Ireland - My lovestory with Emerald Island

If you grow up abroad like me, usually the holiday season is reserved to travel back home to visit relatives, so you don't get to travel around much. In 2003 this changed for me, as I had been in a long distance relationship with a guy in Spain, which ended in a bad break up. So the last thing I wanted was to go home and I decided to follow my gut and booked a trip to Ireland. By then I only knew about the country that it was green and that it had nice music.

As soon as I stepped of the plane I noticed that something very special had happened. I felt a special connection to the country that I cannot explain even now almost 10 years later. So there I was on my own, with a right hand drive rental car, a list of B&Bs and a map, ready to embark on my own personal adventure.

What followed was a week during which I deeply fell in love with the country and its people.

Irish people make you feel like family after five minutes and have an emotional warmth to them that blew me away. I wouldn't need to ask for help, as people would offer it to me, as soon as I started to look remotely like a lost puppy. Living in a country where the police recommends you to scream "Fire" instead of "Help" when you are in need of assistance (Apparantly people tend to pay only attention to "fire" as it could endanger them too) this totally blew me away.

I remember meeting an elderly couple on a beach near Ballina.She was English and he was Irish. She had come to Ireland for visit a long time ago, fell in love with him and moved there shortly after. They had been married for over 50 years. They shared this story with a total stranger and it warmed my heart to see how much they still were in love. She even warned me about the charm and smile of irish men with a twinkle.

I am not going to write about the irish landscape as from my point of view I can never do it justice with my words. What I can tell you is that you feel like in a fairy tale, embraced by woods and castles.

Ireland is also a very proud country and has all the reason to be. You stumble across history around every corner and everyone enjoys preserving even the smallest things. Each waiter or ticket sales man has a local legend or story to tell.

Another story I remember is hitting a local pub, after a long day of driving around. After all, what would be a visit to Ireland without going to a pub? I don't recall the town's name and I am pretty sure I was the only tourist there. There was this band playing some sort of folk music and there were pretty good. After a while I started wondering how many singers the band had, until I understood that the people singing weren't the band's singers but other guests. They would walk over to the band and request a certain song and then just go for it. I was amazed to see that there were so many traditional songs everybody knew, especially in a time when folkloric background seems to be outdated.

You may want to say now: God, she seems to be irish. But no, I am spanish and proud of it, but nonetheless I love Ireland. I think both countries have a special link and if you start thinking about it there is something to it.

Northern Spain has a huge celtic back ground, going so far that one of the regions is called "Galicia" and the resemblance to the word "Gaelic" couldn't be more obvious. Also you have in Ireland what is called "the Dark Irish". It is said that when the rest of the crushed Armada (1588) tried to make it back home lots of spanish sailors stranded in Ireland and formed families.

Maybe this is all legend or maybe we have common roots, who knows. The only thing I know for sure is that I will always return to Ireland.