It’s my first time ever in the British Isles so I’m super excited to be here and explore the region for more than 2 months! I’m starting with a loop around Ireland, which is a surprisingly expensive but fascinating little country. Most of Ireland is an independent country but Northern Ireland is a semi-autonomous part of the United Kingdom (there’s no border between the two countries today but they use different currencies).

Top Photo: Carrantuohill

The iconic Cliffs of Moher

Destinations

Dublin: Ireland’s capital is extremely cosmopolitan (a recent phenomenon), surprisingly free of skyscrapers, and built along a tranquil river

Kilkenny: A medieval town with a stunning castle and blocks upon blocks of historic buildings

Cork: The country’s 2nd-largest city has two rivers running through it and is built on slopes overlooking them. From here, I took easy day trips to Cobh (“the mini San Francisco of Ireland,” according to me ;)), Blarney Stone (a weird attraction that involves upside-down kissing with the help of a guide!), and Kinsale (a peaceful coastal town)

Killarney: A cute town bordering a national park that’s the jumping-off point for the day hike to Ireland’s tallest peak: Carrantuohill

Adare & Limerick: A small town and small city which each have impressive castles and are near Ireland’s famous Cliffs of Moher

Galway: A wonderful small city with a magnificent cathedral and historic college campus, plus Europe’s fastest-flowing river

Achill Island: Ireland’s largest island (besides Ireland itself) with grand mountains, cliffs, and beaches. Epic!

Derry: A small riverside city where Northern Ireland’s Troubles began that remains divided between Protestant & Catholic areas today

Belfast: Northern Ireland’s capital with lots of Troubles history to discover, plus nearby hiking with 360 degree views

Both Derry and Belfast were heavily bombed and brutalized by police and lived under highly militarized rule with tanks in the street and nightly curfews for ~30 years! It was surprising to see that the Catholic and Protestant areas remain divided by walls and decorated with murals celebrating heroes of their side and attacking the other side today

Catholic districts in Northern Ireland show a lot of solidarity with the long-suffering Palestinian people

History & Stats

  • It’s easy for outsiders like me to forget but Ireland was a colony of England just like India, Zimbabwe, or Palestine. England used it to extract resources and its colonial status and resulting lack of self-sufficiency is what resulted in the infamous Potato Famine of the 19th century being so extremely devastating
    • The Potato Famine and other famines and period of high unemployment led to an Irish diaspora that numbers 80 million today, compared to only 7 million Irish people who actually live in Ireland!
    • Ironically, today Ireland has a significantly higher life expectancy (82.1) than the US (77.3)
  • Ireland has changed a lot in the last few decades–with divorce being legalized in the 90s, same-sex marriage in 2015, and abortion only in 2018 (!). For most of the country’s history, the Catholic church had an iron grip on Ireland’s politics and Ireland remained predominantly pious until the 2010s until a long series of extremely poorly-handled pedophile scandals and greater exposure to the outer world among the Irish led to the churches emptying out and the church’s power evaporating
    • Women historically traveled to the UK for abortions and many continue to have to do so, as many doctors continue to refuse to perform abortions
  • Ireland remains a much more agricultural country than most of Europe–one-third of Irish people still live in the countryside outside of cities and towns (twice the proportion of rural folks in England)
  • Ireland has been the fastest-growing economy in Europe and one of the fastest in the world in the 21st century, with many corporations investing and opening offices in the country. Ireland is the #8 country for GDP in the world today, an unimaginable feat just 30 years ago when the country was one of the poorest in Europe
    • Why? It’s the only native English-speaking country in the EU (Brexit has been a boon for Ireland) and it has extremely corporate-friendly policies…which unfortunately means that the economic boom has not been shared with the poor and lower middle class of Ireland through increased social services taxes from these corporations could’ve otherwise brought in
      • Measured by other indexes besides GDP, Ireland is doing well but is decidedly not the world’s 8th richest country. The GDP has become misleading since companies have moved assets into Irelad due to its corporate-friendly policies.
    • However, explicit corruption is rare here–Ireland is the 10th least corrupt country in the world and its people are the 5th-freest of any nation
Cobh, the mini San Francisco of Ireland

Irishisms

I read a lovely 30-page book called Irishisms that taught me some hilarious Irish sayings, most of which my Irish hosts confirmed are indeed commonly used. Here’s some favorites:

  • “Any crack?” – What’s up?
  • “You’re a gas ticket!” – Expressing surprise
  • “Ah, you’re an aul dote.” – You’re a sweetheart
  • “Getting the messages” – Going grocery shopping
  • “I’m going for a slash” – I’m going to pee
  • “On your bike!” – Get lost!
  • “Out of his tree” – Crazy/drunk/high
  • “No flies on me” – Can’t fool me
  • “He’s sound as a pound.” – He’s a good guy
  • “You know, head-the-ball?” – You know, what’s-his-name?
An awe-inspiring bus ride rainbow (but no leprechauns or pots of gold sadly)

It’s a Church! But Not a Church.

My former home of Denver has churches converted into nightclubs, restaurants, and marijuana houses of worship 😉 and I’ve seen similar schemes in other cities in North America & Europe, but I was blown away by how common this is in Ireland! There are soo many “churches that used to be churches” everywhere in Irish cities. They’re now restaurants, hotels, nonprofit offices, gyms, radio stations, etc. I even heard of a small Irish town dynamiting its giant cathedral to pieces because it was too expensive to heat it and it just sat empty the entire week. It’s really, really palpable how quickly religion has declined here.

Galway’s cathedral, which is actually still a church

But, On the Other Hand

On my first day in Ireland, while I was waiting for my free walking tour of Dublin to start, an old man walked up to my tour guide and asked him where the nearest church was! Too cute.

Keem Beach on Achill Island

Hitchhiking Encounters

I did a lot of hitchhiking in Ireland, especially around Achill Island, which has very limited public transit. Here’s some of the folks who drove me, some of whom drove significantly out of their way to take me where I was going, which was absolutely too kind:

  • A girl from Maine who was heading out to surf with her Irish husband. They met when she backpacked Europe and actually got married during a rare Irish hurricane, which soaked them and their entire wedding group!
  • An Indian nurse who has found a community of folks from his home state of Kerala in the small Irish city in which he lives
  • A French couple who really wanted to speak to me in English to practice while I really wanted to speak to them in French to practice 😉
  • An Irish truck driver who is parenting an autistic son
  • A Syrian refugee who spoke no English when he arrived in Ireland 6 years ago but now has started his own business
Abdul, the Syrian-Irish entrepreneur, drove me 20 miles out of his way!

Double Deckers

This is probably also the case in England, but I was delighted to find that the majority of the public buses in Ireland’s big cities are double deckers! I love going to the top to enjoy the view on my bus rides. I especially love the bright pink ones in Belfast.

Obsessed With Us

Probably largely due to the aforementioned emigration, Irish people are very, very into the US–traveling to it and following any and all American happenings from afar. I’ve only encountered such American mania in Israel and, surprisingly, Saudi Arabia!

  • I had a cabbie in Derry who told me about his experience living through San Franny’s 1989 earthquake–he was working on a scaffolding at the time!
    • “San Franny” is what Irish people call SF 😂
My favorite Irish meal–a boxty (potato pancake) with colcanny (mashed potatoes with ham & cabbage)

Intersectional Feminism in Ireland

I stopped by the office of AkiDwA (an acronym which translates to “sisterhood” in Swahili), a nonprofit focused on empowering migrant women in Ireland, to learn about the issues facing Ireland’s growing women of color community.

  • AkiDwa advocated for Ireland’s first law criminalizing female genital mutilation, which passed in 2017. Sadly, FGMs do happen here and the first FGM crime, which would have otherwise gone unpunished, was prosecuted a couple years ago.
  • Victims of FGM often require physical and mental care for decades after the crime…many women who suffered GM in their home countries need support after migrating to Ireland. FGM is actually a legal qualifer for someone to receive asylum.
  • AkiDwa provides an incredible support system to empower migrant women here through:
    • Entrepreneurship: Helping them with raw materials and marketing as they start heir own businesses
    • Matching women to jobs commensurate with their education and experience: most migrant women work in care or hospitality, even though many have degrees and worked professional jobs in their home countries. AkiDwa directly talks to companies and urges them to consider migrant women’s home country experience in hiring.
  • AkiDwa is starting to begin an outreach program to migrant men to educate them especially about reproductive health and consent
    • There have been some recent cases where migrant men were prosecuted for sexual assault in Ireland and seemed to literally not be aware that what they were doing was a crime at all (due to different standards in their countries of origin)
  • Ireland has no hate crime law yet such crimes certainly do happen here. AkiDwa themselves sometimes receive calls from far-right Irish men calling them racial slurs.
  • Like the US, Ireland’s welfare system is woefully inadequate and also like the US childcare is exorbitantly expensive, making it cheaper for women to stay at home than to go back to work after having babies
Don’t ask me to take a photo outside on a sunny day or else this happens! :O

The Decline of the Church and the Rise of the Queer Community

I met with Francis Fay, a queer artist and a volunteer at Outhouse, Dublin’s LGBTQ community hub, to learn about Ireland’s queer history and where he sees the country heading in the years ahead. I was surprised to hear a lot of themes that align closely with queer (and political) issues in the US.

  • This year’s Dublin Pride put trans folks at the front to highlight the issues that continue to impact the community here in Ireland
    • Hormone therapy is available but often requires folks to wait for 5 years! (Due to an underfunded healthcare system.)
    • Mental healthcare, especially crucial for trans and non-binary people, is also expensive and difficult to access in Ireland
  • Queer youth are often forced to continue living with non-affirming parents due to the growing lack of affordable housing in Ireland
    • Ireland built tons of public housing in the 70s when it was a poor country but today as one of the world’s richest nations, it provides very little housing support for vulnerable citizens
  • Ireland has been led by neoconservative (free market, pro-corporation, anti-tax) parties for the last 20 years but there is potential for a more progressive party to take control in the next elections as the country’s culture has become much more liberal recently.
  • Ireland has a gay South Asian prime minister (!)…but he rarely talks about either identity and is very much a politician. He’s a moderate Pete Buttigeig-type, so his election wasn’t a source of elation and celebration for the queer community
  • Ireland’s political queer hero is actually a straight female politician named Mary Robinson, who as Ireland’s first female president worked her ass off to help repeal Ireland’s anti-gay law in the 90s, when it was politically not convenient or popular to do so
  • Rural parts of Ireland can access federal funding to hold queer events in their areas, something I’ve only ever heard of being a thing in Israel

Finally, Francis shared that there is an annual festival or older queer people and that he recenlty hosted an art show in which he recreated a gay bar from the 80s. Super cool! 

Street 66, an elegant gay bar in Dublin