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By JAMES P. GANNON
Rippaiunnock Niwj Contributing Writer
Dublin, Ireland — A wicked February wind whips along the River Liffey as I hurry over the antique iron arch known as the Halfpenny Bridge, grabbing my Irish wool cap before it wafts away to the gray-green waters below. The gypsy beggars who squat on the narrow footbridge during summer’s high tourist season, collecting coins from guilt-ridden vacationers, are nowhere to be seen on this chill, blustery day of leaden skies and blown, slanting rain.
It’s no time altogether, as the Irish might say, to be wandering the streets of Dublin, no time at all. But for me, that makes it the perfect time to revisit my favorite place outside of Rappahannock County. I am a firm believer in the benefits of off-season travel. I have been to Ireland in August, when the hordes of vacationing Germans, French and Americans make it difficult to get a hotel room or a restaurant table and dilute the pure Celtic charm of this island that a visitor absorbs when surrounded by only the Irish.
A February visit to Ireland, moreover, is the perfect preparation to appreciating St. Patrick’s Day — not unlike a Lenten retreat before Easter. It is a reminder of what is really Irish, and what is not. When America’s Irish and would-be Irish crowd into faux Irish pubs to drink green beer and eat com beef and cabbage this weekend, anticipating the saint’s feast on next Monday, they will celebrate something uniquely American, but not very Irish. It’s still good fun, of course, but it’s pale beer compared to the real thing — sort of a Bud Lite compared to Guinness Stout.
My chance to savor the real thing occurred last month because our daughter Marcy is spending her third year of college at Trinity College in Dublin. This was the perfect excuse for my fifth trip to Ireland in 23 years, a periodic pilgrimage to the land of my forefathers. This visit was made special by the chance to see Dublin with my 20-yearold daughter and my 25-year old son Chris, a newspaper photographer in Iowa who flew over to join us.
What is Ireland? It is castle ruins and desolate bog lands, rain-swept fields white-dotted with sheep, winding roads lined with hedgerows, mountains spilling down to the sea, rock-walled pastures, ancient cemeteries offering Celtic crosses of moss-covered stone to a dark, unforgiving sky. It is a place of moods and music, heart-wrenching poetry and passionate prose, a writer’s paradise, a dreamer’s homeland, a drinker’s dream. Pubs everywhere —
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