On what I believe was my third day in Ireland, already having indulged in the much anticipated full Irish breakfast and been warmly welcomed by the Dempseys, I went for a walk on my own down at North Bull Island off of Raheny, Dublin. It was about a 20 minute walk to the beach area, and a long wind-blown stretch to the water, passing mud flats, salt marshes, and dunes veiled by thick layers of straw, cobwebbed hair. The beach was fairly vacant on my end, just some dog walkers, strollers and a few cars parked in a rectangular area close to the road.
To the south, the blue-indigo smoke of clouds was slowly winding down, swallowing up the red and white striped chimney stacks from the Dublin powerplant. In front of the powerplant, dancing under amber spotlights of a refugee sun were a group of kites, occasionally keeling back from the wind's mid-section punches. (There may have been a kite-flyer on my end of the beach as well, I can't recall; kite-flying and wind-surfing seem to be fairly popular in this area.)
I walked away from this and headed north, towards the cliffs of Howth and the beach was so wide and stretched-out before me that the desire was to propel myself forward in a sort of mid-air tumbling. (It's an unbelievable feeling, really, not having to weave through a crowd for a change.) Despite what my heart tells me though, I don't possess supernatural powers, so I walked, and I walked, filling my pockets with unbroken scallops and plum-colored mussels, a willing capture in the belly of a giant artist.
A displaced branch, stretching over the hills of Howth. Photo by Colin.
The North Bull Island Nature Reserve stretches across the towns of Contarf, Raheny, and Kilbarrack. It is known for its flora (particularly the prickly marram grass that covers the dunes, which I made the mistake of walking through), fauna, and bird-life. Up to 5,000 ducks, 3,000 geese and 30,000 waders can be found roosting on the island in the winter. The area itself was born about 200 years ago, first as a sandbank formed by the tides and later developing into a true island when the harbor walls were built for the Dublin Port. It continues to increase in width. For a descriptive map of the island and its wildlife, click here.
Hundreds of birds taking off, en route to the shore.
The day before as I was walking the same stretch, despite an abusive cold wind, my first impulse was to take my shoes off and walk along the the coast, torturing my feet in the cold Dublin Bay. I felt my blood turn to ice, but withstanded it for longer than was comfortable, until my feet were heavy and tingly numb, and the cold sand was a thawing comfort. What is this masochistic desire to be battered by the elements? The wind biting my face. The sky spitting it's icy rain on my bare head (which it did quite often during my stay...). The clouds clustering in my chest.
Nearly five years ago, the first time I visited Ireland, I took a trip along the Western coast in a tiny Fiat and one thing most poignantly sticks out in my memory--awed as I was by the battered castles and the 500-shades of green grass and hills, I just wanted to get out of the car and walk through it, saturating myself in dampness, rolling down and climbing up the dampness.
From what I have read on walkers, walking and theories on both, this is, simply put, most likely a way to claim ownership of surroundings, to carve out a trail, to leave a mark. Fair enough. And baring the extremities, well, from barefoot pilgrims to eccentric artists (or just eccentrics...), that's nothing new. Right here in Ireland, zealots climb Croagh Patrick shoeless to suffer in honor of the mountain's patron saint, and then there's Peace Pilgrim who just checked out of mainstream life to walk for her namesake (peace), and Werner Herzog, an artist of extremities, who trekked 500 kilometers in the depth of winter from Munich to Paris to ensure that friend and fellow film maker Lotte Eisner would not die. And there are thousands of others, I am sure, who have at some point attempted or at least desired to heighten their experience and belief of a place or concept through physical sensation.
Carrying on a tradition of eccentricity. Photo by Colin.
Nearly five years ago, the first time I visited Ireland, I took a trip along the Western coast in a tiny Fiat and one thing most poignantly sticks out in my memory--awed as I was by the battered castles and the 500-shades of green grass and hills, I just wanted to get out of the car and walk through it, saturating myself in dampness, rolling down and climbing up the dampness.
From what I have read on walkers, walking and theories on both, this is, simply put, most likely a way to claim ownership of surroundings, to carve out a trail, to leave a mark. Fair enough. And baring the extremities, well, from barefoot pilgrims to eccentric artists (or just eccentrics...), that's nothing new. Right here in Ireland, zealots climb Croagh Patrick shoeless to suffer in honor of the mountain's patron saint, and then there's Peace Pilgrim who just checked out of mainstream life to walk for her namesake (peace), and Werner Herzog, an artist of extremities, who trekked 500 kilometers in the depth of winter from Munich to Paris to ensure that friend and fellow film maker Lotte Eisner would not die. And there are thousands of others, I am sure, who have at some point attempted or at least desired to heighten their experience and belief of a place or concept through physical sensation.
But whatever it is driving me (and them)--possession, depression, a primordial instinct to become "one" with nature (however far that desire might take one), the desire to just feel alive after moping about in a cube/office/apartment/ bar/ classroom/ library/kitchen/cyberworld for most of the day's hours--in the end, I am just plain relieved that I felt it and I was there.
Photo by Colin.
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