Cork, Limerick, Lough Gur.

From Cahersiveen I made my way to Cork. My delight upon entering a city again was as complete as it was unexpected. My utter surprise at finding more than a few buildings located within close proximity of one another may have seemed reasonable had I been away from cities for a few months or years as opposed to maybe a week. But I love the urban, and Cork, from what I saw of it, was wonderful. I had every intention of exploring, finding a queer bar and going dancing, but found instead that my hostel came with a wireless connection, that I had a good deal of writing I wanted to do, and that I was still exhausted. I took a few pictures of the local graffiti, bought a few new pairs of underthings, and moved on to Limerick.

Doing so was not easy. And when I finally got to the house where I was meant to be couch surfing, really wanting only to get something to eat, take a shower, and sleep forever, I instead discovered two things: that my host was not home, and that his parents did not know I was coming. His poor mother was very hospitable despite being a bit high pitched, seeming the entire time we waited for her son to arrive as if she were about to explode. I felt completely awful. And apparently I wasn't the only couch surfer he'd invited without telling her, either: there were two other Americans I hadn't known about already there. Brian, my errant host, arrived before long with two recently graduated boys from Seattle named Morgan and Eric. He announced that we'd be going out drinking, and not staying at his house but crashing on the floor at a friend's flat. I nearly fled, taking the next available bus to Dublin and getting a hostel there. But I'm very glad that I didn't.

A few drinks and some good conversation did me more good than retreating, defeated, into sleep would have. His friend Denis was adorable and desperately enthusiastic about alternative music and his friends' local bands. At the pub we danced to a funny little band from South Wales that made good use of an electric ukulele which my new Irish friends erroneously described as punk. I met Lindsey, a sweet red haired girl. I chatted about our dreadlocks with a stunning barmaid named Katie. I met a young man named Ray who was named for his uncle, one of the men to starve and die in the hunger strikes of the eighties. He was genuinely grateful and impressed that I'd even heard of the event, which I thought ridiculous, and sad. I lived here. Isn't knowing something about the place before coming over the least I could do? He actually shook my hand for having bothered to read a book. Then again, I did spend that day and the next gently reminding the other Americans that their word choices frequently made them seem to be presumptuous swine. Ray's mother was an American, and he asked me if I'd ever been to Philadelphia. He then asked if I'd ever heard of South Street, which is where she lived. How delightfully unlikely! I've been working on South Street for years, and flâneuring there for as long as I've been sentient enough to take a bus.

The next day we slept late, had a good breakfast, and then Brian drove Morgan and Eric and I to Lough Gur. I'd read that it was a pretty lake with a few small sites nearby. What I found instead was a positively astounding stone circle. The Grange was aligned to sunrise on midsummer, composed of more than a hundred large rocks, some of them homes to truly massive, ancient trees, practically infants compared to the age of the circle itself. The first tree I met was a truly gorgeous old thing, still thriving but completely hollow inside, the gash that opened her beautifully shaped. Her roots curled around ancient stone, it guiding her shape, her cracking it slowly, lovingly, over the course of long centuries. The next was near to the entrance, a short hallway of stones. He seemed to guard the place, moss clinging to him like a beard. I liked him immensely.

There was a small pile of rounded stones on the other side of the circle. It looked much like a child, and people had taken to leaving coins there, one and two cent pieces, pennies and a few pence. The other boys were standing around it, waiting for me to finish admiring the shrubbery so we could move on to the lake itself, wanting to leave a coin but apparently not having anything between the three of them. I hadn't anything so small at the time, but I left a bit of gold, a twenty cent piece, excusing it to them: "I like this place. It can have a bit more." The place sang.

They dragged me away and we explored an abandoned farmhouse, round holes built into the walls of one of the barns, meant for firing rifles through during the revolution.

We found the lake. We climbed the biggest hill by the water, got caught on nettles and climbed under and over live electric fences and barbed wire. I did so safely; two of the boys were a bit too daring and were punished for it. And, in my opinion at least, it was worth it. Atop the hill we could see not only the lake and the surrounding farmland, two castles and all the way to Limerick, but to the mountains curving around us on all sides. I stood on a hill and saw to the end of the world. We played up there, throwing rocks, frolicking and jumping and taking ridiculous pictures. When we got back down to the lake the weather had changed from occasionally pouring, usually dry but grey, to perfect blue skies, white clouds, and a shimmering lake. There is a crannog in the middle of it, a small island built in the Iron Age as a fortification on which the creators could safely keep cattle and their homes without much fear of a raid. The legend of Lough Gur is that once a year the water, which is only a glamour, disappears, and the city beneath the lake is made clear. I gazed into the shining place, the grasping green things growing under the surface.

As we drove back, Brian expressed his disappointment that I hadn't made it into town a bit earlier the day before. The boys had gone to a castle that had been boarded up and abandoned ages ago when the owner, a wealthy old woman, had gone mad and left her cattle outside and unfed in the winter. They all starved and died. She was locked up, and the place has had a reputation for being haunted ever since, if it hadn't already before. During the story he said the name of the place a few times, but I'm less accustomed to the Limerick accent than I am to some, and he swallowed his words a bit.

"Wait," I asked, "what was the name of the place again?"

"Castle Connell."

I laughed. I don't usually like to admit such things on the internet, but that's my surname. We have a castle, a castle haunted by a madwoman and cows.

The boys tried to break into it, climbing trees towards windows, pulling away the boards on the doors, but they failed. Pity I hadn't been there to help.