1. "HOW LONG WAS THE FLIGHT?"
2. ROLLER SKATES WITH MOTORS
3. TEA-- FOR TWO ARMIES
4. SO HERE'S YOUR SCORECARD
5. N.Y.P.D. GREEN
6. WHO WANTS TO BE REGIS?
7. LET THE MADNESS BEGIN
8. HIGHER LEARNING
9. ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK
10. BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
11. BLOW ME DOWN
12. CRYSTAL DUCK
13. OMIGOD... IT'S KILKENNEY!
14. I'M A FARM BOY
15. ASK NOT FOR WHOM THE WEDDING BELL TOLLS
16. SATURDAY AFTERNOON FOOTBALL
17. LOOKIN' FOR LOVE
18. LITTLE DID I KNOW
19. WRAPPING IT UP

I left for Ireland September 29. As many of you know, this was the realization of a trip I tried to make three years ago. Then, my mother got sick and we couldn't go. This time, I was going by myself.

I knew I wanted to go there. I tried to start writing my cousin John, who is roughly my age, so that I'd know someone over there. John's letter back to me was essentially "We'll talk more when you get here." So I was certainly welcome, but I didn't know what to expect short of my Mom's thirty-year old memories. I was looking forward to it, certainly, but there was a little bit of apprehension.


"HOW LONG WAS THE FLIGHT?"
The first question I seem to when I tell people about my trip is "How long was the flight?" I went through three cities and changed my watch twice, so I usually say "Two movies and an episode of Spin City."

For some reason, my trip from Cleveland to Dublin involved a stop in Chicago. Now, I'm certainly no geography major, but Chi-town is to the west of Ohio, and my ancestral homeland is considerably to the east. It seemed like I was doubling back.

The American Airlines flight from Cleveland to Chicago was a little over an hour, and the plane was about as big as a paper towel tube. I, as most of you know, am considerably bigger than that. So I was pretty cramped.
The Aer Lingus flight was considerably larger and more comfortable... well, relatively. It's still a flying bus to me. And, amongst showing Chicken Run and U-571, they showed an episode of Spin City. I really like Spin City, and they showed an episode from the first season, when it was arguably at it's best. The episode involved Mayor Winston, fresh of his divorce, running away to Florida. Mike finds out and is at the airport when this memorable exchange:

Airline Attendant: "You're booked for one seat to Miami. Business or pleasure?"

Michael J. Fox: "A little bit of both. I'm going to kill my boss."

And then it ends. Yes, it ends, it was the season finale of that year. Spin City produced 26 episodes and they showed the one continued episode they did.

They didn't even bother to show the continuation on the way back.

By the way, as near as I can figure, the flight's about eight hours from Chicago. Seven from New York.


ROLLER SKATES WITH MOTORS
I landed and hooked up with my cousin Annie and my cousin Eileen. Actually, every relative I met in Ireland was my cousin to one degree or another. Annie is about my Mom's age, and who she stayed with when she went. Annie was going to put me up for most of my trip.

So they took me and my voluminous luggage out to their car, a Mitsubishi Lancer. That's when the pain started.

While Dublin isn't much different than any other large city, except for the size of their buildings (They have maybe one fifteen story skyscraper, and they're sorry they built that.) the outlying communities are predominantly farming. For lack of a better term, it's laid out like an ant farm. Few roads with large grassy areas in the center. Now there are certainly houses the way the states have, smaller pieces of property probably sold off from a larger farm. But fir the most part, it's a lot of farms.

What this means is that the roads are predominantly small. Timberlake-small. And windy. With six foot hedges all around. You can't see too far in front of you. It's like driving in an ant farm.

Now the Irish make up for this by driving insanely fast on these roads. And, since they're so small, their cars are proportionate to them. Not Matchbox car small, think Micro Machines.

On one occasion I had to move my cousin Annie's car, just in parking lot.

First, I had to try to wiggle in enough to push the seat back. And then find a way to swing my left leg in. And then...

Well, Irish cars drive on the left, their driver's side is on the right. The opposite of the US. And most of their cars are standard transmission. So the pedals are the same as the US, but the stock to shift with is on the wrong side... well, to me. Trying to mentally transpose your left hand with the five-speed shift... it was like the first time you played Donkey Kong, with the controllers on the wrong side.

I don't know what this car is, aside from it being a Mitsubishi. It's tiny, but it was really cool, and not available is the U.S.

TEA-- FOR TWO ARMIES
I slept. And watched the Irish version of the Lottery Game Show. But Ireland's five hours ahead of Ohio, and it all caught up with me that day. I was up long enough to have tea... okay, when someone asks you if you want tea, they're not asking if you want something to drink. They're asking you if you want food. Although, in my case no one was asking. All my relatives figured I had come to Ireland twenty pounds underweight and did their darndest to fix that.


SO HERE'S YOUR SCORECARD
Okay, this is where it will get confusing.

Here are the major players, my cousin John, whom I wrote to, Annie and Paddy, who my Mom stayed with, and Paddy's cousin Mike, and Annie's cousin Mary, who are married to each other.

My great grandfather came from Ireland. His name was Thomas Francis as well, but his last name was Mooney. Well, Meeney, but it changed when he came to America and nobody's really sure why. His daughter was my Grandmother, Catherine, and her daughter in my Mom.

My grandmother's cousins still live over there. One of them is Annie Power, who my Mom used to write to. Another is Mary Murphy, whose son, John, is about my age. He's the one I wrote to.

Annie's married to Paddy and they have a farm.

Mary's married to Mike, and they have six kids, Catherine, Frank, Dinny, Mike, John and Maried.
This is not to mention all the other relatives I have over there. Well, I will mention them, but later.


N.Y.P.D. GREEN
So I went with Annie and Paddy to Church, and then to lunch, but they call it dinner. Anyway, I was supposed to meet John at dinner, but we didn't quite hook up. This was the first of many such drops. I split my time staying with Annie and Mary. They lived maybe fifteen minutes from each other, with downtown Carlow between them. So there was a tendency to find meeting places, usually at night, where they would trade me off.

I felt like I was the white powder in a drug deal.


WHO WANTS TO BE REGIS?
John, my cousin, was a great guy to hang out with. He drove me around, we met most of his brothers, and then we hooked up with his girlfriend to go to dinner and then to the first of many pubs I would go to during my sojourn on the Emerald Isle.

I wish we had pubs in America. There are a couple. There's Fado's in Cleveland, which is pretty close. But so many bars out here are dance clubs, not places to hang out, talk and drink. Irish pubs are roughly like American coffee houses, with just a little kick. All things considered, I prefer the Irish way.

On the TV, or telly as they say (See how I pick up the native lingo, like Brodie in Last Crusade.) was the English version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I had heard that Millionaire was originally a British show, but it seems exactly like the U.S version now. Same sets, same music, same graphic treatment... even the same monochromatic garbed host asking "Is that your final answer?"

Now, I consider myself to be fairly smart with the trivia. Oh, get a practical problem and I'm as useless as Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 3, but trivia... I'm all about the trivia. And I'll watch it with people and they'll be amazed by the stuff I just can't seem to forget.

Now I know how they feel.

The third question off the bat was "What does the abbreviation TUC stand for?"

I had no clue. The $300 question and I didn't know it. And the two Irish guys next to me were laughing at the simplicity of the question. "Ah, that's the Trade Union Commission."

Then I realized, this was the British edition. Of course the local Millionaire would ask local questions that were easier for locals.

John and his girlfriend and I continued to talk as the show continued. They got up to the $500,000 question. "In what U.S. state is the city of Chattanooga?"

Everyone in the pub was stuck. You could here the confusion throughout the room.

"You know," I announced, letting my American accent carry, "this is pretty easy for me."

The answer, of course, is Montana...


LET THE MADNESS BEGIN
The next day, Monday, Mike and Mary Murphy took me around to show me some of the country.


Now, I had about three things on my List of Things to Do In Ireland. Beyond that, I figured that my relatives knew far better than I did what there was to see, so I decided to, in the words of Aaron Sorkin's tragically canceled SportsNight, "show up and see what happens."

Basically, every day, there'd be a knock on my door... wherever I was staying... asking me if I wanted to get up. Given that I had no alarm clock, and that I figured that I could sleep in America, I'd say "Sure."

So they took me to Glendalough. It was founded by Saint Kevin in the 6th century. Kevin was a really big name in the Church, and got a modicum of fame, hated it, and started Glendalough. It's a Christian community, and, it's old. I gotta say, that amazed me about Ireland. There's so much old stuff. And I don't say "old" in that negative, can't program a VCR, drive really slowly in a car that has a naval registry, your music is too loud kind of way. I mean, just old as in been around for a long time. Glendalough was built in the 6th century. It's 15 centuries old. There's nothing more than 200 years old in America. So it's a little bit of an odd experience.

It's also amazing how well some of the stuff was constructed. They have these towers they've built, and they're not only perfectly straight, but they're still standing..

We also went to Avondale, home of nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell was an advocate of the rights of the Irish, when they were still under British rule. He was doing pretty well, up until they found out about his mistress. Then they pretty well ran him out of town. (Ah, if only we had such righteous indignation in the States.) Of course, by doing so, the Irish set their cause back a little bit. His house is now restored, and functions as a museum. He also turned part of the grounds into a botanical garden, which is still in evidence now.

And we saw Avoca, which is where the two rivers come together. Nobody could tell me which three, though. Fortunately, through expeditious use of my travel guide, I can tell you it's the Avonbeg and Avonmore. Thomas Moore was inspired to write The Meeting of the Waters in 1807. As the picture evidences, it's very picturesque.

That night I went to the Fighting Cocks Pub with cousin John. His father used to own the Fighting Cocks. My mom has a painting of it in our house. It used to be a house/store/pub when Mike Murphy owned it, and now it's solely a pub. A pretty nice one at that. I wish America had more pubs. We've got bars and clubs, usually which play way too loud music and you can't really talk. But a pub, you can actually hold a conversation in.

HIGHER LEARNING

The next day I went to Dublin. Dublin is the major city in Ireland. It's got about the same scope as Cleveland, I suppose. Not as big as Chicago or New York, and that's fine. It's a metropolitan enough place, but it's still got that kind of homey Irish charm. And there aren't any buildings over twelve stories tall, and the one that is they consider a mistake. They passed a law never to do that again.

It was also Frosh Day, apparently, at Dublin. As I went in the main entrance, there was a gauntlet of clubs (Tae Kwon Do club, Spanish Club, Recycling Club, Aaron Sorkin is a God Club, whatever) all trying to get me to join. First of all, I was just glad they thought I was a new student. I'm a little older than most of them, now. And with some of the cute girls there, heck, I almost joined.

I also got to see Saint Patrick's Church, Christ Church, and, speaking of Holy Places, I saw the Guiness factory. Not the inside, unfortunately, it had closed by the time I made my way there, but I got to see the store and the gates. It's a big place.


MUST HAVE BEEN KISSING A ROCK

Annie and Eileen and I went on an overnight trip. I wanted to see Blarney Castle. Yeah, it's touristy, I know. But it's also the kind of "I'm in Ireland for the first time, dammit, and I'm not missing this" kind of place to go. So I demanded to go to Blarney at some point. Annie and Eileen obliged. They did take great pleasure in ribbing me about wanting to go kiss that silly stone. Supposedly, kissing the stone bestows upon the kisser the Gift of Gab. Yeah, I need the Gift of Gab the same way I need to be taller, but it's still something I had to do.

The castle is really quite nice. It was raining (really, the only time it rained) during my trip

Annie, Eileen and I went on an overnight trip to the south.

I wanted to see Blarney Castle. Yeah, I know it's all tourist-y and stuff, but you almost have to do it, you know. I was in the country for about a week and a half, and I had the time, so I was bound and determined to go.

Annie and Eileen dutifully took me there, teasing me at every available instance about "Kissing that damn rock." Kissing the Blarney Stone supposedly bestows upon the kisser the gift of gab. And, as anyone who has talked to me knows, I need that the same way I need to be another couple inches taller.

When we got to Blarney Castle, I started asking them questions about this tourist trap. "Oh, we've never been here," they answered.

Blarney is a lovely area and has a fine castle. There are better ones, sure, but it's a perfectly fine place to go. The only downside was that it was raining, for the first and only significant time during my trip.

"That stone is just a scam they tell the tourists," Annie opined. Well, after climbing up a bunch of slick, narrow stairways to get to the top of a castle to be held down as I dangle a couple hundred feet above the ground to kiss a wet stone, let me tell you, if it were just a scam, they would have made that thing a darn site easier to kiss.


ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK

We also went to the Rock of Cashell. This was impressive. It was once the seat and symbol of the overkings of Munster, and was given to the Church in 1101, and became the seat of an archbishop. Since we saw this on my way to Blarney, it was the first place of it's kind that I saw in Ireland, as such, I have a lot of pictures. Far more than you'll see on this site.

GO TO IRELAND, PAGE TWO