ground is less swampy up here but still soft. We do not stand too close to
the edge because the green cliff drops into the sea. Here I get a picture of
myself. My pink hat that says “Slainte,” Irish for “cheers,” pops against
the grey sky. Ten minutes later and that hat will be soaking wet. I’m
smiling in that photo, and I have never looked more American with my
toothy grin, cross-body purse, and yoga pants. I take a picture of the
sheep running across the mountain top.
This is the Ireland we expect: chilly and beautiful. The landscape
is a postcard in some travel agency far, far away. The sky and mountains
painted on an old moldy canvas, unreal and ancient. Tomas wants us to
continue walking along the tops of the mountains to reach a Megalithic
tomb. We had seen one already in Carrowkeel. Built during the Neolithic
era or “New Stone Age,” the tombs are the resting places of the monks
who inhabited early Ireland. Scattered across the tops of mountains, the
tombs are clumps of large stones. They look as fresh as the newly cut
bog, but the bodies have disappeared. The tombs provide a reminder
that despite how little they’ve aged Ireland’s history is old. Life in western
Ireland has never been easy.
Like the unexpected bog flowers, the natives of Achill Island are
accustomed to the wasted beauty of Achill Island. It is Ireland’s largest
island at 148 square kilometers, but it is lonely with a population of less
than 3,000. Tourists visit in the summer months, but the long stretches of
winter are dark filled with rain and empty vacation cottages. In Dooagh,
our particular location in Achill, there is one pub and a grocery store,
both of which are owned by the Gielty brothers. The grocery store closes
early, but the owner, Diarmuid, opens it just for us since our classes do
not end until six or seven. More sheep than people inhabit Dooagh. The
beasts have blue and red paint splashed on their backsides to indicate
ownership. The area is littered with fences that the sheep hop over as
if it were a game. The entire countryside is their home. They cry out
periodically throughout the day with their secret conversation. There are
more sheep than cars on the main road through town.
Back on the mountain, I put up my hood and tie it tight to keep
my pink hat from blowing off in the sudden storm that has caught us
exposed. The sheep somehow disappear into the mountain. There is no
protection in the bog, no trees to break the wind. It is just us and the
storm, and we are not making it to the Megalithic tomb. Tomas begins
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