(Bates) Lost with the Irish

We had come to another roundabout and drove past the next subdivision somewhere out in County Wicklow. I was in the backseat listening to the local elderly couple argue with the GPS Navigator, which kept telling them to “make a legal U-turn” or “turn left” right over the cliff. Meanwhile, I sat watching the sun scorch an angry purple cloud pink and relishing in the knowledge that this American tourist was not to blame for us getting lost. I had spent the day with Joe and Janet Halligan, connections I had in Ireland that can best be described as a friend of a friend’s distant family members. All day they had me treated to stories about their travel adventures while researching their family history. I had learned about the time they enjoyed a sunrise with a Bedouin man they had met on the road in North Africa and about their nineteenth century relative who had been awarded a medal by Queen Victoria for her deeds in India as an army nurse. Between this they had taken me to explore Glendalough, the ruins of a medieval monastery, and sight-seeing in Blessington and the Wicklow mountains. Lunch and dinner had both contained freshly grown vegetables from their garden, and this city girl got to pick and eat berries off the bush for the first time.

Curtesy Joe Halligan

Just then at about 9:00 pm, we were heading to their nephew’s sixtieth birthday party; at least, we were attempting to. Two stops, a double-back, and four failed phone calls later, we turned off a farm road onto another rural drive and counted the houses until we reached number seven. I was nervous entering the house because Joe and Janet had only invited me that morning, and the host family had no idea they would be entertaining an American college student that night. But the hostess grasped my hand and kissed my cheek, welcoming me like family. Soon they were trying to feed me a second dinner with wine, and Michael, a small Irishman whose accent and personality reminded me of Michaleen from The Quiet Man, had fetched his accordion. Everyone clapped and sang along to the local music, and I found myself clapping along with them.

We left after midnight, this time with no navigation trouble. But as Joe began another story about how his great-grandfather had helped to build the train station we passed, I couldn’t help but think that this eighty-year-old Irish couple had outstripped me in the energy department.