Ireland a bit different

Depths that gave us birth

Landing at Cork, my first feeling was, I’ve arrived home and while I was flying back it felt more I was leaving home than returning to it. There was no beer or violin upon return nor famous potatoes, which I’ve learned to make myself.
Ireland was a fairy land where green grass touches the blue sky and upon landing here a man has a feeling of descending into deeper dimensions, where leprechauns, fairies and forest creatures reign, after they’ve moved underground, away from the realm of fire as the myth goes. In Ireland you don’t raise higher, but descend deeper and deeper.

Negative chronology

I haven’t visited Dublin nor Stonehenge, yet I sat at the hidden stone circles, accessible by narrow roads and not more than a pile of rocks to an unaware tourist. I haven’t drunk Guinness (blasphemous) and I’ve learned about the violin from the old sailor, dressed in a waistcoat and a gentleman’s hat, bringing joy to passers-by. Instead of visiting a city, I’ve sat down in a village where the sky boarders with the ocean (Crosshaven), in a centuries old house, watching the rain falling down in numerous shapes, while getting warm by the fireplace listening to debates about the Ireland and world shaking crises, while losing myself in the calmness of the forest with the quiet of the ageless trees that have seen famines, wars, the fall of Ireland in Europe and its downfall knowing that it too was only a phase.

In my opinion the most beautiful ancient trees are in the park around the Blarney castle, resembling the set of the Lord of the Rings. There’s a leprechaun behind each tree and fairies are washing their white dresses in the crystal river. Mighty oaks are bending down to ageless rocks dolmens, for which the Celts believed they were the gate to another dimension. Peace and quiet could be compared to the tranquillity of a Japanese garden in a Zen temple. The old Celts (original settlers of Ireland) were, instead of building temples, seeing the world itself as a temple. There are some sacred places, but the deeper wisdom was the one they lived and claimed that the whole nature around them is sacred.

When the soul becomes a rock

Not fare, in the castle, is the pride of Ireland, the Blarney Stone. It is said the crusaders brought it back from the holy land of Israel and built it in the tower at the top of the castle, to remain inaccessible to conquerors. The stone is one of the symbols of Ireland and the proud Irish refused a million of dollars Americans offered to them, to have the stone touring the US. There are things you can’t buy and those you simply don’t sell. Maybe this wisdom could be transferred to the financial mages, who brought Ireland to the edge of disaster where it is balancing on the razor’s edge. 

Another crisis threatens Ireland and it reaches into the very essence of the soul of the land. There is an epidemic of mental trouble the government finally decided to tackle with all the might. Alcohol and melancholy might be great for beautiful music and masterpeices of art, but they also mean domestic violence and as it almost fits the artistic lifestyle – it eats with the spirit of creativity the great minds and small men.

On the radio…

During my stay in Ireland I was avoiding the media, for they were only talking about the crisis and I was fed up with that. Yet, travelling by bus I placed an image together by the pieces of the mosaic, so there was no need to read the newspapers, which would not help me clarify my image of the Irish society. One of the positive surprises was the tone of the speaker, who was calling the frustrated and drunken Irish to open up and help each other, to not let the crisis kill their body and mind.

Suddenly there were many openhearted calls with confessions, advice and comfort to each other. There was hope heard from the magical voice of the speaker, the crisis might bring people closer together instead of further dividing them. Maybe Slovenians could learn something from our island friends. After all, we’re facing similar difficoulties.

An average man from Maribor – my townsman – spends the day drinking beer, watching football and – if his wife is still with him – maybe a more or less enjoyable sex. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, until this Franc gets drunk before the game and decides to beat up a fan of the other team and angry at his wife, who ignores him, breaks the bottle, possibly even over her head. A story being retold again and again in the newspapers, which gloat over the misery of some people, to sell it to other people in order to be less miserable themselves.

Maybe our goodhearted Franc should visit a slightly different Ireland to enjoy a week of abstinence, with a swim in the cold ocean and being with people you don’t have to understand, to feel them. Maybe then he won’t have to read a book about helping himself, but could write his own. If you recognise yourself in this story or simply wish to see the other side of Ireland, I might give you a hint on how to find the magic places I’m talking about.

The end is the beginning and the beginning is the end

Ireland have many layers and deeper you blend with it more it has to offer. Instead of beer you can get intoxicated by forests and instead of a bar fight; you might get a glance of an Irish woman, in whose eyes you might recognise a fairy. After the layers of melancholy is cheerfulness, under which there’s a new layer of melancholy and so on into the infinity.

Samo Bohak