Living here

Thursday afternoon, two o'clock. Having bought Eleanor her cod from the fish truck in Edenderry, I dropped it off at the farm and headed to Nodlaig's. Nodlaig (pronounced NULLig) lives in a bungalow on Ballinderry land, across the road from Ballinderry House. She and Charlie, who died in 2006, built the house after their marriage. They knew each other as children, but Nodlaig left her home to work in Dublin while Charlie stayed to work for his older brother Jasper, who had inherited Balinderry in 1956. There was another barrier to their marriage: Charlie was Church of Ireland, and Nodlaig is Catholic. But by the time Nodlaig returned to care for her ailing mother, the question of children was moot since they were both past 50, and times had changed. They married in 1973.

Nodlaig was taking me to the bookmobile, called more prosaically the travelling library here. She loves this little library, and hasn't missed a single time since it started coming. We drove in her little car to the site where the truck was parked, on what was once the Ballinderry bogland, about a quarter mile from her house. The truck was spectacular, only two years old, its shelves neatly arranged with fiction (Nodlaig's choice; her favorite is the Irish romance author Maeve Binchy) and children's' books. There is a small non-fiction section and even magazines, although you have to look at those in the truck. There is a checkout desk and a corner seat for reading. Of course everyone knows each other in this place so small there isn't even a name for it, so for its brief 30-minute stop the truck becomes a gathering spot for old friends.

Today we had to rush a bit because Nodlaig was having visitors. My cousin Deirdre, whom I had never met, her daughter and her daughter's two children were travelling down from Dublin to see Nodlaig, and she had graciously included me in the visit. When we got back to the house she had the tea things all set out: brown bread slathered with butter (the first time I ever actually understood how much butter that meant) and small, square dense bars that looked like brownies but were called simply biscuits, just like every cookie is here. The tea was already in its pot by the hearth and the room was set up with chairs for everyone. 

Nodlaig's little house is modest and cozy. The sitting room is crowded with a motley collection of worn chairs, many small gewgaws on the mantle, an assortment of dusty tables (Nodlaig loves to cook but she admits to rarely picking up a broom). The kitchen is warmed by a stove that is a far simpler version of the mighty Aga. This one burns turf, and Nodlaig keeps it lit most of the time. There is an obvious pride in the space, but no pretensions about it. Mostly it is a welcoming house, just like Nodlaig herself.

Before Deirdre got there Nodlaig's sister-in-law Reenie dropped by. Reenie is the most elegant woman I have seen here so far. She wore a calf-length gored skirt, a simple shirt with a vest and a sweater over it, all in muted shades of brown, black stockings, pointed shoes with small heels, and had a burberry scarf wrapped around her neck. Her hair and makeup were perfect. She must be 85 but looked years younger.

When Deirdre and Barbara arrived we chatted, then tea was served. Because I was given the chair of honor in the room, Charlie's chair, it fell to me to pour the tea, a task I didn't do well, since Nodlaig had to remind me to top up everyone's cup.

Deirdre's daughter Barbara has two boys. The youngest was born with Down's Syndrome, and much of the conversation revolved around his care. When she heard where I was from she asked if I knew anything about a new treatment being investigated at Stanford. I wish I could have helped her.

So this was the day: work in the morning, fish delivery, library on wheels, sitting in a circle of chairs with three generations of women, warmed by the turf burning in the hearth, drinking thick tea and eating brown bread and butter. It felt like one of the best days here so far.

Sunday, mystic Sunday

Today's plan was for another Sunday walk, this one around the lakes in Co. Meath. But last night my normally eerily quiet upstairs neighbors decided to have what sounded like a karaoke party at 3:30am. This went on right above my bedroom, and lasted for about 45 minutes. I managed to get back to sleep, but I woke up tired and achy and in no mood for a 12-mile hike, even on relatively gentle terrain. Instead I made a good breakfast, read the Irish Times, hung out some wash on this first fine day in a week or more, then got in the car and headed for the Hill of Tara.

As I drove up to the Hill, which appears so suddenly and without fanfare that you could easily miss it if it weren't for the cars lining the small road, I saw on the left the last sign I imagined on this trip: The Old Bookshop. And there, sure enough, was a tiny shack of a place, with a large poster outside that said there were 5000 volumes about Ireland. I was delirious. Completely ignoring the landscape, I parked the Ford and headed straight into the place. 

For the next hour I inhaled deeply the distinctive musty smell that only a bookshop with a long pedigree of damp books can offer. Almost every book in the place had to do with Ireland, as promised. The old man who ran the place was busy tapping away on his laptop behind an unstable pile of new arrivals, meaning perhaps sometime in the last year. People came and went; only one person bought something, a book that I heard him say was €3, and that he would be glad to sign it. A poet, mostly likely. As for me, I picked up and rejected at least 20 books, settling finally on three gems of 1950s and 60s publications with plenty of photos. The owner thanked me so profusely I began to think he hadn't had a sale this big--€22, including a €2 discount offered without my prompting--in years. 

The books safely in the car, I finally turned to the main attraction. The ice age shaped this land into a series of shallow rolling hills; today they look like a gigantesque version of the soft folds in one of Lucien Freud's corpulent portraits.  During medieval times the Hill of Tara was the spiritual center of Celtic Ireland, but when Christianity moved into the neighborhood, somewhere around the eleventh century, the hill lost its importance as a place of worship. Just in case, a statue of St Patrick was added in modern times. In 1938 the IRA added a monument to the 1798 rebellion, finishing the historical trajectory of cultural markers.

Today the Hill of Tara is surely one of the most breathtaking spots in this breathtaking country. It is easy to imagine feeling holy in a place like this, where you swear you can see across the entirety of this small island in all directions from the top of one of the rolling hills, and maybe you can.

But this is also a place for the crystal crowd. While I was in the bookshop a woman came in with a long tale about attempting to find a fortune teller she had seen on TV but whose name she had not written down. The shop acknowledged the contemporary pilgrimages by shelving its Celtic and Mystical Ireland books closest to the door. At the entrance to the Hill a young man, American, alas, was holding forth with some Irish protestors about the fact that civilization began going to the dogs the day the goddess lost her power to patriarchy. I sidled right on by, keeping my accent to myself.

The protestors are there because there is a highway being built that is far too close to this special place. They have been active for years. One of the leaders has a vinyl banner across the top of her hood. If the car is parked you can look down on it and read the whole story in four columns of text.

After my walk I got back in the car, managing to reverse amid the traffic and haphazardly placed cars; on this skinny country road jammed with cars, families, and dogs, this might have been the main miracle of the day. I drove down the hill and headed for home. When I reached the village of Kilmessen I stopped at an unassuming pub. With the soccer match on the big screen in the background, I sat at a small table, drinking a mug of tea and reading my new books. A heavenly day.