Blog: From island to Ireland

The Hawaii Independent’s Downtown editor is currently reconnecting with his Irish heritage on his honeymoon throughout Ireland. He’s sending us back the details. Read part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here. Keep checking back for more musings from a Hawaii boy in Ireland.

With two nights in Doolin, Wifey and I had enough time for a ferry ride out to the Aran Islands, three green but desolate outposts that are the only geographic features between Ireland and the New World. The name of our boat? “The Happy Hooker.”

There was a not-quite elderly American couple along for the trip as well, given away by their Notre Dame Fighting Irish sweatshirts and green Boston Red Sox caps. “We get it,” said Wifey under her breath.

After brief stops on Inisheer and Inishmann, each scarcely the size of Molokai, we alit on Inishmore. Inishmore is the site of Dun Aengus, an at least 3000-year-old ring fort that has half tumbled into the unforgiving Atlantic Ocean 300 feet below. Again with the cliff edge thing. The Atlantic is hungry for the west coast of Ireland.

With a population the size of, say, the entire staff of Oahu’s Board of Water Supply, Inishmore is home to ruined churches, castle keeps, and four pubs. We elected to take a minibus tour of the sites, which is to say that my feet are by now too sore to walk the miles of winding roads between points of interest.

“So I guess everyone on the Island knows everyone else,” I suggested to our driver, Thomas Kenneally, a man of indeterminate age but clearly over 50.

“Aye,” he chuckled, “that’s the problem.”

Thomas drove us by countless ancient green grass and rock-walled homesteads owned by generations of Aran Islanders since time immemorial, and seemingly uninhabited for most of that time for obvious reasons.

A group of school kids on bicycles clogged the impossibly narrow road and made obscene gestures as we passed, so I presumed that they get American television on Inishmore. Thomas shouted something in Gaelic I couldn’t understand, which is what residents do when they don’t want people like me to understand what they’re saying to one another. Otherwise, our Aran Islands trip was vastly rewarding, with learning a scathing Gaelic insult being one of the highlights.

We bobbed back to Doolin aboard the Happy Hooker and made for McDermott’s Pub for a few pints and to listen to the traditional music session. Word got out that I’m an Irish musician from Hawaii, so I was coerced into sitting in for a song with the parish priest, Father Niall, and his hippy friend Quinn. It is worthy to note that the only people who go to church in Doolin are the tourists. After a crowd of Canadian tourists forced me into two encores, I thanked Father Niall and Quinn, and Wifey and I slipped down to McGann’s for a nightcap.

It was there that we met Angus the bartender, and two of his surfer buddy friends. We were permitted to close the place down and enjoy locked-door hospitality until the wee hours. Even at my own “local,” I don’t expect that kind of hospitality. I’m a “craic” addict.