Update from Ireland #3: we did it

A few brief and scattered notes, at the end of this long journey…

I’m writing this on my phone on the drive from Westport to Dublin, which takes about four hours. It’s disorientating, to try to square that with the three weeks it took to walk in the opposite direction.

We made it to the top of Croagh Patrick on Saturday afternoon. We walked 441.95km to get there. Some of the true pilgrims were barefoot, but we decided that the long journey towards it had been penance enough. The suncream weather of the previous two weeks turned to cold rain as we descended. It was hard not to let yourself feel, just briefly, as if something had been intervening.

We walked through spring. The daffodils turned to tulips. The banks filled with violets and primroses. The air smelled of grass, tree blossom and cow shit. We saw lambs and calves and foals, newly born. To walk into change means that you see it unfurling so slowly. I think that, on the whole, we have become unused to this.

Out in the wilds of Conn…