We reached Ireland in the dark before the dawn, flying over the towns of Doonaha, Kittish, Knock and Kilmurry McMahon. The little villages looked like light-up models of neurons–a central nucleus with branches in five or seven directions, connected to other village neurons by a ganglia of early morning motor cars. I imagined a parade of tweedy farmers each driving a small smokey car something like a Morris Minor.
Touchdown at Shannon was rather lively, the pilot seemed to have a tough time keeping the plane level. This, at a speed of 300-400 mph, gave me an opportunity to consider my own mortality.
At the airport we met up with the rest our our party. Martin and Beth were on our same flight. Kathleen; Jimmy and Mary Duffy; David, Jeanne and Daniel; Jennifer, Laura and Lee; Christy and her friend Megan–we were only waiting on Tony and Amy whose plane was delayed in Boston.
With an hour to kill we went to the airport commisary and introduced ourselves to the Irish breakfast–scrambled eggs, small uncircumcised sausages made of finely ground pork, sauted mushrooms and what appeared to be light and dark sausage patties. I asked the server what these are and what I heard her say was “vit and vek.” Later I learned that these were puddings, white and black.
Emma and I took a short walking tour of the estuary, looking at the wild swans and reed grasses. Large black crows with light grey beaks foraged for worms in the lawns around the airport.
I was surprised by the variety of automobiles in the airport car park. Weird little freeway flyers like the Ford Ka, utilitarian vehicles like the Ford Transit, and a boatload of Mercedes Benz. Land Rovers are considered luxury vehicles in the US. Here in Ireland every fifth farmer and his uncle is driving a Land Rover Discovery and towing a livestock trailer. The Land Rover Defender, considered the “Rolls Royce” of the off-road set in the US, is the Irish equivalent of the Ford Econoline, driven by window washers and utility repairmen, frequently with a couple of ladders strapped to the top.
Another thing that surprised me was the fact that many Irish have magnetic “ribbon” stickers on the back of their cars. This is a truly strange semantic leap. The yellow ribbon comes from a 1970s song by Tony Orland and Dawn, in which a paroled prisoner (or possibly a soldier returning from war, the song isn’t clear) asks his sweetheart to tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree if she still wants him back. The yellow ribbon was used as a socio-political statement after a number of Iranian students stormed the US embassy and held embassy workers hostage. US citizens started wearing yellow ribbons as a way to signal that they wanted the hostages back. Now I guess a ribbon simply means “I support something.”
