SEKY August 2022 | Page 27

Contributing writer Olyvia Neal shares her summer European vacation in words and pictures

weeks . Two college students . One tenpage itinerary .
Our time on the Emerald Isle came with trips to cities from Dublin in the east , Galway to the west and Belfast of the north , but to find the true beauty of this country one must experience both the Irish legends and the landscapes that bore them .
I picked up a bit of Irish Gaelic like a basic greeting , “ Dia dhuit ,” but I also learned the importance of Irish folklore .
In Northern Ireland , scientists may tell you the natural phenomena known as the Giant ’ s Causeway where 40,000 nearperfect hexagonal columns reside on the shoreline came from a volcanic eruption of molten basalt . Yet , the Gaelic legend says it was Finn McCool , an Irish giant , who built the Causeway to cross over to Scotland .
Such folklore remains at the core of Irish culture .
Yet , it was during our trek across the western landscape where I felt most connected to Ireland .
We traveled across winding roads that folded over gentle rolling mounds of brilliant green . Sheep pranced about the hills ’ soft peaks with childlike gusto while cows grazed about the rubble of castles from centuries past .
At the edge of Burren , I beheld the Cliffs of Moher . Atlantic waves crashed against rugged , resolute stone that towered 200 feet . Along the cliff ’ s edge wildflowers decorated the plush green grass , which possessed a texture so soft I felt it must have draped across those giants from Irish tales to keep warm during fearsome winters .
On our bus an Irishman , Peter , told us about the “ dry stone walls ” that snaked along this landscape . The walls were first built in medieval times before mortar , so they were made of only stones stacked on one another and have withstood the tests of time . These ancient walls have been used for centuries to separate fields and pastures , which he told us was a great source of pride for the Irish .
However , Peter pointed to the top of a hill where a wall of stone clung to its steep surface and meandered down . “ That is a famine wall ,” he said . Famine walls were a source of great pain for the Irish . Peter looked away from it bitterly and told us that during two famines poor and starving peasants were made by the government to make useless stone walls that would divide such unusable lands to earn food .
As I left Ireland , the feelings of Irish pride and Irish pain , of Irish beauty and Irish devastation seemed to whisper through the cracks of those stone walls and remind me why I was a traveler and what it meant to learn about new cultures .
August 2022 SEKY - Life in Southeast Kentucky • 27