Ceanannas

The romance of the town of Kells is lost in the rumble of trucks on the High Street; it would seem that half of Ireland's worldly goods need to pass through this small market town on the way to somewhere else. The Heritage Visitor Center was also closed when I arrived, but that was okay, because I was headed for the real thing, a tenth- or eleventh-century (the age is disputed) oratory building, St. Colmcille's (aka St. Columba's) House. The House, which is not signposted anywhere, is located behind the churchyard on a narrow street. It is tucked between the Garda station and a row of semi-detached houses. The satellite towers of the Garda punctuate the sky just behind the tiny stone mound of a building; the Kells Handball Society headquarters watches over it from across the way.

The sign on the locked gate of St. Colmcille's instructs visitors to get the key from Mrs Johnson, who is to be found 200 yards down the hill in Lower Church View. I head back down the street, and when I think I have gone about 200 yards I begin to look for Lower Church View, to no avail. There are no signs on any of the houses, or any indication that Lower Church View exists at all. I cross the street and ask two men rigged out in full soccer fan gear who are standing in front of the churchyard if they know about Lower Church View. 'Ah, that'd be Mrs. Johnson,' says one. 'In the pink house, just there,' says the other. 'Just ring the bell.' They know all about the key.

The door is opened by a thin, harried looking woman in rubber gloves, who tells me that Mrs Johnson is out at the moment but to wait back at St. Colmcille's. 'She won't be five minutes,' the rubber-gloved woman says. Sure enough, not five minutes later a wom

an comes slowly up the hill. She is wearing a bright orange jacket and a dirty knit cap and walks with a cane. When she gets there she apologizes that I had to wait, but says that tourists rarely come this early in the year and she hadn't expected to need to let someone in.

The House has an organic shape to it, vaguely squarish and with a

 pointed roof. It is made entirely of stone, with the 

damp chill of that material, so  that even as you enter the cold seems to get beneath your skin. The interior consists of one room, empty except for a metal folding chair in one corner, obviously in place for Mrs Johnson in case she has to wait awhile, and a very long black steel ladder that goes up into the rafters of this cold and awesome space.

The scriptorium is up above, Mrs. Johnson tells me. 'You mean I can go up the ladder?' I ask. 'You do,' she says.

I put my purse and carry bag on the metal chair,

 grab my camera, and start climbing. About a third 

of the way up I begin to wonder what I think I am doing. Two thirds of the way up I decide I have a bad case of vertigo; my heart is pounding in my chest and my palms are sweaty. When I reach the top and realize I will have to boost myself up with my arms and

 slither through a tiny hole, I think the Irish must be totally out of their collective minds to allow a bunch of tourists to take their lives in the ir hands this way. 

'Watch the stone. Lots of

 people bump their heads,' calls Mrs Johnson from below. I thank her but don't dare look down. Trying not to think about my black coat and jeans as I pull myself up through ten or so centuries of dust, I manage to get a foothold at the top and ease myself onto the stone floor of the scriptorium. There are three rooms, one opening onto the other. The door

ways between them are so small that I have to nearly crawl through them, although I can stand in the middle of each room. There is only one window, at the far end, a thin slit that lets in just enough light to make the other two spaces barely navigable. 

Everything that I thought I knew about scriptoria does not fit this scene. The monks were supposed to have light, first, and warmth, so their hands stayed flexible; often they were placed next to the kitchens as the warmest place in the monastery. They needed stuff to function: desks, quills, inks, parchment, scrapers, pins, tools to scribe lines, pots, rags, a bench. How could even some very short tent

h-century guys on a mission manage to get all of these items up in these rafters, and why on earth would anyone expect them to do so?

Once I manage to overcome my sheer panic and get back down the ladder, the redoubtable Mrs Johnson has no answer to these questions. 'Oil and candles,' she says, and again to another question, 'They had oil and candles.' Prison, I think, for errant monks, but not, surely, a scriptorium, although I notice that the odor of sanctity stays with me as I descend the terrifying ladder.

As I get ready to leave (hoping I am not supposed to tip her, as tips are not generally sought

 in Ireland), I ask if I may take her photo at the doorway of the House. 'Well,' she says,' I don't take a good photo,' but she pulls off her knit cap and makes a face at the camera. I tell her that I can't offer her a ride back down the hill, as my car is parked in a Pay and Display over near the High Street. 'That's alright,' she says,' I may just wait here awhile in case someone else comes along.'  She is standing patiently in the doorway, resting against the stone, as I head back down the hill.

Baile Áytha Troim

The market town of Trim is the perfect scale for an introduction to a stay in Ireland. It's got everything you could possibly want in a town--a castle, a ruin, a river, an Indian takeaway, a library and a bookstore. Trim Castle, which is in fact also a ruin, is a twelfth-century castle. It is one of the largest medieval castles in Europe, but it's main claim to fame is being the site of Mel Gibson's film Braveheart, a factoid I doubt I'll ever verify by watching the film.

On Friday, my first full day here, I visited the castle grounds, investigated Ready  to Go mobile phones, and walked all over the town. I was amazed that every cafe was stuffed with diners at lunchtime until I realized that Friday was also the start of the school holidays, a two-week break that always happens at Easter. On Monday, when I went back to Watson's, already my favorite lunch spot, there were about three customers in the place. I suspect word is going around that there is an American in town with actual money to spend, seeing as I have had two lunches at Watson's and a takeaway sag paneer from Khan Spices, just up the road from Watson's and also largely empty in the evening now that the Celtic Tiger has lost its roar.

bealach isteach

Coming off a 10-hour flight to London, a 4-hour layover at Heathrow, a 2-hour flight to Dublin and an hour's drive on the left side of the road at rush hour, I was intensely relieved to have Frank, my new landlord, and his son Loman meet me at the pub to lead me into Trim, my first stop here. 

Over tea at the pub I told Frank and Loman about the grilling I received by the agent at the Dublin immigration desk, who must have been having an otherwise tedious day and was lying in wait for a non-Polish-speaking visitor with whom he could spar. I had to justify my visit in terms of my planned work, give him my cousin's name, phone number, and specific relationship to me (I made that up; later we established that we are second cousins), name an amount of dollars I could lay my hands on to prove that I wouldn't immediately become a ward of the state, give a 'permanent' Irish address as well as the address of my lodging, and demonstrate that I was aware that I didn't need a visa for a three-month's stay. In the end he cleared me until July 1st, which is exactly how long I intended to stay. He wished me well and I passed through into the land of my mother's birth. Next time I'll know to travel on an Irish passport.

Frank and his wife Rita have two tiny apartments attached to their stucco house which sits just at the outskirts of Trim town center. Each apartment consists of an entry, a galley kitchen with a kettle, a toaster, a microwave, a cooker and a dorm-size fridge but no surface on which to prepare food, a bathroom with a shower pod that looks like something out of a 1980 science fiction movie, and a very small bedroom that overlooks the parking area at the front of the house. I am in the downstairs apartment; Loman, who has moved back home temporarily, is above. It is immediately apparent that the place is entirely too small, but for now the place is warm, the bed looks comfortable, and there is plenty of hot water as long as I remember to put a two euro coin in the electric meter.

Over tea (already I have been offered more tea than even I can manage) Rita tells me that the name of the house, Breffni, comes from one of Ireland's ancient kingdoms, near where she was born. Frank and Rita are proud of their house and their hospitality; I don't have the courage to tell them I will be moving soon.

Fáilte

Welcome to my Ireland blog. I am spending three months here to research and document Ballinderry, the house where my mother was born. That the house is still standing is due to my second cousin Alan Tyrrell-Cox, and his wife Eleanor Murphy, who rescued the house from near total dereliction and are, with the greatest patience, returning it to its 250-year-old Georgian splendor.

Of course I'm also living here, and that's what this blog will mainly be about: finding a space for myself on this small and contradictory island.