My Summer Vacation: Ireland

About a year ago, my niece Julie, transiting from high school life into college life, sent me an email saying she would like to do a big trip with me.  My momentary astonishment promptly unfurled into enormous delight; for years I have been trying to infect sundry family members with enough of my wanderlust so that one might actually accompany me on a journey to somewhere else, but mostly to no avail.  Minus any hesitation on my part, this proposed adventure was on.

With the whole wide world before us--in theory, anyway--we ultimately selected Ireland.  It is no secret in my family that Ireland is one of my favorite places on the planet, right up there with Hawaii (yep!) and New Zealand, but I don't know whether that fact influenced Julie's interest in Ireland or not.  As for me, I am always ready to go to Ireland!  Once Julie and I decided on Ireland, Julie's mother Callie hopped on board, followed by my friend Beth.  Now we were four, and we had airfare and a rental car in place by March.

Finally, at the end of July, we flew into Shannon, Ireland, and then spent the next eight days tooling around mostly the west coast of Ireland, County Kerry and County Clare.  We also perused both Cashel and Blarney, spent about twenty-four hours on Inishmore (one of the Aran Islands), and concluded our Irish portion of the journey in Dublin. After Dublin we flew to London for almost a day (a bit shy of the full twenty-four hours, though) and culminated our travels that evening attending a glorious performance of Once, a beautifully unique musical set in Dublin and unfolding an engaging array of Irish characters--traditional ones and immigrant ones.

Such a cursory summary herewith in no way summons the resplendence of Ireland for me.  Ireland converses with my soul--the lay of the land, the people, the history, the stories, the music--each and every time I visit.  This summer my soul once again had the chance to revel in that conversation.