The city of Dublin lies in the vast and formidable shadow of its neighborly Empire. It is a coastal city that has been important for hundreds and hundreds of years because of its geographical position within Europe.
Kylie and I have always heard such great things about Dublin, in a vague excited sort of way, but really did not know what to do here. We did not really know what to expect or what Dublin is really about.
There were two things that struck me about the people of Ireland and the city of Dublin. The first is how wild and messy and a wee bit crazy the Irish are. It is a bit of a known thing, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of a uniquely free-spirited and rambunctious people. But it really is true. Like really, really, palpably true.
Our first stop in Dublin was at Dublin Castle, which the Irish have managed to build and rebuild on in like four conflicting styles of architecture. Along the back of the building, some renovation went wrong and they just painted it a bunch of different colors to try to cover it up.
The Irish aren’t governors, they aren’t administrators, they aren’t prim and proper, they aren’t, well, English.
But they are extremely passionate.
Our favorite story is of a man named Daniel O’Connell who was a catholic in a time when a bunch of crazy laws existed to try to prevent the Catholics from learning and rising to any influential station. O’Connell broke through and made it into Parliament, the first Irish Catholic to do so. His first day, he talked for an hour about the oppression of Catholics, The second day two hours, the third three, and on and on. Just a couple weeks after O’Connell was let into the Parliament doors, he got the laws overturned in favor of the Catholics because of his tenacity. His public oratory was also a catalyst for Irish Independence.
The Irish are drinking and praying, running amuck and running their mouths. Nine times out of ten, they get themselves into a mess. Ten times out of ten, they find a way to express their passions.
This passion leads, inevitably, to an intense value for more than this world has to offer. When a great fire broke out in Dublin in the 1060’s, many people left their homes and formed a line in front of their iconic cathedral Christ Church, dousing the flames with buckets to protect the church from the flames. The government buildings were left for dead.
The Irish care. And they believe. They are passionate and involved. Sometimes, like so many of us, they don’t know how or where to aim their passions. In a world where we are so intent on looking proper and saving face, we can learn a lot from the wild passion of Ireland.
I read recently that major cities in a country are like oceans wherein all streams of the culture of that country flow. Dublin is no different. With its mismatched architecture, the bullet holes in their monuments (from the Easter Rising in 1916), and its pubs, Dublin is Irish through and through. It is a bit confusing and wild, but never ever boring. It is a very walk-able and very much a ‘sitting’ city. Monuments and tourist sites just aren’t the Irish way. It’s more of a ‘this-is-our-life, stick around if ya want’ kind of place.
The second thing that struck me about the Irish is just how many people throughout the world associate themselves with Irish heritage. During the famine years, there was a mass exodus in Ireland and that is why so many come from Irish descent.
Let’s be honest: we love being associated with the Irish. Very few on our side of the ocean would feel anything but pride and joy to have Irish descent, even if we don’t really know anything about the Irish. It is because the Irish people have come to represent the passionate mess that we try to fight through day in and day out. They can’t be tamed by this world, and there is a lot of beauty in that.
The people in Dublin don’t take themselves too seriously. They are fighting for life, even when they are not sure who their enemy is. And that is something we all admire. We all want to be as passionate as an Irishman.
It is this truth about the Irish that connects so well to our stories and the deepest longings of our souls. The messy journey of passion is an adventure every heart knows all too well, a journey every heart wishes to do better, purely. The Irish are living this journey well, and terribly, and everywhere in between, all at the same time.
