un weekend en irlande

anyone who knows me knows about my thing for ireland.

magic has always fascinated me. as a little- and not so little- kid, i wrote extensive letters to the tooth fairy, left may day baskets out, and even built and carefully maintained a fairy garden in the side yard of my house. it comes as no surprise then that visiting a country that consciously cultivates its mystical image for two weeks the summer i was nine was quite honestly a defining life event. i could almost taste the potential magic glimmering right beneath the surface everywhere in ireland, just past the next pile of peat in a connemara bog, behind a brightly-painted georgian door in dublin, in the rafters of trinity college's cavernous old library, amidst the frothy wake of the boat taking us to the isle of inishbofin. i was lucky enough to have seen quite a few incredible places in the world prior to that trip, and i've continued to have the privilege to travel in the years since, and there are a multitude of places where i've met amazing friends or done fascinating work or seen beautiful sights or adored the culture, and all-around loved the country. but ireland has always stuck in my mind as being special in a different, more personal kind of way.

when marit and i were entertaining the idea of travelling over our 3-day easter weekend, and realised that there was a direct flight from tours to dublin, and that it was far less expensive than any of our other possible destinations, i have to admit i had a moment of hesitation. i've been dying to return to ireland for the past decade, and never imagined it would happen this year, but at the same time, how can any place live up to a decade's worth of mental buildup? i'd mythologised ireland for so long at this point that it scared me to think that it might not be as special as i remembered it being- that perhaps the connection i felt to it had more to do with where i was in my life at that time than it did with the actual place. but then i came to my senses and remembered that ireland was my favourite place i had ever been and how cool it was that i was being presented with this opportunity that i'd been wanting for so long and that i couldn't think of any better way to spend my birthday weekend than in the best country with my best friend.

so we bought our tickets, and we went.

we didn't have time to go to the west coast, which will always have my heart, but we did make it outside dublin to spend friday afternoon getting amongst nature in the ~real ireland~ aka howth, a touristy but very cute village on a peninsula on the north side of dublin bay. 

walking around the trinity campus on saturday morning.

grafton street.

dublin castle.

post-guinness factory tour. 

the view of the liffey from the ha'penny bridge at night.

we went to easter mass at christ church cathedral. marit was happy we picked christ church because it's the episcopalian cathedral of dublin & glendalough dioceses. we were both happy because the church- and its crypt, which is the oldest building in dublin and which houses tons of historical artifacts- usually costs several euros in admission... but if you attend a service, you get to explore it for free. 

st. stephen's green.

 

we had to take a short yoga-selfie break in the park- une petite pause, as our french profs would say. 

parliament. 

it was a fantastic weekend, and over all too soon. but it's okay- spending those three days in ireland only solidified my desire to study abroad at trinity college dublin my junior year with the st andrews english department's erasmus exchange with TCD. i think if you're lucky enough to find the one place that you feel that particular, singular connection to, il faut profiter de ça. knowing that i'll be back in two years makes me so, so happy. 

so as it turns out, ireland is just as magical as ever. 

x

M