I’m taking the trip back on the Galway to Dublin train. A young man from Cork sits across from me. I don’t know his name, but I know his girlfriend’s. She is called Sinéad. I know this because her name is tattooed across the back of one of his hands. My temporary traveling companion is on his way to Dublin, having been on the train all day since leaving Cork early in the morning. He has some paperwork to fill out for his public assistance that can only be done in person. Then it is back on the next train home; a regular turn and burn, spanning the length of an entire country. He tells me Sinéad is serving time in prison.
She has been locked up for a few months. Heroin. From what I can understand through his thick accent and the noise of the train car, he knew she was on drugs when they met, but she got clean for a while. He tells me to never get a woman’s name as a tattoo, and I laugh and tell him I cannot argue.
“It’s the biggest jinx!” I say. “You’ll have the tattoo a lot longer than she’s going to be in your life!” We share a bittersweet laugh, reflecting on some of the twists and turns our lives have taken. He tells me the last time he took this trip, he missed a train by seconds and had to sleep in a barn overnight to stay out of the rain. A cluster of grandmothers play cards in the adjacent seats, each with a stack of Euro coins they toss into the pot with each ante.
We part ways in Dublin. I watch as the man walks away carrying all the hope for his relationship with Sinéad, while at the same time knowing it is probably doomed. There’s just something about that in his blue eyes that is hard to miss. This isn’t the first of these kinds of conversations I’ve had while visiting Ireland.
A Few Days Earlier Riding the Dublin to Galway Train
On the way out to Galway, I sat with Paula, who was on her way to visit family in Tullamore. Paula talked to me like I already knew her life story. Like any good storyteller will say, she started off as close to the action in the plot as possible. It was up to me to fill in the details up until that moment. Her backstory. Her strained relationship with her daughter. Complicated history with her parents. When Paula said her goodbyes and stepped off the train at her stop, our silent neighbor sitting across the table continued where she left off. Again, lacking none of the familiarity.
He was living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but grew up in Donegal (pronounced Donny-GAWL). He was in town for a few days for a wedding for a friend from school. He showed me pictures of a cottage he and his girlfriend were renovating. Housing prices in Ireland were unreal compared to Canada, he said. He told me a lot of “good Irish boys” were out there, working and sending money back home.
His way of speaking was slightly different than Paula’s, and different still from the young man’s from Cork. The Irish accent has a cadence to it, like the meter of a poem. Like a dance. Once your ears crack the rhythm and match the steps, it is easier to follow. Even over the noise of a train.
The whole trip out to Galway from Dublin and back, I expected to stare out the window of the train car, drinking in the verdant landscape, watching cows graze in their pastures, stone fences, and the occasional ruin slip past. I was intent on the conversations with strangers instead. Strangers who talked to me like they had known me our whole lives.
A Deeper Understanding of People with Solo Travel
When I got home, people asked me what some of the biggest differences were between Ireland and America. I can only really speak for my part of the States, and living in a Colorado mountain town, there are more similarities than not. In my hometown, I can tell that I’ve had a little too much of the city rub off on me—twenty years worth. I nod a silent hello at the Post Office, I don’t chat much, and I dislike gossip. Since returning home, I’m out of touch, verging on antisocial. Especially in a post-pandemic world. Most of the people I knew growing up are either dead or have moved away. Yet the conversations on the train are familiar. Easy.
The Irish are a lot friendlier than most Americans, their intimacy tempered with sarcasm and wit. One difference is that Americans, including the ones I came across in my travels, begin by asking you what you do for a living. From there they get a good idea of where you compare socially. The Irish people I visited with never led with that question. It usually comes out in the context of conversation. The obsession with work as part of your identity is distinctly American.
Making Conversation with Strangers on the Train
The retired couple from Arkansas who sat next to me at Heuston Station asked about my profession almost immediately. Telling someone you are a writer immediately puts them off balance, come to find out. They explained their connection to Ireland and how they were researching their ancestry. The Irish hear this a lot, and from what I learned, they see it almost entirely as an American problem. They humor us Yanks with it too. We might call ourselves “Irish” but we aren’t. We do get a pass on St. Patrick’s Day, just like everyone else.
I learned what the man living in Halifax did for a living because he was proud of his work on his cottage project. He showed me pictures on his phone. Amazing. The man is an artist. What he did for a living only came up when I asked him where he learned to do that kind of masonry, carpentry, and plaster work. When asked why I was in Ireland, I think they were each surprised to hear that discovering my roots wasn’t on the agenda. Paula laughed outloud when I confessed that most of the Irish in my family came from Derry nearly two hundred years ago, and I had no plans to go to the North.
I told her I was a travel writer, doing a solo trip for the next week (with two days down in Dublin, and another already spent connecting flights). She gave me a postcard with a map of Ireland and notable stops in every corner of the island. Paula paid me the biggest compliment when she told me I didn’t need to visit Blarney Castle, because I already had the gift of gab.
Travel Deeply with Empathy
On the way out to Galway and on the way back to Dublin a week later, I was surprised at how personable the people are. Like old friends, only you’ve just met. We all seemed to share the same distaste for Dublin. Sinead’s young man calls it “a feckin’ mess. A pit.” Paula was glad to be away from it, and the man headed to the wedding said he had no use for it himself. Just a dirty city filled with tourists. I shared with him the term my mountain community has for our own visitors who stop just long enough to use the toilet: tourons. A portmanteau of tourist and moron.
“I’ll have to remember that one!” he said with a laugh.
I was aware I risked including myself in that category. You take a risk as an outsider criticizing where someone calls home, and you need to tread lightly. Even if they agree with you, it’s good to show respect, because they still have a lot of pride when it comes to their homeland. I know I do for my own hometown. They seemed forgiving enough when I shared my thoughts about Dublin: It’s a party city, and that really isn’t my thing. I got the nod of approval from all three, and suggestions of places that might be more to my liking.
You Never Walk in the Same River Twice
Upon returning to Dublin for my last day of the trip, I was met with the familiar smell of the river, mingled with burnt chip grease. It’s unmistakable once you’ve encountered it. The city got to carry the added burden of disappointment. Not only is Dublin a bustling tourist trap filled with selfie-taking Americans, but also because it represented the end of an incredible journey to one of the friendliest and most beautiful places I have ever been. By the end of the train ride, I was exhausted and checked into my hostel, resting on my hard mattress for a while before going out again on my final night in Ireland.
Some visitors never venture any further than the warren of narrow, brick-paved streets and packed pubs of City Centre, Dublin. It’s a shame, I think, when you discover the rolling green hills, ancient dolmens, churchyards, sea cliffs, and roads flanked with stone walls and blackberry brambles that await just outside the city. Patient, accommodating, and friendly people live in all those villages and small cities by the sea, just as they have for thousands of years. They build homes, visit family, and even carry enough hope with them to have the names of their sweethearts tattooed on the back of their hands.
Ireland is a country full of stories, and the people who live there aren’t shy about sharing them if you just listen.
This post originally appeared on my podcast, Shake Some Dust. Click here if you would like to listen to the episode! For other stories about the Wild Atlantic Way road trip, check out this post.
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