Page 24 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 94, No. 3 Spring 2014

Dublin to another, just to see what I could see.) And then,
just before Christmas, I left for the wilds of Dunquin.
Thirty-five years ago, the trip from Dublin to Dunquin
was a long one, and travel information wasn’t easy to
come by. Before I left, I had several times tried to phone
Mairead O’Donnell, my intended hostess, but got no
response. On the appointed date, I took a train to Tralee
and from there an evening bus to Dingle, the closest
town to Dunquin. By the time the bus set off, it was dark
and had begun to rain. The farther we got from Tralee,
the narrower the road grew, and the headlights of the
bus began to illuminate tall green walls of hedgerow as
we twisted and turned up a mountain.
Eventually, the road became so narrow that we
seemed to have left it completely; from where I was
sitting, a few seats behind the driver, it appeared we
were simply barreling across a hummocky field. The
rain slashed sideways in the wind, crashing against the
windows of the bus like the flood from a fire hose. From
time to time, the bus would stop suddenly by a tree and
an old man in a cap or woman in a shawl would step
down and disappear into the sodden darkness in what
looked to me like the middle of nowhere. Or the reverse
would happen, and suddenly a figure would appear in
the headlights, stepping out from behind a hedge with
his hand held up to stop the bus, rain streaming from
his face. Where were these people coming from? Where
were they going? There were no lights here, no sign of
a house or village.
When we arrived in Dingle, it was late, and the next
bus to Dunquin wouldn’t depart until morning. I stood in
the main street in the rain with my suitcase, wondering
what to do. I saw a hotel called Benner’s, went in, took a
room, and tried to make another phone call to Mairead
O’Donnell. The telephone was an old-fashioned device
that summoned an operator to the line, who then dialed
the number for me. Still no answer.
I remember vividly climbing into the hotel bed that
night. I had never slept in a hotel on my own before. I
was nervous and worried about what the room would
cost me. I had no idea what I’d find the next day or
where I’d end up. And where on earth was Mairead
O’Donnell, who had agreed to take me in? I lay awake
all night, worrying.
The next morning, there was still no answer from her.
I boarded the bus to Dunquin and, as we neared the
village, I asked the driver if he knew where Mairead
O’Donnell lived. “I do, of course,” he said laconically,
“She is a cousin of me own.” (I soon learned that every-
one in this place was related to everyone else.) He
stopped the bus in front of the house and, as I stepped
down, he said, “Tis Mairead’s house all right, but you
won’t find her there. She’s gone to England for the
month.” He then snapped the door shut and drove off.
Again I was left standing in the road with my suit-
case. This time, though, the road was in the middle
of a thousand cow fields. Just to be sure, I knocked
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