It’s December 1971, and after a two-hour sailing from Scotland, you dock at Larne, about twenty miles north of Belfast. As you walk down the gangplank, you’re stopped by soldiers who tell you not to move. They point their automatic rifles at you, and the good buzz you’ve been feeling flies away. They examine you closely like they know you’ve done something wrong, then wave you through.
What the fuck?
You walk as fast as you can, barely noticing that it’s raining until you leave the dock area behind and walk past terraced houses and closed shops. And rubble. It looks like a war’s going on, and you’re so fucking ignorant you don’t know that a war is going on.
You walk north along the coast for an hour and check in at a B&B in Ballygalley. You ask the woman about the soldiers, and she tells you about the Troubles, and you’re confused. Everyone’s got troubles.
“It’s horrible and it’s become more violent,” she says. “You must be careful not to do anything to make them want to shoot you because they will shoot you.”
“Who will shoot me?” you ask.
“The Brits, of course, the soldiers. Be careful.”
She must think you’re just another stupid American because you don’t know that the Catholics and Protestants have been fighting for years, decades, centuries actually. You don’t understand why religion makes people kill each other. You remember when you were a kid you got spanked for going to a Cub Scout meeting in the basement of a Lutheran Church. “Don’t you dare go into a Protestant church again,” your aunt said. No Cub Scouts for you. Maybe that’s why you never learned to tie a decent knot and why you’ve never been prepared for anything.
The next morning is all sea breeze and sunny skies, but you wish your thirty-pound backpack were lighter as you walk twenty miles along the Antrim Coast and stop at a B&B in Waterfoot. A day later you walk to Ballycastle where you encounter the Giant’s Causeway. You climb over huge stone columns that rose out of the earth eons ago. At the youth hostel you read a flier that says that the forty thousand basalt pillars are the result of volcanoes. You prefer to believe a different story, the one the hostel manager tells you.
“An Irish giant named MacCool challenged a Scottish giant named Benandonner to a fight. MacCool built the causeway across the sea so he could go to war. But when he saw that Benandonner was a lot bigger than he was, he ran back here and got his wife to dress him up like a baby. She sewed a giant diaper made from the sails of a ship and put it on him. When Benandonner came over and saw how big MacCool’s baby was, he figured his father must be a gianter giant than he was. As Benandonner fled back to Scotland, he tore the Causeway apart so MacCool couldn’t follow him.”
When you return to the hostel that night, it’s been colonized by a school group from Londonderry. They’re like ants in the kitchen, everywhere and in the way. Your food is where you left it in a cubby, but your Swiss Army Knife is gone. Fuck! One of the little bastards stole it. You don’t know if the kids are Catholic or Protestant. You imagine your knife turning up in the back of a soldier, and you regret leaving it out.
Time to head to Limerick to find out about the poem, so the next morning you walk for a bit, then stick out your thumb and get picked up by a trucker who makes deliveries along the coast. You look out at the water, which you learn is not called the Welsh Sea on this side, nor the English Sea nor the Scottish Sea. It’s still the Irish Sea. You’re about to say Ireland sure is beautiful until you remember what happened when you said England is beautiful in Wales, and the driver stopped the car and told you to get out saying, “This is Wales, not bloody England.” You keep your mouth shut until this driver asks, “So where might you be from?”
“New York.”
He stops the truck and looks at you. “You mean in America?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my goodness. I can’t believe it. My cousin Tommy Lynch lives in Chicago. Do you know him?”
You want to laugh. He probably knows everyone between Belfast and Londonderry and thinks you know everyone between New York and Chicago.
“No, sorry, I don’t know him.”
After giving you half his sandwich and pledging his lifelong friendship, the trucker lets you off at an intersection where he says you can get another ride through Londonderry then into the Republic of Ireland. And you get another ride with two guys in a three-wheeled milk truck. You hadn’t seen these strange vehicles in Britain proper, but they’re all over Northern Ireland. You throw your backpack on the flatbed next to empty milk crates and get in the cramped cab. They ask where you’re going, and you say Donegal. They say they’ll take you through Londonderry—they call it Derry—to the Irish border, and from there you’ll have a straight run to Donegal on the other coast. Their thick accents…brogues…are difficult to understand, but you can see they’re angry. What you finally get is that that morning there was a protest in the Bogside, a Catholic neighborhood where two of their friends were shot.
“Fookin’ Brits just drove up and ordered everybody on the ground. Our mates refused to get on their knees and the fookin’ bastards shot them with their fookin’ rubber bullets. They hurt, man. They can kill you.”
You’re horrified. You know nothing about this war that you didn’t know was a war until a few days earlier. It makes no sense. In a few weeks soldiers will shoot and kill fourteen innocent Catholics in the Bogside in a massacre that will be known as Bloody Sunday.
The driver proceeds through checkpoints manned by armed soldiers. These barriers are made of concrete, wood and barbed wire arranged as a maze. And there are speed bumps. The posted speed limit is 5 mph so the soldiers can get a look at who’s in the vehicle. Your driver slows, opens his window, spits at the soldiers and curses “Go home, you fookin’ murderers!” The soldiers have automatic rifles. He has empty milk crates. You think he’s nuts.
He enters a maze, turns right, turns left, turns right again. You pass through three or four of these when the driver says, “One more and we’ll drive you to the border.” He slows down to crawl through the “one more” when some kids across the street start throwing rocks at the soldiers.
As the soldiers lift their rifles, the driver curses “O fook!” He steps on the gas and speeds through the maze. You hear the milk crates slide from one side of the flatbed to the other and know your backpack is sliding with them. Then the abrupt turn and everything slides the other way.
You hear shots fired.
“O fook! O fook!” all three of you say at once, as you crouch as low as you can in the cab, your forehead pressing against the dashboard. On the way down you notice the speedometer racing toward fifteen mph. That’s nuts, you think. This maze is tricky at five miles an hour. Impossible at fifteen. You don’t know if the soldiers are using real bullets or rubber bullets. More shots. You don’t know if the soldiers are shooting at the kids or shooting at you. You’re surprised the truck doesn’t roll over at this speed. You’re surprised you’re not dead.
The truck breaks out of the maze and races away. Several minutes down the road the driver stops and yells, “Get out!” He points and tells you to run that way and you’ll be in the Republic of Ireland. You get out and almost forget to take your backpack, which, holy fookin’ shit! is still there. You grab it. You can barely breathe. The truck roars away. You haul your ass in the direction he pointed.
You don’t see a border sign, so you don’t know if you’ve crossed into the Republic or not. Eventually you stop running to catch your breath and make sure you’re alive and unshot, and damn! You look at the sky and raise your fist and scream. And scream. You shouldn’t be shot at in a war that has nothing to do with you, a war you didn’t even know is going on. You don’t even live here. How fucking stupid! Killing each other over a God that doesn’t exist. While you know nothing about it, you can at least understand the Muslims and the Jews killing each other because they believe in different gods. But Catholics and Protestants, they believe in the same guy. They’re on the same team. Obviously, you know nothing about the Reformation and the centuries of hatred between Catholics and Protestants. Then you have an idea, an original idea:
Why are we killing each other because of our religions? Why can’t we see that we’re all human beings? We’re all basically the same.”
In the history of the whole fucking world, no one has ever thought this until you fucking thought it in the Republic of fucking Ireland in December of fucking 1971. You’re fucking brilliant!
You hitch a ride to Donegal, check into a B&B, and sit in a pub till closing, trying to drown your original idea and your miserable brilliance. Hours later, despite several shots of Irish whiskey and several pints of Guinness, you lie shaking in bed all night.
In the morning you begin a two-day trek south toward Limerick. You walk and hitchhike, walk and hitchhike and arrive in Galway, where you check into the youth hostel and despite your earlier, decision to not drink so much, you spend another night in a pub getting drunk.
In the morning, you walk and hitchhike, walk and hitchhike toward Limerick, each ride taking you just a “wee bit down the road.”
You notice something strange. In England, Wales and Scotland the cows ignored you, but when you walk past the farms in Ireland, they come up to the fence mooing at you as if you’re a taxi and they’re looking for a ride. These Irish cows are friendlier than the English ones, you think. You mention this to one of the drivers who gives you a lift.
“Oh, that’s a riot,” he says. “No, they’re not lookin’ for friends, the cows. They’re lookin’ for someone to milk them, ‘cause those farmers are drunk from the night before and are sleeping in.”
You know nothing about cows or farmers, but you do know about getting drunk and how hard it is to get up in the morning to go to work.
Along one of these small roads you see a billboard split in the middle with two advertisements. On the left “God is our refuge and strength,” which is from one of the psalms you recited when you were a kid. And on the right “Double Diamond, the best beer in the bar.” Even you can see that religion and alcohol are the biggest problems in Ireland. Then, Huh! you realize that religion and alcohol are probably your biggest problems too.
There’s just one other person staying at the youth hostel in Limerick, and after five and a half minutes you become best friends. Callum asks what you’re doing, and you tell him that you want to find out where the limerick comes from.
“The what?” he asks.
“The limerick,” you say. He has no idea what you’re talking about.
Callum is a sidewalk artist from Dublin. He goes from city to city sketching nativity scenes on the pavements outside churches in the weeks before Christmas. Of course, he has a box for donations. The next morning you walk with him to St. Augustine’s Church. He’s down on his hands and knees, moving stubs of chalk across the pavement. Figures appear: Baby Jesus in a manger, Mary, Joseph, sheep, a cat. You wonder what he does when it rains.
Then you look closely, and notice things are not what they appear to be. The tree in the background is actually a rocket ship. The halo around the babe in the manger is a space helmet.
Like you, Callum’s an atheist. When someone puts a coin in his box and says something nice, Callum tells them to fuck off!
“I despise the old fakers,” he says. “They flock into the church to make deals with God and then walk back out to screw their neighbors.”
You tell Callum about the shooting incident in Derry, and he agrees the world would be better without religion. You describe the billboard you saw, one half a psalm the other half an ad for beer. “I’d love to fuckin’ see that,” he says.
“If only they can get rid of the God part,” you say, “and keep the beer part, this might be a decent country.”
“No,” he says, “it’s too late for Ireland. We’re fucked!”
You go off to find the building you’re looking for. On the ground floor is a library, the floor above it a museum, each tended by a little old lady. You try the museum first. “I want to find out about the history of the limerick.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. We have artifacts and documents going back to the city’s founding.”
“No, not the city,” you say. “The poem.”
“What poem?”
“The limerick poem. You know, it goes like “There once was a man from Nantucket…”
“Nantucket? What’s that?”
“I don’t know, but that’s not the point. I’m talking about the poem. The limerick poem.” The woman looks confused.
“Why don’t you ask at the library downstairs. I’m sure they have poems there.” You realize she’s never heard of the limerick.
You try the library with the same result. The woman asks if you can recite one. You search your brain for one you can say to this little old woman who reminds you of Aunt Dud, but the only ones you can think of are dirty.
“Sorry, I can’t think of any.”
How is it that people in Limerick never heard of the limerick? The only reason you came to this fucking country was because you thought you’d look into the limerick. You’ve wasted your time and almost got killed in the process.
You walk around the city. It reeks of ancient decay. Everything is rundown, dark, ugly and grim. You sit on the side of the River Shannon feeling sorry for yourself. You stare at the water and notice a twig stuck near the bank. As the water rushes around it, it shakes, but it doesn’t come loose. You surprise yourself by wondering which is worse, to stupidly hang on as the water passes you by, or to be moved by the river, which will shove you out to sea. You wonder if you are being pushed by a river? Or are you hanging on to something you hope will save you? The only thing you’ve ever clung to is poetry. You guess you’re more of a keep moving, let the river push you along guy. You toss a rock at the stick to knock it loose, but you miss.
The air is full of smoke from the coal fires that heat the houses. It’s a pleasant smell. You stare at the river and after a while, a long while, you realize that it’s beautiful in a gray, ashy kind of way. You look at the sky, which is also gray…and you are overcome. A great and brutal weight seems to lift from your shoulders, and you feel something replace it. Something with wings. As you look out at the River Shannon you remember what Wordsworth wrote as he looked out at the River Wye:
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:
You don’t know the word “awesome,” but that’s what you’re experiencing. Awe in its purest state: powerful, sublime, beautiful…and terrifying. You need to change your life. You take out your notebook and write:
here
holy spirit
there
holy spirit
holy spirit
holy spirit
river
holy spirit
sea gulls
holy spirit
gray sky
coal smoke
holy spirit
holy spirit
rocks
cars
dogs
holy spirit
holy spirit
holy spirit
You’ve written a poem about the holy spirit. What kind of atheist are you?
You go back to the church to find Callum, but before you can tell him about your poem he says, “I met these people, and when they said they liked my drawing I told them to fuck off! like I usually do, but instead of cursing me or walking away, they said, ‘Sorry, man. We didn’t mean to hassle you.’ And I said, ‘Why are you so nice?’ and they said, ‘We’re members of…’ I didn’t get that part, ‘a new religion, and there are fifty of us.’ I don’t know if they mean fifty in Limerick or in Ireland or in the whole world? Then the girl gives me this card and says I should come to their meeting tomorrow and check it out.”
He shows you the card. On one side is a quotation written with fancy colorful letters neither of you can read. It has a name after it, like who wrote it. On the other side is a neatly printed address.
“If it’s a religion,” you say, “they’ll probably just start another war.”
Callum agrees, “You’re right about that, but there’re only fifty. Maybe we can talk ‘em out of it.”
You think about that and say, “And if we can’t, maybe they’ll give us a cup of tea.”
So it’s decided. You’ll stay in Limerick another day and go to this meeting with Callum and try to talk these people out of their religion so they don’t start another war. And if it doesn’t work, maybe they’ll give you a cup of tea. Who knows, maybe they’ll offer you a biscuit too.
When you show Callum your poem about the holy spirit he says, “It’s astonishing. I know exactly what you mean. There’s something profound about Limerick.”
You’re having second thoughts when you and Callum arrive at the address the next day. You think about the nuns that beat you, about Father Smith who “wrestled” you and about the priests at St. Bonaventure who lied to you. What has religion ever done but hurt you? Why are you going out of your way so these people can call you a sinner and tell you you’re going to hell?
Callum knocks and a girl around your age opens the door. He holds out the card and says, “I met these people yesterday. They gave me this card and invited me to come here today.”
“Welcome,” the girl says.
“Is it okay,” he says, “I’ve brought a friend?”
“Lovely, come in.”
The living room is crowded with young people sitting on chairs and on the floor. Someone is playing a guitar. And they’re singing. You don’t know the song. They seem happy. They’re grooving. You figure they must be high, but you don’t smell weed. Then, strange, you see three white haired women sitting on folding chairs on the other side of the room, and they’re grooving too. No way the old ladies would be getting high. There’s something else going on here.
The girl who answered the door says, “Find a place to sit.” You and Callum look around. He heads for a spot on the floor near a fireplace. You find a space in the middle of the room next to the guy playing the guitar. He nods at you as you sit down.
He stops playing and says, “Welcome. My name is Jack.”
You tell him your name and say, “You play pretty good.”
“I’m in a band with my mates. They’re here too.”
“So,” you ask. “What’s going on?”
He says, “We believe in world unity. We’re all equal.”
You couldn’t have heard him right. “That’s my idea,” you say. “We’re all human. I thought of it last week.”
“Our religion has been teaching it for more than a hundred years.”
“What’s it called?” you ask. He tells you. You never heard of it.
“The word “religion” means to unite,” he says. “So, if two people are arguing about religion, we believe they’re both wrong.”
“Religion doesn’t bring people together,” you say. “It breaks them apart. They’re killing each other not far from here. I got caught in a shooting thing in Derry.”
“What happened?” he asks, and you tell him.
“That’s scary,” he says, “but I live in Ireland. You don’t have to tell me. My parents won’t speak to me because my girlfriend’s family is Protestant.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.”
He starts strumming his guitar again.
“What else do you guys believe?” you ask, but before he can answer one of the old ladies stands up and says, “Welcome. Thank you all for coming to our home.” Strange, she has an American accent, not Irish. “Why don’t we start with some prayers.” And with that everyone is quiet.
You look around. Most have their eyes closed. You’re not going to close your eyes. You look across the room at Callum. He looks at you.
A girl says a prayer about removing problems, and you wonder if their god is going to remove you, suck you up with a giant vacuum cleaner into the sky. You hope not, at least until you get a cup of tea.
A guy with a red beard sitting near Callum reads a prayer. You’re hardly listening when you hear a beautiful phrase about dazzling stars. You love the sound of that and start to pay attention. There’s a brief pause between prayers, sometimes a bit longer before the next one begins. You realize no one seems to be in charge. Where are their priests?
The woman stands up again begins to speak. Is she the priest? She doesn’t look like a priest. Besides, she’s a woman. You’ve never heard a woman talk about religion except for the nuns. And you don’t think she’s a nun.
“In the past,” she says, “people were illiterate and needed teachers to tell them what was in their holy books, first rabbis, then priests and ministers. The world today…you can fly anywhere in a matter of hours. And because people are educated, we don’t need a clergy to tell us what’s in the holy books.”
If they don’t need a clergy, you’re guessing, she’s not a priest. And if they don’t have priests, who does the stuff? You glance at Callum. He’s watching her, paying attention.
“Each of us is responsible for our own spiritual development. It’s not good enough to sit back and be part of a congregation. We have to act. We have to improve mankind, to advance civilization. To create peace. One way to do that is to eliminate all forms of prejudice.”
You’re good with that.
“One way to do that is to have a common language that everyone will speak in addition to the one they grow up with. This way we can communicate with each other while preserving our different cultures, many of which are dying out.”
The woman continues, “This way we can talk to one another and maybe not have so many wars. Though I must admit, you Irish speak the same language I do, but a lot of the time, with your brogues, I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Everyone laughs, even you. You don’t think you’ve ever laughed about anything to do with religion.
She talks for a few more minutes, thanks everyone for listening and sits down.
You ask Jack about the stuff you’re not supposed to do? He tells you that they don’t drink or do drugs, and they are prohibited from having sex outside of marriage. You knew it was too good to be true. It’s the same crap you grew up with. Religion telling you what to do. You haven’t had sex since you left New York in September. But wait till you’re married? That’s impossible. God never believed in you, so why should you believe in God? And not drinking? Even Catholics drink.
Jack introduces you to the three women. “Welcome to our home,” one says. Another offers you a cup of tea. You look at these people who appear to be happy, and you wonder if you could be happy too. You remember what you and Callum said yesterday that maybe you can talk them out of it. But you’re not sure that you want to talk them out of it. You’d like to believe that this religion can stop wars and have everyone speak the same language. You’d like to believe that they’ll change the world. You’ll never become one of them, but they seem to have a few things worked out. You hope that maybe, even though you don’t believe in God, that this is true.
“Are you a Seeker?” one of the women asks.
You’ve never thought of yourself that way, but it makes sense. You’ve been seeking your whole life. “I guess,” you say.
“Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for. And if we can help, let us know.”
There is so much you like about these people and their religion. They don’t push. They really seem to practice what they preach. If only they believed in drinking instead of God, you could see yourself….No. No way. You need a drink. Religion isn’t for you. But this religion is different from what you grew up with. It has a heart.
“Do you have something I can read?” you ask.
The woman who gave the talk looks at her friends, then looks back at you and says, “No, sorry.” They must not be trying too hard to get people to join if they’re not passing out pamphlets like the Moonies and the Hare Krishnas.
“I can get you a book from Dublin,” Jack says, “but it’ll take a few days.”
You were only planning to be in Limerick for one day, which has extended now to two, but, what the heck. You decide to hang around and wait for the book.
“Okay,” you say.
You and Callum go back to the house the next night and the night after and you feel good. You feel whole, and you haven’t felt whole since…you can’t remember.
You decide to make believe you can live like they do. You won’t have sex. Ha. As if the girls were lining up. And you’ll try to not drink. You made it three weeks in high school, so you’re pretty sure you can make it a few days in Limerick. You decide not to curse around these people, but you’re not going to say their prayers. You ask questions and try to understand the answers, but you know you’re missing a lot. There’s always music. Jack and his bandmates are there every night and add a song or two.
When the book arrives, you ask Jack how much you owe him, but he says no, it’s a gift. He writes in it “To … with best wishes from Jack.” You know that this book is special. You double wrap it in plastic and bury it deep in your backpack to keep it safe and dry.
After saying goodbye to Callum and Jack and your other new friends, you leave Limerick and hitchhike to Dublin where you drink your first drink in a week. You feel good and bad at the same time. You like them, their sincerity, their belief that as they can change their own lives, they can change the world. Too bad they believe in God. Too bad they don’t drink. Best not to think about this anymore. You take the ferry to Holyhead, and you’re back in Wales.