the afternoon and we’d come and seen all we needed to, passing by a tart concocting demonstration courtesy of Goya’s bakery we only dallied a moment before heading home,  an easy ten minute drive in light traffic and we were home again home again, making plans for dinner that night and looking forward to next year, when we could eat the whole thing all over again.