A Week of Last Things

It’s a week of last things. Days full of sunshine as if I were someplace other than Ireland. A week of last bursting sun warmed days like the grand finale of a fireworks’ show. On Thursday, I join my walking buddy for his big moment.

“If I don’t do it now, I may never,” he says.

For something like ten years he’s been wanting to walk from Clashmore where he lives to the main town Youghal—roughly a six mile walk.

I’ve tagged along on some of his training sessions, two miles here, three miles there, and have used my own site finding quests as a way for him to increase his mileage to four miles, to five.

“This is a bit remote,” he says on a day when we’re on one of my quests to find Molana Abbey which is only just around the corner from Templemichael Church and Castle which I’d explored on my own many weeks before. On that day, I hadn’t taken advantage of my nearness to the abbey (having already walked a large number of miles and not knowing I’d not have another chance to see it). Alas. Now, we’re standing above the Blackwater River and I’m pointing to the abbey and telling him how I think we get there. I know he’s not really listening, I’ve learned that about him, but I explain anyway. At his words—the remote bit is a grassy footpath from the Church down to the river—I smile to myself for I’ve been in much more remote places than this (with the possibility of bears and wolves added in) and that would probably shock him terribly.

In the end, the abbey quest is a failed quest because we’ve gone on a Friday and the automatic gates are closed and locked. The place, as we find out from a small and somewhat vague sign, is only open to visitors on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I hadn’t known that, I’d only thought we had to be there before 4:30 (half 4 as some might say). As we walk away, I’m disappointed, I’d gotten it into my head that I had to see Molana Abbey before I left Ireland. Who knows if I’ll ever come back. But it’s not to be. As we make our way back to his car, I let the disappointment evaporate like dew. Under the sunshine it vanishes right away.

On the day of the Big Walk, my buddy picks me up and we drive to Youghal. He’s decided it’s the same thing if he walks from there back home as it would be to walk from home to there.

“The distance is the same,” he says. He can get someone to take him into town later to collect his car. It’s all six of one and half a dozen of the other to me, so that’s what we do.

He parks in a little public parking lot and we put on our hi-vis vests and make sure we have all our trekking things in our packs.

My buddy has put on a Hawaiian shirt as a way to mark this particular walk as special. He’s thrilled with the weather, thrilled with the chance to complete his goal, and even thrilled that I’m coming along with him; the miles often pass more quickly when there’s someone to talk with.

We walk through town and then past the two roundabouts. We stop at the small bridge which marks the separation between County Cork and County Waterford.

“You can tell people you’ve walked from one county the other,” I tell him.

“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” he says, gleaming.

We walk on and find our way to JJ’s American Style Truck Stop—which had been my first venture out in public in this remote area of Ireland. Now, it might also be one of my last ventures here too. I’m not sentimental enough to feel anything at the thought, but I think it.

“I’d almost like to get a cheeseburger,” he says as we approach.

“Are you hungry?”

“Well, no, but just to do it.”

“I could eat some chips,” I say.

So, he orders us a plate of chips and we sit at the picnic table outside the trailer and eat as the sun beams down on us and he makes happy chitchat with me and with the people who pass us by some of whom he knows.

Then we press on. We come to the start of Youghal Bridge.

“We should go on that side,” I say. I’ve crossed this bridge several times before on foot. I have experience “It’s easier to cross the road here and it puts us on the right side for our upcoming turn.”

He doesn’t shoot down my plan, so we cross the road and make our way across the bridge. We pause halfway to look down at the Blackwater River. A heron, bothered by us, rises up from the far bank and moves on down and out of our sight.

Past the bridge which has a sidewalk on each side, the pedestrian path narrows and vanishes. There’s a patch of uneven grass with a slightly worn trail. I walk the edge on the road because that’s easier on my knee. My buddy frets, pausing as each car passes, looking over his shoulder to see if our sudden death is eminent.

“You’re fearless,” he says at some point.

“I’m more of a calculated risk taker,” I say. I’m not fearless, but I try my best not to let fear rule my life. I find it a great distinction of terms. I’ve thought this through on my own before. Nevertheless, my buddy has it in his head that he knows me better than I know me and discounts my modification of his claim.

To his great relief, we make it off the N25 and onto the little country road that will take us home.

By this time, I’ve gone more than halfway and he’s gone about one third of the way. We’ll part company at the top of the boreen that leads down to the house where I’ve been living. He’ll walk alone on the last third of his Big Walk to his house.

A mile later, at the crossroads, we sit on the random little bench (maybe once a bus stop?) and he pulls out a small bottle of Irish moonshine. “You have to try potcheen,” he’d told me on the phone a few days before. “Before you leave Ireland. You have to.”

“That’s not for you,” he says when I take it and set it on my knee to snap a picture of it. He’s put the moonshine called Poitín, potcheen, poteen, or potheen (because it’s made in a pot) in a small whisky bottle. “It’s just for you to try.” I hand the bottle back to him and he unscrews the top and takes a small swig. He passes it to me and I take a tiny bit. It’s astringent, potent, sharp. The Irish equivalent of vodka.

“You’re fearless,” he tells me again, screwing the cap back on and putting it away. “Fearless.” There’s no point in arguing so I let him go on. “You have to watch this forty minute documentary on Dervla Murphy. Dervla Murphy. She reminds me of you. Or you remind me of her. She biked from Ireland to India in the ‘60s. They called her fearless in the documentary and that’s what you are.”

He means it as a compliment and I try to be gracious enough to receive it. He packs all his things back into his pack. I stand. I’ve only got ¾ of a mile left and, although it’s been a pleasant walk and a beautiful day to do it on, I’m ready to be back home. I’ve got a list of things to get done in preparation for leaving the country.

“What will your friend do when you’re gone?” my host had asked me of my walking buddy.

“I guess he’ll have to go back to walking alone,” I say, knowing too well the short term nature of my life. Knowing that it’s good to have friends in a place, for a time. Knowing that I leave. I always leave.

When he bids me farewell, my buddy says, “It’s been really fascinating meeting you. Really fascinating. Really fascinating.”

“Thanks for all the walks,” I say.

And though I don’t say it out loud, I think what another host told me, my parents, and my sister as we drove off from another place in the south of Ireland, “If we never meet again, have a lovely rest of your life.”