A Journey Home

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I knew it the minute I stepped foot off the plane in Kerry Airport. I was headed for Cahirciveen and had always wanted to explore this particular area of Ireland, although I was fascinated by all of it. But this, my first trip to Ireland would be a journey to the land of my ancestors. Yet I hadn’t been here a minute and I felt as if I were coming home. I mean home in the strongest sense of the word. And I did feel as if I were returning.

A short while later I knew, as if I hadn’t already, that I certainly had never tried to negotiate driving on ‘the other’ side of the road before. My frame of reference was skewed from the moment I sat on the erstwhile passenger side of the car and promptly tried driving on the wrong side. Swerving into the correct lane while (I’m quite sure) colorful Gaelic was aimed in my direction, I proceeded to acclimate myself to this new adventure. The round-about outside of Kerry almost had me in tears and definitely had me wishing I was already in Cahirciveen and headed for the nearest pub. I didn’t care if it was only eight o’clock in the morning.

Following directions to the bed and breakfast I’d be staying at had me turning off a cobbled street into, if possible, an even narrower one. Ancient stone fences lined the rutted dirt lane and I feared there would be scratches in the paint from an obtrusive stone jutting out just a smidge too far. I was lucky though and had no encounters with stray rock, although I did have to wait patiently for several sheep to mosey on their way.

The road twisted through incredibly lush fields as each turn opened new ‘post card perfect’ vistas that had me yearning to grab a paintbrush, or at the very least, my pen and notebook. Eventually the road widened and I came into the small village, just beyond which, was my destination. After checking in to a low, thatch-roofed home with flowers a colorful riot in each box aside the stone steps, I was taken up a short flight of stairs to my room.

Centered on one wall was a comfy looking brass bed with its patchwork quilt and a down comforter folded neatly at its foot. A small hearth burned cheerfully and piled alongside were what I thought might be bricks of peat. A window, curtained in pristine white curtains, looked out back to a vegetable garden. I eyed the bed for a long, weary moment before deciding to head out and explore the castle ruins my hostess said was just ‘over the fields a wee bit.’

Down to the end of the lane I wandered, stopping just to drink in the sight of the field before me. Myriads of tiny purple flowers on thin, wispy stems fluttered across the meadow. I followed the directed path that meandered over a hill and into a copse of trees, each one greener than the last. The footpath narrowed as it twisted uphill around and through ancient gnarled trees. Then, again, it hit. Strong, and sure and certain. I knew where I was. Just ahead would be a stone pathway. And there it was, only older and more mossy than what I’d envisioned. Roughly squared stones were tightly fitted to form a walkway. Brilliant yellow flowers sprang forth from places where a chink had broken loose from winter’s cold like earthbound sunbeams.

I followed the path eagerly; just knowing that ahead, atop a rise would be the stone archway, the gate to the castle. I’d never even seen pictures of this place, yet I knew it would be there, a stone arch with nothing but gravity holding it up and the bailey way beyond. The noon sun dappled the ground and the warmth made me glad I’d brought some water with me along with the package in my backpack. Then I actually saw the arch, and all other thoughts fled. It was there, and I knew it would be. But how? Why?

I hesitated just this side of the archway, to peer through to where there should be a stone entry with a fountain in its center, but where now, more trees grew through split stones. Although I’d heard of my great-grandmother’s birthplace all my life, Great-Grandmother had shied away from describing the castle. She couldn’t, she insisted. What she once saw, what she remembered in her mind’s eye would be far different than what I should experience if I were to go there. She always told me it was something she felt that I needed to do., a journey that was mine for the taking. She’d never told me exactly where it was, or even the village it was near, yet I’d chanced upon it and I knew with every fiber of my being that this was her castle.

Now, don’t think me foolish, but for a moment, a brief blink of time, the space before me shimmered; a vertical ripple of air and I could swear I heard an echo of laughter, a light-hearted giggle of sound. Shaking my head and teasing myself with jet-lagged fancies, I stepped through the arch—
And saw my great-grandmother standing there. Just for a fraction of a second, mind you. But she was there, I swear it. I felt a surge of joy and then an incalculable sadness, a sense of loss every bit as strong as the day she left me.

Legs wobbling, I sank down to a nearby stone. A grey granite slab of rock; a heart-stone my great grandmother would have called it. Idly running fingers over moss and lichen, I found myself tracing an indentation in the stone. Following it, I realized it was a carved rune.

Scraping away at the moss, I revealed a large angular R. It was the runic symbol for RAIDHO. I’d grown up absorbing her knowledge of runic symbols and I knew this one was for a journeying spirit. I smiled. My journey had led me from across the ocean to here and a sense of returning, of coming home. As great-grandmother had said on her deathbed, “What is life, but a journey, and what is death, but yet one last journey. It is the path we take, and how we travel on our way that matters. I have walked my last path and the journey has been a good one.”

I wandered around finding yet more archways and a worn stone stair leading up to a broken walkway. Beyond it was the fountain, now not much more than crumpled stones supporting a cracked basin. A wood lark perched on the basin’s edge tilted its head at my movement, before going back to scanning the area beyond the fountain. Then, as if wishing to grant its audience some small favor, opened its beak and began to sing. The notes soared and cascaded around me.

Smiling, I retraced my steps, and when I had again reached the heart-stone, I removed my pack and opened it. Reaching inside, I removed the small wooden box engraved with my great-grandmother’s name. Carefully opening it, I let some of her ashes sift down to coat the rune I’d found earlier. All the while, the lark sang and then I realized that more than one lark was singing. There is a reason a group of larks is called an exaltation, and I was treated to the reason firsthand. A breeze wafted and caught the rest of her ashes up in a swirl and they danced as they returned to earth to mix with the dust of our ancestors. We were both, finally, home.





1288 words