The Real Ireland

The Real Ireland

It starts with a slap drum.  A man in his early 20’s throws his hands against a tall wooden box between his outstretched legs with every cell in his body. His back hunched, his red hair gathered into a loose bun, he sends the fast, hard rhythm out into a gathering crowd and down into the wet brick beneath him. Moments later, the other two band members follow, a blond guitarist in a trench coat, a smooth vocalist with a tambourine.

It is our first morning in Dublin, my fiancé and myself, and we have just walked the two blocks from our hotel on St. Stephen’s Green before turning right onto the famous Grafton Street where tourists and locals stream an even pace between the walls of Ireland’s architectural heritage. Under the overcast, March sky, Oriel windows and Romanesque facades sit atop revamped storefronts and colorful signs, a past insisting itself upon the present. And it is nothing like I had imagined.

Before landing at Dublin Airport, I had seen the same pictures of Ireland as everyone else. Mostly the countryside, rolling green hills dotted with grazing sheep under a bright, Irish sun, row houses with vibrant green and aqua doors, and stony cliffs towering over a churning sea. I had not thought a great deal about the country’s capital city. In fact, most of the travel blogs I had researched before the trip informed future travelers to “get out of Dublin” if they wanted to see the “real Ireland.”

The three band members continue to drawl a crowd, nearly blocking the surrounding storefronts with a wall of backs. The more that gather, the more my attention turns from the band and the surrounding sights to the people. Mostly fair faces nestled into thick scarves against the early spring wind, red-blond curls press up from under wool hats and I think, My God, these people look like me.

The next day we will take the advice of so many travel writers; we will rent a car and drive out of Dublin. We will tour the narrow country roads lined with stone walls. We will climb crumbling castle stairs and read plaques about battles won and lost. We will stand inside the pictures and we will enjoy every moment as we have enjoyed every trip we have taken. We will enjoy it as tourists.

When the band’s song draws to a close, the large crowd erupts, whistling and clapping before tossing money into an open guitar case and dispersing. The air is now open to the sound of the other morning musicians staking their claims up and down the street, fiddles and guitars, voices and drums, and we continue our way toward Trinity College, but now I cannot keep my eyes of the people we pass. The faces so much like my own. I am starting to find something for which I did not know I was looking.

Over the next five days following our exploration of those hills and country roads, we will find that we are reluctant to leave again. “Dive down to the Ring of Kerry,” one local tells us over pints. “The Aran Islands,” another offers, “if you want to see what the real Ireland used to be.” But we have no desire to leave. There is something seemingly more real inside Dublin.

On our last day in Ireland we will return to one of the first pubs we had visited, The Celt on Talbot Street, and I will turn to my fiancé and declare what I have been slowly realizing throughout our trip. I had felt it while breathing in the musty smell of the Trinity College Library. I had felt it while standing in the gardens of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. But it is only upon the consideration of leaving that I will know what that feeling is. “I’m in love with this city,” I say.

My fiancé will nod and agree that it is a great city.

“No,” I correct. “This is the first city we have traveled where I feel like I belong, like I could stay here.”

That was over a year ago, and since then my now husband and I have been to many more cities, including Rome, Stockholm, London, Paris, and Venice. And the more places we experience, the more I realize about Dublin, its earthiness, a kind of comfortable grit that rises up from between the grey cobblestone, a warmth that falls from the shoulders of its people, and all of it is filled with a kind of ancient music. It is only Dublin that has opened its arms to me and welcomed me home.

About the Author:

Kristin Stoner is a lecturer in the English Department at Iowa State University. Her poetry and writings can be found most recently in Mojave River Review and Rose Red Review. She lives in Des Moines, Iowa with her patient husband and energetic dog.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.