The Wild West

Kilbaha, Ireland

It's Monday afternoon and I'm in the department, putzing around on the computer, when my friend Pip walks over. He had just gotten an email from an old client of his who wanted a photograph he took at a wedding, years ago, but the negatives were in his family's cottage in Clare. He said he'd have to leave after class. "Fancy an adventure to the West?"

County Clare is on the opposite side of Ireland, a 4-hour drive westward. I've heard more than one person say it's the most beautiful county in Ireland. June loves it so much she named her daughter Clare.

As word spread about us leaving, we gathered up a crew to join us, and by the end we had packed the car: Pip's friend Jen from Dublin, and Mylene from France who's in Peace Studies. And we had Little Pip (Pip's springer spaniel puppy). We went and bought snacks for the road, went to another place to buy bread, crisps (chips), and some vegetables and flour and ingredients to make pizza later. And we also bought a lot of beer and Irish whiskey, and wine. And... now it was 10:00 at night.

There we were, driving through the middle of Ireland in the dark, blasting Pip's underground neo-Celtic rock CD, playing with Little Pip, cracking the windows and winding them up again when it'd start to rain, passing through villages and tiny towns, round and round roundabouts (we didn't see a single red light the whole way across Ireland), gazing at stars when the clouds parted, talking politics and religion, passing cars and lorries on winding potholed roads... it was perfect.

We turned near Ennis and ended up on very remote back roads, which twisted and turned down to the coast. As we got closer, we came off the highlands and down along the ocean, looking out at the clouds over the sea. Then the rain came again, and as we inched closer to the village, I realized we were in one of the most remote places I've ever seen.

It was 2 AM when we reached Kilbaha, Ireland. We pulled into a driveway and jumped out and opened a big metal gate, and Pip drove the car into the yard, through the mud, up to a little cottage. Gray, with red window frames and an old roof. It sat near the sea, but it was so dark outside, we could only hear the ocean waves hitting the rocks below, no more than 200 yards from where we were standing.

Pip realized he didn't have a key to the house, but it didn't matter. There was a window left unlocked, and he climbed inside to flip on the breaker and the water. We all climbed in through the window, drenched and muddy, and Pip gave us a tour, walking from room to room. 140 years of family possessions littered the rooms, old photographs, new photographs from Pip's studio, a couple dozen mattresses for guests, old furniture, discarded pieces of wood, 19th-century books. The rooms were laid out haphazardly, as the cottage had been added onto many times over the years. The floors creaked and the air in the house was cold. The wooden doors were painted bright red, and they had old metal locks. It was like a movie.

Pip and I went outside to chop wood for the fire, climbing in and out of the window again. It was pouring, and cold: 3000 miles of ocean meets this tiny little pebble in the sea. We walked up the country road with a torch (flashlight) to find Little Pip, who had gone to play with the neighbor's dog. The neighbor wasn't too thrilled about that: it was half 2 in the morning after all.

We went back into Pip's house, and I got the fire going in the little stove, as Pip and the girls made hot whiskey. We sat in the living room, drying ourselves by the fire, listening to the wood crack in the stove, watching the flames, and listening to the wind and rain pound the side of the cottage.

We put on the Doors and drank beer and whiskey, and Frenchy had her wine, and we had a blast! We talked about France and America, and compared stories about where we all grew up, and talked about Ireland and their different accents, and heard Jen tell stories about living in England, and heard Pip tell stories about his motorbike trip across Montana. We made fun of Mylene because of the French handball incident which kept Ireland from qualifying for the World Cup. We joked around with Jen when she realized she didn't have any money and asked Pip whether there was an ATM in the village. "Oh yeah, just walk down the road past the city center, make a left at Chinatown and through the Italian quarter."

We had a giant loaf of bread and some cheese, and we passed that around, and some Doritos, which we devoured, and we kept drinking and building the fire and singing. Eventually, Jen brought out her guitar and played songs she had written, and blew us all away. I had heard her last week at a singer-songwriter night in a basement pub in Dublin (which is where we all met Jen), and she's a wonderful musician. After an hour or two we pulled out another guitar from the corner of the room, an old dusty guitar without a G-string, and Jen and I jammed Sweet Child of Mine and whatever else we could play with 5 strings and a lot of alcohol. So much fun.

At this stage the sun had started to come up, and the sky outside the window was getting light. We peered out and could see the sea, for the first time, and green pastures and cows and little cottages in the hills. It was close to 9 AM, and a lot of whiskey later, when Pip decided that it would be fun to run outside and see the cliffs. Right now. Let's go!

We climbed out the window and made our way through the mud, laughing and running, and climbed over a gate into a cow field. Little Pip ran ahead, running with a stick into the fields.

We walked up a long path to the top of a hill where the ruins of Pip's ancestors' house stood: It had been burned down in the Irish Civil War by the angry Catholic peasants (Pip's family belonged to the Protestant ascendancy, and thus owned this land), so now all that was left was the stone foundation and wooden planks from the roof.

At the top of the hill, the wind and the rain were so strong that it could knock you over. The rain pelted our faces and left us blinded, stumbling toward the cliffs (good idea). At the very edge of the 200 foot drop, we watched as the waves crashed into the rocks, the same waves which had been pounding relentlessly into the land for millennia. At the very edge was a little stone turret Pip's male ancestors had built when their wives wouldn't let them smoke in the house. It was just big enough for the 4 of us, and there were little holes through which you could see the waves and the rocks far below. The cliff faces were directly vertical, and it was a long long drop.

We explored the ruins of the little house, for a little bit, but by then we were exhausted. We came back and slept in the living room by the fire. It was 11 AM when we got to bed. Very Irish.











In Ireland the sun sets around 4:30 this time of year, and it was nearly dark when we woke up at the crack of 4 PM. We hurried to jump into Pip's car so he could show us another part of the cliffs in the daylight, a much higher and much more dramatic view. We drove through the country roads to a little place where we got out. Little Pip took off running again, chasing after who knows what. Part of the path had fallen into the sea, so we walked through a bog, trudging through mud and across ancient stone boundary walls, to the edge of the cliffs. Part of the cliffs made a natural archway to another section, and we climbed over the "bridge" to stand at the edge. The sun had already set, and we could barely see where we were walking, but the light from the sky reflected against the sea. It was dark when we walked back, and Pip led us toward the dim lights of little cottages in the hills, back to our car.

Little Pip was soaked and filthy. He jumped into the front passenger side into Jen's lap and she screamed. We all laughed, and drove on our way, until we started to smell something. "Oh that's probably just some muck he rolled in to cover his scent," Pip explained. Jen was not pleased. I was in tears laughing.

We drove up to a lighthouse on a hill overlooking the ocean, where Pip's friend is the lighthouse keeper. Pip calls him the "Playboy of the Western World" because the lighthouse is automatic. (That's hilarious.) His friend wasn't in unfortunately, but we did get to walk through the gate and beside the lighthouse. It swept almost magically over us, and over the sea, leaving long shadows and illuminating us in brightness, before everything would grow dark and it would pass again. It was eerie. The dark sections were intermittent, provided by little blank squares against the rotating glass. Pip explained that each lighthouse on the coast has its own code. *light* *light* *blank* *light* *blank* etc. Even today with GPS, ships have to go by these lighthouses in a storm or at night, since you can't always count on GPS.

Little Pip stunk again (happiest dog in the world, by the way) and made for a fun ride back to the cottage. We climbed through the window and made a pizza. I started the fire.

In the kitchen window, outside, there was a tap on the glass. Some guy was standing outside. It was Pip's mate from down the street. He climbed in the window and had tea and smoked cigarettes and chatted with us.

After pizza we all went down to the pub in town. The dog joined us. There are two pubs in the village. No shops, no businesses. Just two pubs. And which pub you go to makes a huge difference. People have their own pub, and they split into two camps: basically, those who go to mass, those who don't. We walked through the front door and everyone turned and looked at us. "Pip!"

Little Pip warmed himself by the peat fire and we had a round of Guinness (best Guinness I've ever had, anywhere). We sat and chatted with the locals around a long wooden table, as they made fun of Pip mercilessly, digging up loads of stories from years past, about his cousin, his family, his girlfriends. They said that Pip and his cousin were "more than just cousins", and everyone in the pub laughed. "See, that's anti-Protestantism right there," Pip protested to me. The joke is that Protestants in Ireland all come from the same 7 people. Pip later told me that there's still a good amount of resentment for the whole landed gentry thing. That was generations ago. He also told me that there's a man who's lived in the town since he was 19 (he's in his 40s now) and he's still considered a blow-in (an outsider) to this day.

"Your man behind the bar", or Bernie the bartender, got to talking with me about America and snow. Hasn't snowed in Kilbaha for 50 years. Bernie's pub has a sign outside that says, "The closest bar to New York", and I asked him about that. The old men sitting at the bar thought I said I was from New York, so I just went with it. I had no idea what they were saying half the time.

After a few pints, and some good talk about America and this one couple's honeymoon to San Francisco, we closed down the pub and walked back to the house. The sky was clear now. I've never seen stars like that before. The Milky Way was as bright as the moon.

Next morning we drove back. We had to be at class at 2 in Dublin. We stopped in a little town along the way because Pip had to get some stitches in his mouth removed at the dentist. Crazy. Walk in, walk out. We nearly made it to College on time.

It was the best time I've had in Ireland. Thanks, Pip! Unreal.

So that's that. Happy Thanksgiving! You wouldn't know it's Thanksgiving here. Just another day. But the Irish really are fascinated by Thanksgiving. It's a unique holiday, and it interests them, plus they see it in movies all the time. I think they just like mashed potatoes.