The Return Home (a poem)

I got back from Northern (the North of) Ireland again a few weeks back. When you return home from a meaningful trip, there is always a hangover, a jetlag of the soul.  

Here's a poem I wrote about my trip. It is untitled.

What does it mean to be at Corrymeela?

To inhabit a world of possible hope.

I have learned a thousand ways of being, a thousand ways that share the same path.

I could be the Irish woman who knocked on everyone’s door, seeking peace. 

I could be the South African working with the poor, forgotten children in a township.

I could be the traveling American minister with more questions than answers.

I could be the Afghan who works in an Italian restaurant in Lithuania.

I could be the Kazak student full of certainty and the confidence of youth.

But I am not.

I am just me.

I go back home the way I came, a little different, much the same.

Reflective and confused, awake but bleary-eyed as ever.

I do what I do because it's the path in front of me.

There’s only one Corrymeela.

There’s only hope.

Ireland Fragments: Days 2-3

After an exhaustive first day in Dublin, we were still energized for a half day of activity in Dublin (before moving into Northern Ireland).

We woke up and had breakfast at a local diner not far from our Airbnb. This was ideal as it had zero tourists.  I had a full Irish breakfast and felt like I had enough meat to last me for the entire trip. I found the blood sausage to be pretty decent (some folks had warned me about it).

We packed up our stuff and walked down to the Connolly train station to head to Belfast. It wasn't fun dragging our bags into town, but it added to the adventure all the same.

It just so happened that we were in Ireland at the same time as an old friend. We had the opportunity to meet up with JJ for a proper Hobbit-like "Second Breakfast" at a coffee shop near the train station. JJ (the same JJ, I almost died with) was winding his trip down and would be headed back to the States in 2-3 days. It was quite surreal to be chatting it up with an old friend in Dublin, but life is full of weird surprises.

This photo has a lot of blue in it. Enjoy it, fans of blue. 

We caught the train to Belfast and spoke with an old man about his life in Dublin and his travels to the North. The most amazing thing I was beginning to realize was just how many Irish dialects or accents there were in such a small geographic location. In the States, we have accents but they take up large areas, hundreds even thousands of miles of similarity. In Ireland, you'd go to the next town over and hear something very different from the other town.

It was our first view of the countryside and it was quite lovely. We arrived at our Airbnb, which was a whole apartment (which was a relief for just spreading out, as well as privacy). We were near Queens University, so we hiked over the campus and enjoyed the beautiful Belfast Botanic gardens

I had never been in an European Garden before. It had much more of an impact on me than I thought it would. All I can say is that I know why people use the word "lovely" over in the UK/Ireland more than Americans. Everything was just lovely.

I just like this photo.

Queens University - just a pretty place to walk around.

You just walk around and kinda get used to seeing cool stuff like this. It's such an ordinary thing. But here this is, a cool-looking building thing. Just cool things, lovely things everywhere.

We grabbed some grub at Maggie Mays (pretty good dinner - K opted for an Irish stew - LOTS of potatoes, I got a burger) but the dessert was amazing. It made us happy to be alive at this point in the history of the universe.

Holy cow just seeing this again gave me sugar flashbacks. So damn delicious.

We asked our server for recommendations for live music and he recommended Five Points. It was about a half mile down the road and it was also, pretty amazing. We were likely the only tourists there and the guys playing there were awesome. It was as authentic as it gets. I loved it. 

Every time I went to a bar I ended up getting Guinness. I know that's cliché but I started to really appreciate it while I was there and enjoyed it. Besides, ya know, when in Rome....

We had stopped at the market after dinner (and before going to Five Points) and made our own breakfast in the morning. I was pleasantly surprised at the food prices in NI. Cheaper than Dublin and some items cheaper than the US

After breakfast, we caught a taxi to the airport to rent a car and explore the Antrim coast. I was little worried about driving on the "wrong" side of the road but it really wasn't all that bad (of course it helps I had a nice navigator to remind me of what the heck I was doing).

Our plan was to drive north, stopping at various sites along the way. I was excited by the prospect of driving around the Irish country side and seeing what would happen. I knew it could be a perfect little adventure and I have to say that this day was my favorite day of my entire trip.

Green hills and pastures as far as the eyes could see. This particular day was one of hte most misty or "rainy" days of my entire trip. Surprisingly, my whole 3 weeks in Ireland and the UK was pretty dry. There was one or two rainy days and the rest of the days were dry or only had a stray shower or two.

K kept taking photos of the countryside, the only problem was that none of them could really do it justice. The roads were so narrow, I could rarely truly enjoy them as well. Later in the trip I had plenty of opportunity to sit back and enjoy the countryside.

Our first stop was at the Carrickfergus Castle (in Carrickfergus).  It's the not the most impressive Irish castle but visiting a castle was on our "to do" list and it wasn't too far out of the way. We basically mapped this trip out the night before and it made it all the more fun.

 My beauty in front of the castle.

K took this one. I loved these little stairs and the little details like this more than anything else about the visiting old castles, buildings, etc.

Carrickfergus Castle was nice but unless you have a thing of castles or you are in the area (like we were), it's skippable. That said it was fun, quick and cheap. It's set up more for kids than anything else. I don't want to under-sell the experience though, if you have kids with you, a definite thumbs up.


We were only there about an hour and we got back on the road. NI is full of tiny little towns that start with "Bally" (holy smokes, looks like over 30).  Well, in one of them (maybe Ballymoney) we were stopped at a light and saw this sign.

We found it quite funny and unique, so K took a photo of it. Sure enough, just seconds later, we see a "classic" Old Lady (right out of a WB cartoon) crossing the road. Well, we got a photo of her as well!

If it was Ballymoney, this is sign and photo make a whole lot more sense as according to Wikipedia, "The Ballymoney area has the highest life expectancy of any area in Northern Ireland, with the average male life expectancy at birth being 79.9 years and 84.8 years for females in years"

We decided to stop at "The Hedges" which is a few minutes south of Ballycastle. Apparently, it's featured on "Game of Thrones" and some other movies/television programs but we don't watch GoT so it was more just a cool photo-op. It was on our way to Ballycastle, so it wasn't much trouble. If you have a spare 20 minutes, I recommend it. We took some pics and were on our way.

We finally made it to our "destination" which was Ballycastle. I was interested in seeing Ballycastle because about a week later I would be spending most of at the Corrymeela Peace Center for about two weeks. Ballycastle is a lovely little town and I will have much more to say about this town in future blog posts. We had lunch at the hotel that faces the seaside (which, by all means, avoid the restaurant there, as it was disappointing).

We walked a bit around town but because our lunch took longer to arrive and it was already past 1:00 PM, we decided to pick up the pace.

When I would begin to imagine this Ireland-UK trip over a year in advance, I would often imagine the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge (about 20 minutes outside of Ballycastle) and sigh. This was the activity I most anticipated for out trip and I knew it could be the highlight of our trip (but I was hoping against hope for rain not to ruin it). While it had sprinkled here and there during the morning, it had remained largely dry (well as dry as NI gets).

The bridge seemed smaller than the photos make it out to be, but it did not disappoint. The walk across the bridge was great but the views the island offered was amazing. 

Edit 2024: I was looking at my drafts and I never finished this post (or even this series to be honest...whoops) but I decided to go ahead and publish because this post was already so long!! 

Ireland Fragments - Part I: Dublin

This past June I traveled to Northern Ireland (UK) as part of a graduate certificate program capstone class in conflict transformation. My wife went with me my first week to visit Dublin, NI and London.

Here are the fragments.


In December, I started scouring for a good deal. After about 3-4 weeks, I found a "deal", one that I couldn't pass up.  As you might imagine, the "deal" was better on paper than in the good ol' real lived-in world So it was SAT to Ft. Lauderdale (3 hour flight, 5 hour layover), to Stockholm (9 hour flight, 5.5 hour layover) and finally to Dublin (2ish hour flight). This meant it was over 24 hours of traveling. I mean, it was still "worth it" but it was still tough.

Oh yeah, the Stockholm airport bathroom was BOSS.

We arrived around 8:30 PM in Dublin tired but excited.  We had an Airbnb lined up and our host had given us directions on a bus-line, but finding the right bus was a bit of an adventure. We were to pick up the key at a bar named "The Red Parrot".  It felt a little like a spy movie, so that was a little fun. 

After we got the key, my phone was dying (that meant our map was dying) and the flat was harder to find than you might think. It was getting dark and a few sprinkles fell on us. While not quite panicking, I wasn't having fun anymore.  I should point out addresses in Ireland and generally in the UK as well can be very difficult to find. I could bore you with the insane details but here's a photo of me putting my key into the wrong flat....

Thankfully, I think the no one was home or they were asleep. After 35 minutes of traveling in circles, in courtyards and streets with almost exactly the same name, we unpacked and felt good.

The only restaurant still open in the area was a Middle Eastern place called Pasha (which was great, because one of our favorite places back home is called Pasha as well). We were hungry and we devoured our plates.

I had previously made tentative plans for us to hike south of Dublin (Wicklow area) but for a variety of reasons, at the last mintue we decided to stick to Dublin. I felt fancy free as we had no real plans other than to walk downtown and just see where our feet would take us. And boy did we walk on this first day. We walked everywhere and my-way-too-young-to-be-arthritic knee was acting up by the end of the day! I have no idea how much we walked but Google estimated I walked 55 miles in June (which after I looked into it, is still too low).

We stopped at a small coffee shop for scones and coffee at the Roasted Bean Coffee Company (right across from the Connolly Train Station). Although there were a few "average" cups along our travels, the coffee in Ireland and the UK were far and away much better than in the coffee in the US.

Dublin Street Art near Connolly Station

We eventually found ourselves outside Trinity College and went in for the tour. I had read that the Book of Kells was overrated so I wasn't thrilled with going but the college tour was great and the admission to the library and Book of Kells was included, so why not?

My favorite detail about the tour was about this library. Apparently this insane librarians organized the collection by SIZE. Yeah, not by topic, or alphabetical, the SIZE of the book. Was the purpose to make the library so un-usable to students that it would remain quiet and free of students? If so, librarians 1, students 0. Good game, chaps.  Also, the smell of this place was old book smell heaven. Ahh...the smell of rotting books.

From Trinity we went on to St. Patrick's hoping to hear a rehearsal of a choir but the choir never showed up. Then we went on the Chester Beatty Library. I have to say, if you love history and old stuff, then the Chester Beatty Library MUST be checked out. So awesome. Chester Beatty collected tons of books but not just any books, the oldest and most important books, scrolls and book fragments he could get his hands on. Amazing stuff. The earliest collection of the four gospels together resides here. But my favorite part of the collection was an ancient copy of a Qur'an, (I forgot how many centuries old it was) with an inscription from his wife that said (I am paraphrasing here)..."Happy Anniversary, honey! I knew you would love this!" So funny.

I cannot recommend this place enough if you give a fig about history and/or religion. We grabbed a late lunch at the cafe as well and it was very good (again, it was Indian food).

Then it was on the a few more churches that day, I mean it was a hell of a day for churches. As the day wore on, we started to realize how tired we were. That said, we weren't gonna back down. On our way to another Dublin Christ Church Cathedral, we ran into a a choir from Arizona that was going to perform at 5:30 or 6:00 PM. So, we decided to stick around for that. We stopped at Leo Burdock's for some fried fish that was right across the way from the church. It was okay, but nothing to go crazy about.

This guy (much larger than the seagulls here in South Texas) waited so long for single chip, but maybe it was something in his eyes, but I denied him. I was like, "Naw, man, naw". Also, can we take a second to talk about ketchup in the UK? Terrible, horrible, gross. It's sickly sweet and actually made me forgo even eating it and yet, I would forget and start using it again. Also, the "chips" in Ireland were utterly forgettable. Almost every single time, they were limp and disappointing. Give me some crunch and some good ol' American ketchup. Also, say no to the "Brown Sauce" - never even figured out what that crap was.

The concert was pretty okay, K really enjoyed it more than me and really that was the whole point. The setting was beautiful, what more could you ask for. At Christ Church Cathedral, you can go to the catacombs and that was the highlight for me personally as it was cleared out at this time in the early evening.

This was a mummified cat and rat that had been found stuck in the organ years ago. It was too cool not take a photo.

This was the burial of a knight named Strong Bow (the child or smaller body was not marked). I thought the name was something out of She-ra, so for the rest of the day I would say "Strong Bow, look out" or "Sir Strong Bow, how mighty you are!". Turns out he was pretty important.

After the concert we walked the 100 million miles back to our Airbnb, stopping at a pub on the way home for some drinks and music (pretty good). When we got back it was well after 10:00 and we had been walking around Dublin for 13 hours straight, with a few breaks sitting in old churches.

It was an amazing day, one that I won't forget!

Day 2-4 coming up next.....

Home Again, Back to Reality

Well, I'm back.

I was away for 24 days from home in Ireland and London but most of my time was spent in Northern Ireland.  I loved my time there in a land full of contradictions. Of violence and of peace. Of beauty and despair.

In other words, I felt at home.

It's really hard to even put into words what the experience was like.

We spent two weeks at Corrymeela. Corrymeela is a peace center in Ballycastle, which is on the Antrim coast and beautiful beyond words. It's on a cliff side facing Rathlin Island and you can see Scotland on a clear day.  I would sneak out at random times during the day and just stare out at the ocean and take it all in. However, Corrymeela isn't just beautiful because of the location but because of it's mission and the people that help make it happen. 

On my last night at Corrymeela I was treated to clear evening and a sunset. The sun finally said its final goodbye a little before midnight. I just keep walking in circles to take it all in.
 

Now I am home again, and slowly (but surely) coming back down into real life. Kids screaming, work, bills to pay, ya know, reality. It's not bad, it's just normal. Actually, I couldn't wait to get home. Those last 3-4 days were tough on me. I was ready to see my wife and kids.

I am already working on a travel blog but until then....here is a poem I wrote while I was at Corrymeela. In fact, this was one reason how I knew what I was experiencing was having an impact on me...I started writing poems again!

Enjoy. 

We were at Corrymeela one night,
after the Shabbat prayer,
When the Zimbabwean began to sing…
We sang as Israelis, Rwandans, Americans and Egyptians.
We sang as peace teachers, peace believers, peace dreamers, peace makers.
We were at Corrymeela one night,
when it occurred to me,
could we wrap this moment into a package and share it with the world?