Over the Ocean

The west coast of Ireland reminds me most of home. The climate and topography does not match that of small town Illinois: no consistent rain, hardly any hills, and wider car lanes. But there’s a similar ruggedness in the air. What hills northern Illinois does have are scattered with trees that predate my childhood home and white-tailed deer that dash in front of my car too often. Suburbia has only just reached my small town that sits an hour and a half northwest from Chicago. Civilization has crept in, but much remains untamed. When entering County Galway through train, I couldn’t help but think: maybe it should stay that way. 

While studying in Dublin for a semester, my roommate and I set out on an overnight trip in Galway City, Ireland. The one-night visit was not enough time to capture the wild green of the area. I didn’t even spend time worthy of recollection in Galway City, only seeing it as a place to rest my head between hiking around the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare and traversing a ferry to Inis Mor, one of the Aran Islands. My roommate Madeline and I woke up early on a Friday to take a train to Galway. We had to trek across the city and the River Liffey to reach Heuston Station on the southside of Dublin, which had the connecting line from Dublin to Galway. Our train was soon assigned a platform after arriving and having grabbed a coffee, and we made our way towards the line to Galway. The train for Galway differed from the train cars I had become accustomed to in the Dart, a Metra-like train which offered transport to towns just outside of Dublin City. We had tray tables and ports to charge our phones. I considered this an upgrade as I could pull out my notebook and write away the three hour journey. 

The Irish countryside unrolled in front of my eyes as the train departed from the station. Vibrant green fields stretched across the horizon and pockets of trees made up borders between one pasture to the next. The patchwork of farmland blanketed the horizon. Mid-morning hazy rain was battling with streaks of sunlight against the rolling hills. I wondered when autumn would approach as all the scenery had no inclination of changing color. Herds of cows dotted the fields, and in this moment Ireland felt like my home. I studied each cow and would try to identify its breed. Some reminded me of cow pastures in northern Illinois as my vision brushed past red Herefords with their white faces. Cream colored cows would occasionally appear, and I would be stumped. Could they be Charlais? No, it’s not the right shade. 

Back home in Harvard, Illinois, my grandfather and I haul cattle to an auction about an hour north of home. There’s a tractor graveyard we pass each time and hidden behind a barn is a handful of cream colored cows. I’d pester Grandpa to buy one for our farm, but he called them “pasture ornaments”. They merely look pretty, nothing more. Our own cows are crossbred black Angus cattle with a few red roan Shorthorns in the mix. When I was younger our herd was larger and I’d stand outside of the fences, in my mind taunting the bulls. But as I grew older, so did Grandpa. Having fewer cows was better for him in his retirement. I can’t help but think of the mechanical graveyard and its cows as I look past similar looking herds in the train car, an ocean away from my home. 

After the three hour train ride, Madeline and I walked down the street to our hostel: Snoozles. Walking up to the building, it occurred to me that I didn’t notice the ridiculousness of the name. It was the least expensive hostel with available rooms for our last minute booking. That being said, Snoozles impressed me. The staff at check-in were friendly enough to let us into our room a couple hours early. We didn’t need the room at that time for anything more than setting our bags down. Madeline and I ventured up to the room on the third floor and claimed our beds for the night. We quickly scrolled on our phones to find a bus to the Cliff of Moher, our first adventure, and bought tickets for the next bus out. The trip would take two hours and we tried to not pay any mind to traveling even more on our first day on the opposite side of Ireland. It echoed through my mind: the cliffs will be worth it. 

The bus ride, however, might not have been worth it after all. I did my best to occupy my rising, anxious stomach as the winding ride was making my head spin around. I made the mistake of reading Normal People along the bumpy road. I thought the two hour ride would be the optimal time to finish the Sally Rooney novel, but soon I was fighting motion sickness. As we drove further up the hills, I studied the landscape hoping I could distract my unsettled stomach. Out one window, rocks jutted out of the hills and houses would be randomly placed in the center of the geological mayhem. The other window displayed a different view. Teasing of the cliffs could be seen just out in the distance and the ocean greeted my eyes. My shoulders released their tension from the antagonistic bus ride once we pulled into the car park. Madeline and I walked through to the visitor center after buying our tickets and embarked on our hike. We chose a shorter route as we had only three hours until we had to catch the bus back to Galway. We climbed the first hill, paved and surrounded by fellow tourists, and set off. 

The start of the hike was met with a steep, paved hill. The last paved surface we’d walk on for a few hours, but steep nonetheless. It was an unpromising start as I was winded within two minutes. But once we walked over the pathway and met the natural dirt ground, I could take a breath and look out. Pastures sprawled up to the walkway with horses and cows tickling my eyesight in the distance. And the calls from the ocean below had me forgetting my fear of falling. I couldn’t help but dare to look further down, wishing my fingertips could trace the webbing of the crashing waves. Walking along the edges of the cliffs encouraged goosebumps to tickle down my arms. I couldn’t be afraid of heights here. The aquamarine waves introduced me to a color I had never seen before. There was nothing to compare the way the glaring sun kissed the ocean in the far off horizon— nearly what I expect the gates of Heaven to look like. If I leaned any closer, I think I could’ve touched the sky. 

The Cliffs of Moher transported me elsewhere. Somewhere foreign, unearthly. As someone who grew up in the prairie lands of the American midwest, I couldn’t believe that this sight of jutted cliffs with whirlpools crashing onto ancient rocks could be on the same planet I existed on. Madeline and I walked along the dirt trail parallel to the cliff’s edge. I had forgotten what salted air felt like against my cheeks. Closing my eyes, I let my arms and eyelashes memorize the moment: wind-swept hair mingling with the air and under my feet the geology of mystical Ireland. The years it took to build the island were made apparent by the layers of sediment— sandy tan, near black, and brown again. Irish author Claire Keegan wrote in the short story “Night of the Quicken Trees”: “The sea was going mad, eating away the land and [Margaret] wondered how many years it would take before the sea pulled down the walls”. I was standing somewhere similar to Keegan’s character, looking at the walls of the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare and wondering how easy would it be to break off the rock like chocolate off a cake. We made our way through mud and misplaced rocks to reach ruins at the end of the trail. We chose the more rugged path and my tan pant legs were collecting stains from moments I’d have to leap over a puddle. The looming tower approached closer and closer and the ache in my lungs rejoiced. It was unclear what the remains once were; I could only imagine a fort of some kind. Now the honorable skeleton sits gently along the cliff’s edge, admired by determined tourists and the wandering horse just on the other side of a fence. 

Being in this space allowed me to dream and wish in peace for the first time since being in Ireland. The busy streets of Dublin kept my mind too preoccupied to stop for a moment and wonder. Ireland had always been a place I longed to live in. Maybe it was because of the Irish films my Grandma would play on the TV when I was a child, or that my beloved family farm had been bought by my grandfather’s great-grandmother after she came over from Ireland in 1860. A piece of my heart yearned to be on this island and see what it could offer. Nearly a month into my time in Dublin, my heart felt satiated. In this space so different from home, I felt closer to what “home” meant to me. Home was where the people I loved lived, but here home is the love-forged sacrifices made by my family. My feet could only dig into the gravel on this trail because of the years my grandpa would wake up at 4:30 to do chores on the farm before having to rush to the airport to catch a flight to Lincoln, Nebraska or Sioux Falls, South Dakota for work. The man who put a roof over my head missed bits of the everyday to afford all the possibilities of who I could become. 

It was difficult to leave the cliffs. My eyes wished farewell to all the horses and cows we befriended on the way to the ruins. My feet pressed deeper into the muddy trails in attempts to leave some part of me behind. I let the wind capture any wayward strand of hair in hopes it could fall and dissolve into the water. The Cliffs of Moher brought a calm I had been searching for perhaps all of my time in college. To see something so extraordinary and unfathomable helped me to realize how far I’d come but also all the opportunities that lay in front of me. The Cliffs of Moher revealed something else to me: everything I love about home. Madeline and I made a quick stop at the visitor center before trekking back to the bus stop. Most of the car park was empty and only a few visitors remained as the evening approached. It was now that my feet began to ache and my lungs felt exhausted. The bus rolled up ten minutes after the estimated arrival time and we scrambled towards the front of the line to get seats together. I let my legs exhale as I sat down and I pulled my headphones on. After everyone boarded the bus, we turned back onto the main road and headed to Galway City. The sun departed from the sky and I let my head rest against the window. Sleep came quickly, but leaving the cliffs took much longer than that. 

Gabrielle Crone