Irish experience

March 17, 2011

Dear DC,

Today is St. Patrick's Day everywhere in the world, but Ireland celebrates the saint for a full week. Parades, fireworks, concerts and performances are scheduled most every day and most everywhere. Our group will spend St. Patrick's Day in Galway, Ireland's arts capital.

We arrived in Dublin just after 9 Saturday morning after our overnight flight from Chicago. At the airport Southeast Missourians Rick, Gary, Mike and I were joined by Joe from Tampa, Virgil from San Antonio and our Irish driver Kevin.

We immediately drove to the Guinness Storehouse to partake of one of Ireland's most treasured products. We just wanted a beer and a sandwich, but the good folks at Guinness wanted to charge us for their tour, so we went instead to Ireland's oldest pub, the Brazen Head. It dates from the 12th century, and famous people like the Irish revolutionary Michael Collins have numbered among its customers.

Kevin drove our coach the 3 1/2 hours through the countryside of sheep farms and stucco houses to Sligo, a town on Ireland's West Coast and our operational base for the first part of the trip. Michael, co-director of our tour, drove four hours from Tipperary to meet us there. William Butler Yeats lived in Sligo and is buried there.

Monday morning we drove two hours to a golf course called Carne. The morning was sunny and chilly when we arrived, but a few holes into the round sleet began falling. Soon stinging bits of ice began pelting us sideways in the face. We had on layers of clothing for rain and wind and cold but nothing for sleet. Soon our hands were so numb we couldn't feel the golf clubs in our hands.

After five holes Michael mercifully told our group to head for the clubhouse. Our caddie, a red-haired teenager named Harry, was as frozen as we were. We saw our other group's caddie, Rory, run for the clubhouse. He'd been ordered in by Rick because his hands were turning blue. But Rory said two of the golfers in his group wanted to continue playing.

"They're not right in the head," Harry said.

They would be Rick and Mike.

Irish coffees and Guinnesses in the clubhouse restored us. Michael, who has been playing golf in Ireland most of his life, said he'd never been on a course in such brutal conditions. The next time a golfer complains about a bit of rain and wind in Cape Girardeau, we'll remember Carne.

The next day we played a Sligo course called Rosses Point, where the professional golfers Padraig Harrington and Rory McIlroy have won championships. The course is set between the ocean and a huge flat-topped mountain called Benbulben. At this time of year the top is covered in snow, and when the sun occasionally peeked through the mountaintop blazed with light.

The light, the swirling gray clouds, the glowing green hillsides and the legends must be why Ireland seems so mystical. The contrast these magical days for us and the sorrows of Japan is with us.

The theme of this year's St. Patrick's Day celebration is based on "Brilliant," a short story by the Irish writer Roddy Doyle. The story attempts to lift the economic and psychological depression that has gripped Ireland in recent years. Ireland has produced an extraordinary amount of fine literature for such a small country. The Irish believe in the powers of literature.

After playing Rosses Point we stopped at Drumcliffe churchyard, where Yeats is buried. His epitaph is the final three lines from one of his final poems, "Under Ben Bulben." It reads:

Cast a cold eye

On life, on death.

Horseman, pass by!

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a former reporter for the Southeast Missourian.