By Eleanor McGrath

Often, we are not aware how powerful our childhood memories will be in forming our future adult lives. My formative years were spent in a Toronto that was only slowly becoming proud of its multiculturalism. The establishment was the English community and, for a hundred years, the Irish culture was a backdrop.

I know that my first yearning to travel to Ireland came in grade 4 when my best friend Audrey Mahoney left for the summer to Galway to visit her grandparents. As a fifth generation Irish Canadian, I struggled with a lack of identity and enviously desired to be more Irish, like my friends at school - the Sheas, McConnells, Bradys, O’Sullivans and many others who proudly had parents with accents, ate black pudding at Sunday breakfast, relatives that lived in Ireland and of course, the best summer vacations to visit their cousins.

Many years later, with children and work, travel was relegated to North America. And then I met my own Irishman. The Ireland to which he introduced me is the most rapidly expanding European economy and most educated workforce. Now, ask any Irish person when is the best time to return home and you will have many different answers – for some, it is during the weeks of St. Patrick’s Day, for others, it is Christmas and then for others, nothing more sacred than during the All-Ireland Hurling Championships held in Dublin’s Croke Park each September. For me, it is the week of St. Stephen’s (their Boxing Day), which became almost a honeymoon for our early relationship. For our children, it is the summer holidays.

It was a long plane journey via Skipool (which has the worst coffee offered in any airport) to Cork, Ireland on December 26th 2004. The informal Cork airport that proudly states “the World’s busiest airport ….for its size” (in small print) provided the impression for the novice traveler to Ireland - a feeling of a banana republic airport with a sense of Irish irony. Walking across a tarmac to meet one of the brothers who, in true Irish hospitality had brought his three daughters to welcome us and join us for a hearty rashers and pudding breakfast, quickly removed any sense of exhaustion. That evening we celebrated a traditional St. Stephen’s Day feast and birthday party. As I was “your one” and he (my Irishman) was “your man” we were oblivious to anything but the warmth of an Irish family party and plans of traveling through counties Cork and Kerry, to be accomplished before New Year’s Day.

We set off the next day to what I now understand is traditional tourist country of the Dingle Pennisula. But weaving the car at breakneck speeds through back roads or borreens (as the Irish call them) and stopping to walk through farmers’ fields to a ruin, or photograph a standing rock remnant of the druid faith, made the many hours drift easily into dusk. We arrived at the Inch beach for the most spectacular late December sunset – a vista of fiord-like mountains in the background, the dark night with only a line of light on the horizon that highlighted the surfers heading in for the evening. I stood astonished by the site, overwhelmed by the beauty and could only remark at the time that it would have taken a lot for any Irish person to leave this behind.

In a true cozy snug at Dick Mac’s in Dingle, tucked into the ancient fishing village devoid of the tourist industry, we met the true Irish. We relished a trip to the “chippers” for a late night snack and fell into a relaxing slumber by the ocean. The next day was a return to Cork through the Connor’s Pass. There a multi-cultural gathering of tourists snapped photos of both sides of the view –there is really nothing like it until you get your directions from a Kerry man, as we did. With his sheepdog and looking for a quick lift to Ash’s pub, we were only too happy to oblige for his knowledge of the back roads through an ancient mountain route to Cork.

As we drove on a path that cut into the mountains we passed the ancient grave of a Welsh king. Throughout five days that winter, Ireland proved itself full of mystery, with fairy hills which brought me to a place I had yearned for, over so many years. But it remains the people of Ireland, even with their newfound wealth and desire to adopt so many affluent trappings, who still show themselves proud to share a great holiday with each visitor.

Ask me why I chose Ireland as my annual destination? I harken to what my grandmother said, “It is in our blood to live by water.” Here in Canada it just happens to be a lake, until the summer!