From the book – The House on an Irish Hillside – The author, Felicity Hayes-McCoy writes:
“There’s an ancient Irish belief in ‘places of resurrection’, where a spirit is happiest on earth and more in touch with eternity. The first time I crossed the mountains of Corca Dhuibhne I found my place of resurrection.”
So Exciting!
The plan to record the story of my recent travel to Ireland was to blog and share the link with my friends. Easy enough it seemed. That did not really happen. While I joyfully managed to email some photos, emails and a few postcards, the blogging plan did not unfold.
Ireland is a constant spark of life, music, conversation, adventure, and incredible green landscape where I walked at least 10 to 20 miles a day, and spent the great majority of my time outside. Free from the cubicle world, free from allergies and free from the hot dry heat of Idaho, I let myself drown in the lush environment. Therefore, I am backtracking a bit and while not written in “real-time” for the blog, I am forging ahead recording the absolutely lovely experience.
June 20, 2013
A full day of travel that started at the Boise airport 6 am in the morning with a smooth easy flight to San Francisco and a 3 three-hour layover. Not bad, and I walked around to prepare for the 9 hour flight.
The plan departed right on time at 1 pm and I found myself seated with 2 sisters, Angel and Carmel, originally from Cork, Ireland. And the sister part meaning they were nuns from the San Francisco area. Born and raised in Cork, both had lived in the USA for quite some time and were headed to Cork to visit family, I felt that was quite special, my plane mates from Cork and an Irish sign of an extraordinary trip. We all had a lovely time, reading, chatting, watching the corny movies suitable for all ages on the plan, eating, laughing – not much sleeping.
I quickly lost track of time and soon dusk settled in with a large moon glowing off of the right-wing. I attempted to take a few pictures but had not been able to get the flash turned off the camera, so it kept flashing back in the window. The moon remained in my sight for a long time, big, bright, beautiful;floating on the horizon with a sea of clouds below.
Due to excitement I had not slept much the night before leaving and arrived at Heathrow airport feeling dull, slow, and that I could easily fall asleep standing on my feet. The next ordeal unfolded as passengers waited to pass into the UK, get to terminal 1 and board a flight to Dublin. We all had to fill out landing paperwork, after being told on the plans that no forms were required, …”just quickly get into the transit line.” With the long line and only 90 minutes until my plane left for Dublin, I filled out my paperwork in “the Que” as the agents called it.
The agent had many questions for me, irritated with my sloppy handwriting on the landing card, and asked me a few questions that made sense and others that seemed rather personal and weird. I finally got through only to encounter another set of long lines and finally during security check had my backpack pulled aside because I had not pulled my iPad out. Traveling in the US, we do not have to take iPad’s out, and I was not the only traveler to make that mistake.
I missed my 9:30 flight to Dublin but was easily and quickly rescheduled on the next plane out. From the Dublin airport I boarded a comfortable express coach for 3 hour bus ride to Cork.
First Look At Cork
Seeking the Spark 