More Than Green Beer & Leprechauns

(My daughter, Aleen Tindor, is today's blogger. Here she is outside a pub in Dingle, Ireland in July 2004.)

Ireland is more than green beer and leprechauns.

It's a patchwork of countless shades of green divided by fence after stone fence.

It's postcard clouds making shadows on craggy mountainsides

with sheer cliffs untamed by tourists and guardrails.

It's a love of life, a passion, a verve, charisma, sarcastic wit, and mischievous eyes.

It's people-centered, slower-paced hospitality served with midnight tea.

It's pride in being mistaken for a local and being told "You look the part".

It's the endless rocky Burren, each step more intriguing than the last.

It's the salty spray of the ocean mist pounding the rugged shoreline.

It's the sunshine reflected in tiny diamonds on the surface of the sea.

It's thunder rumbling from the skilled feet of dancers

accompanied by bodhrans, harps, fiddles, concertinas and flutes.

It's the musical lilt of dialect.

It's laughter from deep within as I'm pulled onto the dance floor and spun around on the pub floor to live jigs and reels with the crowd cheering me on.

It's a party late into the night with people of all ages

wearing business suits, halter tops and everything in between- everyone with a story.

It's some "blarney" (BS) mixed with "troot" (truth).

It's craic (good times) and adventure

contrasted by ancient cathedrals and celtic crosses among misty ruins ages old;

graves made smooth with time.

It's perfect strangers becoming friends and friends becoming family.

It's potatoes, turnips, soda bread, scones, tea, digestives,

bangers and rashers (bacon and sausages), and fried tomatoes.

It's narrow hairpin turns on crazy roads, colored Georgian doors,

Donegal tweed hats, and the smell of peat fires.

It's the place of my roots whose song echoes in my heart.

This is Ireland.