Dia dhuit from Corofin, Ireland, “the gateway to the Burren.”

When last I wrote, I was ending my two-week quarantine and heading to Ennis, the County Clare seat and a thriving small city of around 30,000. The center of Ennis is a delightful place, narrow streets streaming seemingly pell-mell from the center square where stands an imposing monument to the great 19^th century Irish political leader Daniel O’Connell, The Liberator. He also has a street named after him, as does Charles Stewart Parnell, revered for advocating Home Rule for Ireland. Of the many truths about Ireland that I am absorbing on almost an hourly basis, I have found that the people here truly honor the heroes who labored to bring them freedom. I suppose this is true of any country, is it not? I would wager that just about every town in America has a street or school named for George Washington. But here it seems to take on an urgency, perhaps because the Irish are so newly freed. It was only 73 years ago that the Republic was formed. And I suspect because this is in recent ancestral memory, it remains fresh.

I felt an affinity for Ennis when I visited last year with my daughter Bridget. We both loved the brightly painted buildings cheek-to-jowl with the street, the numerous small bakeries, butchers, knickknack shops (love the knickknack shops!), bookstores, pubs, restaurants. It was and remains a vibrant place, all the more inviting now because the local council shut down many streets to traffic since the start of COVID-19 last March. I also discovered the Ennis Farmer’s Market, which I have been visiting weekly for fresh, hardy sourdough bread, eggs fresh from the farm, cheeses and probably the best lettuce I have tasted in many a year. But alas, once one leaves the city center, Ennis becomes a bit of a sprawl, one “estate” (typically townhouse developments of varying sizes) after another, interspersed with other estates of single-family homes. The homes, in my brief experience, are rarely for rent and the paltry few rentals are not particularly inviting. Another of the truths I have learned about Ireland is that the housing market is in disarray. Not just here, not just there, but everywhere. There are simply too few available places to live. I joined a Facebook group comprised of people looking for rentals and those with spaces to rent. It is not atypical to read of a room in a Dublin apartment going for $1,000 or more, $800 to share a room. This lack of housing was a rallying cry for the political party Sinn Fein during last February’s elections here. Once (and some apparently say still) considered the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, the party did much better than anyone expected here in the Republic, garnering 24.5percent of the vote (from among 10 parties on the ballot; quite a difference from the US stranglehold of 2).  Sinn Fein attracted younger, more urban residents who according to reports at the time basically said, “IRA, schmIRA. That’s your past, not ours. We need housing!” (“The Troubles” were not far, however, from the minds of the two major parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, who basically shut out Sein Fein from the coalition government they formed this month. Another of those truths: distrust appears to still abound in certain circles north and south.)

I did not intend to cast a wider net during those long months in Maine when I was planning to move to Ennis, but I am grateful that I decided to wait until I arrived to make any decisions. And so as fate would have it, I find myself living in the village of Corofin, population 776.I found my place through a lovely new friend, a very talented artist and mother named Fiona. She grew up in West Clare (the “county” is assumed, as in West Clare, North Clare, etc.) and has lived in this town for more than 15 years. It didn’t take long before she learned that this one knew that one who had a place just about to go on the market. I am grateful to her and to the fates who directed me here.  Although it is only about 20 minutes from Ennis, Corofin seems a world away. It has a couple of small grocery/convenience stores, a pharmacy, at least three pubs, a mechanic, a Gaelic Athletic Association Gaelic football field and an enormous, over-the-top monument to, I think, Lourdes, replete with stone grotto, beatific Mary and kneeling girl. Next door to my apartment is the Catholic Church, named for the great early Irish spiritual leader Brigid. My daughter is named not only for her great-great grandmother, also named Bridget, but also in honor of this this revered woman. So I take comfort from this.

Perhaps most importantly, Corofin is just minutes away from the Burren. You may recall that I mentioned the Burren in my last post, that vista of rock mountains that I could see in the distance from the cottage where I was quarantining. Here, the Burren is a close neighbor. I have only taken a couple of walks thusfar into this almost lunar landscape, and I declare myself smitten. I can certainly understand why generation upon generation have found a sense of place there. According to Hugh Carthy, author of the book “Burren Archaeology,” the Burren is a region of karst, “rough limestone terrain with underground drainage, and it is the interaction with water and limestone since the end of the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago that gives the area its distinctive appearance and characteristics.” Because of those rock surfaces, he said, the Burren has one of the densest concentrations of archaeological sites in the country. We’re talking cairns, and holy wells (tobars), and castles, and ringforts, and caves, and more – some predating Christianity. And I hope to visit as many as possible.

I will tell you that I feel an otherworldly pull when I am there. For many years, my sense of place has been defined by the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of Maine, its majesty, its ferocity, its summer calm, the rock-strewn coast. It has been my go-to place when I have needed to quiet my thoughts. But here —here I am setting out to live in a place defined in some much more fundamental way to nature, her mercurial whims and abiding beauty. As those who follow me on Facebook or Instagram may recall, I wrote not long ago of visiting the sixth century oratory and cave of Colman Mac Duagh, the son of a local chieftain and an ascetic monk. That I stood where trod souls who lived 1,400 years ago was awesome enough, but it was an experience made all the more poignant by the Burren’s … atmosphere, for want of a better word. Soul may be closer the mark. The clouds meet the earth, enveloping it in a fine mist that is luminous and elemental and very ancient. And this is my sense of place now.

The Burren is not alone in offering wonders to me. Last week, Fiona and I drove to Doolin about 30 minutes away on the coast (known, by the way, for McDermott’s Bar which sells T-shirts owned by all my siblings and me). We walked a grass-carved path from there to the start of the Cliffs of Moher. This is my Atlantic, the same one that brings me solace in Maine; but instead of a rocky coast, the ocean waters push against sheer rising cliffs that take the breath. I am somehow glad I do not live right on the coast, that it must become an excursion. This, too, feels right.

In the coming month or so, I’m going on a “staycation” in my new country. I’ll be taking advantage of the lack of tourists (for the most part; certainly the lack of American tourists) to travel to all the nooks and crannies I’ve only dreamed about. My dreams, just so you are prepared, tend toward ancient and archaeological sites scattered about the country – not so much to the cities. And as for Dublin, I’m not even sure I could get a mouse nook to stay in! For sure on the list: the Ring of Kerry; the Beara Penninsula in West Cork (that’s the western part of County Cork, right?); the Hills of Tara, Newgrange, Rathcroghan, all ancient sites; Lough Key, the home of the ancient McDermott clan; and of course, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland from where my granddad hailed. Just these alone will keep me busy for a while. So stay tuned!

As for wider travel, the government just last week released its “green list” of 15 countries that have done as good as or better than Ireland in containing COVID-19 and where it is therefore safe to travel. It will be revised every two weeks, so the countries listed today may not be there tomorrow. Italy, which only months ago was a COVID hotbed, is listed and may be my first destination this fall. But Greece is on the list and calls, as does Norway. As predicted, the US is not on the list. Although I knew this was going to be true, I am saddened that my family and friends are precluded from visiting me. And I am beholden to an invisible force, a virus, that will decide when they can come. I am very mindful of this virus; it is impossible not to be. I remind myself that on so many levels I am blessed. But Ireland in COVID times is not the Ireland that would have greeted me a year ago. Sometimes I feel like I owe it to this adopted country of mine to stick around for a while, just so I can take part in the full Irish life of festivals, trad music in pubs and more.

I leave you with some snapshot moments I have written down in my little notebook in these past weeks.

*A grizzled grandfather drives his tractor past my window here in Corofin, a grandson of 7 or 8 perched in the passenger seat, eyes ashine and mouth in a perfect smile. How lucky is he!

*Here in late July, a teenager drives by on her bike, wearing running shorts, a faded red sweatshirt and a wool hat – a ubiquitous uniform of summer in North Clare.

*My daypack gets a workout here. Daily outerwear packed for walk or car trip: a hoodie, a jean jacket, a rain jacket. These are added and subtracted as needed over a core outfit that always includes jeans and tops that range from T-shirts (almost never), a long-sleeved light weight top (often), a cotton sweater (also often) and sometimes a fleece-lined shell. This is to deal with this finicky, mercurial weather that can begin at 65 (a high) and sunny, switch in a nanosecond to an angry sky and serious winds, switch a second later to blue skies peeking out of ash gray clouds, switch again to pouring rain. It’s nearly schizophrenic, this weather. I continue to grapple with it…

* Driving: OMG!!!

*I had dinner last night with a retired New Hampshire teacher who settled in a small village just outside of Corofin seven years ago! So weird.

*Fresh eggs on Tuesday at the local store (!)

*And here’s an entry: I believe I would do well to overcome my natural reticence about engaging in small, convivial conversations with people. Egads!

For more information, here’s some helpful links:

Daniel O’Connell  https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/daniel-o-connell-the-greatest-of-all-politicians-1.3986230

Charles Stewart Parnell  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Stewart-Parnell

Corofin  https://www.facebook.com/CorofinCommunityEvents/; http://visitcorofin.com/

Burren https://www.burrennationalpark.ie/

Check out the work of my friend Fiona www.kilbahagallery.com/artists/fiona-quinn-cartwright

CAPTIONS, from top and left to right

1. Quin Abbey. This was one side of a perfect square around a courtyard where monks walked in contemplation
2. Ennis
3. Corofin. My little red rental car is there on the left.
4. The cave of Colman Mac Duagh. He is alleged to have lived in the cave for seven years!
5. The view of Corofin from my second-story bedroom window. I took this to indicate a typical summer sky: light, dark, blue all at once
6. I am sitting overlooking the very start of the Cliffs of Moher, following about an hour walk down a path from Doolin
7. The pyramidal orchid, found at the Burren