In creating itineraries for Ireland travel, I make every effort to slip beneath the waves of caricature that wash over folks in the more populated and frequented destinations. Places where massive and masses of tour buses lumber into specially designated parking lots. Places where visitors are afforded opportunities to shop for shamrocks, load up on leprechauns, and swarm a site with selife sticks often within an allotted ten or twenty minutes.

Yes. I have heard the argument that a tour bus is, for some, the only way they might see Ireland. But in too many cases, that is about all that happens from the window of a bus. Seeing Ireland, or some of it. But rarely experiencing more than an Irish caricature.

So we travel to more remote places and open ourselves to the heart and soul of the people and the land – and a deeper connection through casual encounter and serendipity. There is magic in that. There is joy. And on this journey to Ireland I am finding there is also great sorrow.

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com