The Day Before
Simply because I have no other alternative - everything else has either been packed or thrown away - I write with a pencil. Of course, I could always make the journey downstairs, yet 350mL of vodka is a powerfully persuasive element for staying comfortable and warm upstairs in my bedroom, such as it is.
I was a bit worried last night; I drank eight shots (200mL) of vodka, plus two pints of lager and was positively tiddly. Not drunk, mind you, but definitely the improper side of sober. I was thinking - last night - that only six months ago, on kibbutz, I could have quite happily drunk half a litre of vodka in one sitting (one sitting usually lasted 3 - 6 hours). Now, here I am in England only managing eight English shots (the English have only 25mLs in their shots - strange nation. I wonder what the Irish will have...), and being unable to consume the remaining 300mLs.
Tonight, when presented by my soon-to-be-ex-housemate with a 350mL bottle of vodka and a bottle of Fanta to go with it, I thought I had better not crack the seal, in case I don’t wake up for tomorrow’s 3:30 am start. Silly me; by now I should know myself a bit better. I cracked the seal and, here I am 350mL later, fine. Tiddly, to be sure, but not unsteady on my feet, and able to write a perfectly good - if ambling - introduction to my Irish adventure.
In a little over eight hours I will be in Ireland. I consider myself a good, yet inexperienced writer. If I were to embark upon my trip in ten years time, I would fully be able to express my kaleidoscope of emotions at the upcoming experience. Perhaps I would even be able to spell that word without first looking up a dictionary. Alas, for my readers and myself (in the literary sense) I am going tomorrow and not in 2009, for by then I will be well on my way to other destinations, whether physical or theoretical.
So, in the next few minutes and, following a nervous sleep, the next few days, I will be trying my best to describe my feelings of realising a dream.
To start: in 1993 - my 12th and final year of school - I was given a book by my friend Matthew McNally. The book was Trinity, by Leon Uris. Matthew was a non-practising Catholic whose family name obviously came from Eire at some point in history, as so many Australian family names have.
He used to go on about how great the IRA was and how the British killed and still kill the Catholics of Ireland, etc. I was an impressionable boy of 16 and immediately started to emulate his words, having no idea what either of us were going on about.
Four of five years later, Matthew joined the Royal Australian Army and, after a lecture by an officer of the British SAS, started telling me how bad the Provisional IRA were. Being a bit older and a little less ignorant, I was inclined to agree with him.
I started to read Trinity when he gave it to me, however after the first hundred or so pages I was bored and put it down. Six months later I attempted it again and finished the book. The book changed my life. Not because it made my outlook on life any brighter but simply because it instilled in me a passion.
Trinity made me realise how ignorant I was about Ireland and it also made me eager to learn more. So many Australians can claim some sort of Irish heritage - including my own family - yet I think we are generally ignorant about where we claim to come from.
At the end of Trinity I was unsure of whether or not Ireland had ever become a republic (It did, in 1937). I bought a textbook on Ireland, a general history, covering the age of Neolithic farming to the modern day 'Troubles'. Of the thousands of years of history my interest always lay in and around the years described in the novel. From the Great Hunger, to the Fenians, the establishment of the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletics Association, the fight for Home Rule, the War of Independence - made famous by the Hollywood film, Michael Collins and finally the Civil War.
When only a little Irish history is known, it becomes clear that the ‘Troubles’, so talked about in the media and now - hopefully - at an end due to the Good Friday Agreement, have lasted far more than 30 years. The recent violence is just the sad and modern reflection of an age-old fight. Unfortunately, criminals and murderers have taken up this fight. Any Irish person I have met, from either the Republic or the North have told me that the vast majority of people on both sides of the border don’t support either of the warring sides and would well do away with the Troubles and the unwanted international attention that it warrants.
The Republicans of old; the Fenians, the members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and other organisations throughout Irish history were not terrorists. They did not kill indiscriminately. They took their examples from the likes of Parnell, Wolfe Tone and Emmet. Their Liberator was Daniel O’Connell, the first Catholic to be elected into Westminster (at a time when the Catholics of Ireland did not have the vote). These Patriots were just that; they were patriots. They loved their country and the people who lived in it. Wolfe Tone was a Protestant who founded the United Irishmen, a movement spanning both sides of the secular divide, aimed at putting the future of Ireland into Irish hands. He did not kill a man or his family just because of the church he went to.
The Republicans who fought in 1916 must cry with anger and shame when they see what the murderers in the IRA are doing to tarnish their historical name. In the first half of this century, someone identified with the IRA was a hero in the Republic, a man of honour who fought for his country against the odds. Now, members of the IRA and all its offshoots are rightly labelled murderers and common criminals. Prisoners Of War? No.
Hmmm. I think I have wandered from where I was going. That vodka must be kicking in.
Trinity is an historical novel - based on true events - stretching from the Irish Famine of the 1840s to the Easter Uprising in 1916. It mainly follows the life of Conor, a Catholic lad who grows up in the village of Ballyutogue, in County Donegal. Though Conor is the central character, Trinity also tells the stories of three different families, a working class Protestant family in East Belfast, an aristocratic family of land-owners and the Larkins, Catholics tenant farmers, to whom Conor was born.
At some point in the last six years, no doubt whilst rereading Trinity for the umpteenth time, I realised that I wanted to go to Donegal to see if Ballyutogue really exists. And that is why I am going to Ireland. Any other place I see will be a bonus, but my plan is to simply ride up and down the Lough (pronounced like the Scottish Loch) Foyle and find the village that Conor Larkin grew up in. Sure, it probably won’t exist, but the idea of being where this book is set is wonderful. To see the shores of the Lough, the seaweed, to smell the air and meet the people of Inishowen. I just can’t believe that I am finally going to be in Ireland.
The idea of going to Ireland was just that for a very long time. Even as I came to England to save money, even as I bought my bike, my ticket, the equipment that I will need, it still didn’t seem real. I have made friends from Ireland; from Donegal and other places in Ulster and they have all told me about the place, the weather, the hills and the people. They have done nothing but encouraged me - as well as telling me how crazy I was for going at this time of year. Yet, even then it didn’t feel like it was me that was going.
So now, just two hours before I have to wake up and travel to the airport it is starting to sink in. Wow! I am going to Ireland!
Wow!!! What will happen? Who will I meet?
I can’t and won’t begin to describe my feelings. I think I will wait until I am there and see how I feel. Tonight it is time to be scientific and logical.
I am going to Ireland with:
1 pair of jeans, 1 pair of light, cotton work pants (the pants I used to work in at the dairy)
2 long sleeved cotton shirts, 1 Australian Rugby jersey (we did just win the World Cup!)
1 pair of woollen gloves, 1 pair of ski gloves, a beanie, a fleece jumper (my ‘Kathmandu’)
1 rain suit - coat and pants (my ‘wets’)
1 pair of boots, 1 pair of bike shoes, 1 pair of bike shoe covers (made of wet suit material)
A toilet bag
A compass
A tent, a sleeping bag
A toilet bag full of bike tools and spare tubes
A bike - my pride and joy
I have £220 to last me for a month (gulp). My plan is to fly into Dublin, find a train station and take the first train to Donegal-town. I will find and buy an Ordnance Survey map of the area and set out in search of Ballyutogue on the Inishowen Peninsular. I will knock at farmers' doors and offer to do a days work in exchange for food and a place to pitch my tent. Most of all, I will wake every day and devote that day to God and I will trust him to keep me safe, healthy and financially sound.
I am about to fulfil a dream and all I can come up with is this drivel. Never mind, as my Irish accent thickens so will my witticisms.
So, here is to Ireland, to new experiences, to my health and well being and to God. May all my dreams be fulfilled.
I was a bit worried last night; I drank eight shots (200mL) of vodka, plus two pints of lager and was positively tiddly. Not drunk, mind you, but definitely the improper side of sober. I was thinking - last night - that only six months ago, on kibbutz, I could have quite happily drunk half a litre of vodka in one sitting (one sitting usually lasted 3 - 6 hours). Now, here I am in England only managing eight English shots (the English have only 25mLs in their shots - strange nation. I wonder what the Irish will have...), and being unable to consume the remaining 300mLs.
Tonight, when presented by my soon-to-be-ex-housemate with a 350mL bottle of vodka and a bottle of Fanta to go with it, I thought I had better not crack the seal, in case I don’t wake up for tomorrow’s 3:30 am start. Silly me; by now I should know myself a bit better. I cracked the seal and, here I am 350mL later, fine. Tiddly, to be sure, but not unsteady on my feet, and able to write a perfectly good - if ambling - introduction to my Irish adventure.
In a little over eight hours I will be in Ireland. I consider myself a good, yet inexperienced writer. If I were to embark upon my trip in ten years time, I would fully be able to express my kaleidoscope of emotions at the upcoming experience. Perhaps I would even be able to spell that word without first looking up a dictionary. Alas, for my readers and myself (in the literary sense) I am going tomorrow and not in 2009, for by then I will be well on my way to other destinations, whether physical or theoretical.
So, in the next few minutes and, following a nervous sleep, the next few days, I will be trying my best to describe my feelings of realising a dream.
To start: in 1993 - my 12th and final year of school - I was given a book by my friend Matthew McNally. The book was Trinity, by Leon Uris. Matthew was a non-practising Catholic whose family name obviously came from Eire at some point in history, as so many Australian family names have.
He used to go on about how great the IRA was and how the British killed and still kill the Catholics of Ireland, etc. I was an impressionable boy of 16 and immediately started to emulate his words, having no idea what either of us were going on about.
Four of five years later, Matthew joined the Royal Australian Army and, after a lecture by an officer of the British SAS, started telling me how bad the Provisional IRA were. Being a bit older and a little less ignorant, I was inclined to agree with him.
I started to read Trinity when he gave it to me, however after the first hundred or so pages I was bored and put it down. Six months later I attempted it again and finished the book. The book changed my life. Not because it made my outlook on life any brighter but simply because it instilled in me a passion.
Trinity made me realise how ignorant I was about Ireland and it also made me eager to learn more. So many Australians can claim some sort of Irish heritage - including my own family - yet I think we are generally ignorant about where we claim to come from.
At the end of Trinity I was unsure of whether or not Ireland had ever become a republic (It did, in 1937). I bought a textbook on Ireland, a general history, covering the age of Neolithic farming to the modern day 'Troubles'. Of the thousands of years of history my interest always lay in and around the years described in the novel. From the Great Hunger, to the Fenians, the establishment of the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletics Association, the fight for Home Rule, the War of Independence - made famous by the Hollywood film, Michael Collins and finally the Civil War.
When only a little Irish history is known, it becomes clear that the ‘Troubles’, so talked about in the media and now - hopefully - at an end due to the Good Friday Agreement, have lasted far more than 30 years. The recent violence is just the sad and modern reflection of an age-old fight. Unfortunately, criminals and murderers have taken up this fight. Any Irish person I have met, from either the Republic or the North have told me that the vast majority of people on both sides of the border don’t support either of the warring sides and would well do away with the Troubles and the unwanted international attention that it warrants.
The Republicans of old; the Fenians, the members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and other organisations throughout Irish history were not terrorists. They did not kill indiscriminately. They took their examples from the likes of Parnell, Wolfe Tone and Emmet. Their Liberator was Daniel O’Connell, the first Catholic to be elected into Westminster (at a time when the Catholics of Ireland did not have the vote). These Patriots were just that; they were patriots. They loved their country and the people who lived in it. Wolfe Tone was a Protestant who founded the United Irishmen, a movement spanning both sides of the secular divide, aimed at putting the future of Ireland into Irish hands. He did not kill a man or his family just because of the church he went to.
The Republicans who fought in 1916 must cry with anger and shame when they see what the murderers in the IRA are doing to tarnish their historical name. In the first half of this century, someone identified with the IRA was a hero in the Republic, a man of honour who fought for his country against the odds. Now, members of the IRA and all its offshoots are rightly labelled murderers and common criminals. Prisoners Of War? No.
Hmmm. I think I have wandered from where I was going. That vodka must be kicking in.
Trinity is an historical novel - based on true events - stretching from the Irish Famine of the 1840s to the Easter Uprising in 1916. It mainly follows the life of Conor, a Catholic lad who grows up in the village of Ballyutogue, in County Donegal. Though Conor is the central character, Trinity also tells the stories of three different families, a working class Protestant family in East Belfast, an aristocratic family of land-owners and the Larkins, Catholics tenant farmers, to whom Conor was born.
At some point in the last six years, no doubt whilst rereading Trinity for the umpteenth time, I realised that I wanted to go to Donegal to see if Ballyutogue really exists. And that is why I am going to Ireland. Any other place I see will be a bonus, but my plan is to simply ride up and down the Lough (pronounced like the Scottish Loch) Foyle and find the village that Conor Larkin grew up in. Sure, it probably won’t exist, but the idea of being where this book is set is wonderful. To see the shores of the Lough, the seaweed, to smell the air and meet the people of Inishowen. I just can’t believe that I am finally going to be in Ireland.
The idea of going to Ireland was just that for a very long time. Even as I came to England to save money, even as I bought my bike, my ticket, the equipment that I will need, it still didn’t seem real. I have made friends from Ireland; from Donegal and other places in Ulster and they have all told me about the place, the weather, the hills and the people. They have done nothing but encouraged me - as well as telling me how crazy I was for going at this time of year. Yet, even then it didn’t feel like it was me that was going.
So now, just two hours before I have to wake up and travel to the airport it is starting to sink in. Wow! I am going to Ireland!
Wow!!! What will happen? Who will I meet?
I can’t and won’t begin to describe my feelings. I think I will wait until I am there and see how I feel. Tonight it is time to be scientific and logical.
I am going to Ireland with:
1 pair of jeans, 1 pair of light, cotton work pants (the pants I used to work in at the dairy)
2 long sleeved cotton shirts, 1 Australian Rugby jersey (we did just win the World Cup!)
1 pair of woollen gloves, 1 pair of ski gloves, a beanie, a fleece jumper (my ‘Kathmandu’)
1 rain suit - coat and pants (my ‘wets’)
1 pair of boots, 1 pair of bike shoes, 1 pair of bike shoe covers (made of wet suit material)
A toilet bag
A compass
A tent, a sleeping bag
A toilet bag full of bike tools and spare tubes
A bike - my pride and joy
I have £220 to last me for a month (gulp). My plan is to fly into Dublin, find a train station and take the first train to Donegal-town. I will find and buy an Ordnance Survey map of the area and set out in search of Ballyutogue on the Inishowen Peninsular. I will knock at farmers' doors and offer to do a days work in exchange for food and a place to pitch my tent. Most of all, I will wake every day and devote that day to God and I will trust him to keep me safe, healthy and financially sound.
I am about to fulfil a dream and all I can come up with is this drivel. Never mind, as my Irish accent thickens so will my witticisms.
So, here is to Ireland, to new experiences, to my health and well being and to God. May all my dreams be fulfilled.
posted by Bren Carlill @ 5:14 AM
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