The Gifts of Moher: The West of Ireland

The west of Ireland has a lot in common with my senior years of both university and high school. I’m at the point in my life now where I’m right on the edge of my final days of college, where I have to dive into the vast sea of adulthood, and have to endure other painful nautical metaphors of “sink or swim,” finding the “plenty of fish in the sea,” and so on. My senior year at Alemany High School was a time when I dreamt and planned of a life beyond hot, sweaty afternoons spent in the San Fernando Valley to go to a place of higher learning and frat parties. Those periods of my life seem like their own mini microcosm, with its own language. “APs, loitering, 4.0 grade scale,” for my high school years and “RDS Building, GRE, EAP, and EngSoc” for my year at UCD. The only other people who fit into your mini-world are those who sympathize with your confusion, I suppose. Both years were marked by a culture focused around leaving for the next thing. Everyone is right on the edge, collectively holding their breath before they go to the great unknown. And that’s what I did when I reached the Cliffs of Moher, I held my breath.

Hundreds of tourists pile into buses to trek the narrow roads threaded through the rolling green hills of Count Clare. They’re going to something great, so they’ve been told. They don’t know what is so great about some cliffs, yet they have their Canon A1s ready to snap at the first sheep that looks their way. I didn’t know what to think. Lonely Planet and Frommers just told me to go there, because that’s what you do in Ireland. I had put it off long enough. I dragged my Irish boyfriend, who had put it off even longer, to the west of Ireland. He knew it was something he had to see, but like me, didn’t know what to expect from it.

It’s quite staggering to see what 702 feet looks like above sea level. And to have the entire Atlantic Ocean, stretched out in front of you, waiting to be be sucked in by your digital camera— well, you almost feel sheepish (that comparison was intended, considering the west of Ireland appears to have more sheep than people) taking a picture because it is so imposing, and seems a bit pointless to try and capture. There were only three colors that view: the green of the rolling hills and the mossy cliffs, the blue backdrop of the ocean, and the grey of the castle perched on top of one of the cliffs. My eyes needed more time to adjust, my jaw needed to be picked up from the floor.

The landscape was scattered with tourists (and some cows in the background who had seen it all before), I wondered if there were any people crazy enough to go past the weirdly specific signs of “don’t walk off the cliff,” “there is a big cliff here, eejit” and jump off into the abyss. My mind had started to wander to scary places. I saw a bunch of guys get as close to the edge of the staggering cliffs as possible. My stomach fell to the ground. I was weirdly identifying with those guys that were just…standing there. Calmly. And for a long time, it seemed like. My mind did the same thing. It was going to a scary place. I couldn’t help but worry about what happens if I don’t find a job after I graduate, what if I can’t pay off my loans, how one builds credit, and so on. After staring at the flat Atlantic Ocean for a long time, I was now horrified to realize I was making all sorts of metaphors that Ernest Hemingway and Hermen Melville had already exhausted with the sea being unforgiving, its own life force. My doubts, worries, and fussing were going to swallow me and suck me under. My boyfriend pulled me back to reality and away from my English-major-metaphor-ridden-mind and reminded me that there was a second leg to our journey: Lisdoonvarna.

Remember what I said last time about American girls coming to Ireland to live out their own personal “PS I Love You” fantasy? If not, all you have to do, if you’re not a single straight female, is ask a single straight female what type of exotic accent they like in a man. 9 times out of 10 they will say “Irish.” There is a whole month-long festival specifically made these women, the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival.

American women who are fed up with American men head to this tiny village of less than 1,000 people during the month of September to find an Irish husband, or at least an Irish dance partner. It originally started as a festival for Irish farmers over 150 years ago, for men to find a wife after the summer harvest. There was a matchmaker who would fix you up with a young lass, and the hapless farmer would live out the rest of his days a happily married man. Today, this still reigns true, the last remaining irish matchmaker (you have to be certified to be one, I guess. I don’t know what that test entails), is a bearded man named Willie Daly, who will find you a man or woman for a little over 10 Euro if you approach him in one of Lisdoonvarna’s lively bars. In the meantime, the pubs boast fine drink and traditional Irish music to enjoy your stay, regardless if you’re looking for a lifelong mate, or something more short-term. Not to be outdone, couples also go,  the atmosphere attracts lots of people looking for a bit of craic (read: fun) regardless of marital status.

We went in May, last week, so we were a bit early for the shenanigans.  The town is otherwise quiet for the other 11 months of the year. It is a town of a hundred bed and breakfasts, not a trendy nightclub or Starbucks in sight, and the Matchmaker Bar with the sign that says, “some matches are made in heaven, the best are made in Lisdoonvarna.” Before the influx of the September crowds, the town goes about their lives. They chatter in the pubs, they tend to their livestock, they wait. They share stories of the last festival, and joke about Sean O’Casey or Eoin Duffy who still comes to the festival every year at the ripe age of 82, looking for a young one to dance with.

They wait every year for the chaos and fun that is the Lisdoonvarna Singles Festival, and survive it each time. I’ve survived two separate years where I’ve had to reevaluate my quiet life and shove off into some unfamiliar territory, and still managed to come out fine. So, whatever happens, I’ll exhale and stop making stupid sea-related comparisons and just enjoy the awe-inspiring view.

-Caitlin