There And Back Again

That's the moon over the Liffey, shortly after a rainstorm.

I am returned from Ireland. It was wonderful. The trip there (I was the beneficiary of a piece of generosity which allowed me to fly Business there and back, and if I had money I would establish a scholarship fund for all my friends to do long-haul flights in the forward cabin. It isn't just the hot-and-cold running food and drink, and the ability to sleep lying flat for the duration of a long flight, but the queue-hopping... except for US Preclearance in Dublin on the flight back, from which nothing could save us.

I spent the first six days with Ellen Klages and Laura Anne Gilman, driving south and having adventures. With one notable exception (a bureaucrat at a rental car company who made all bureaucrats look bad) every single person I met was lovely. Particularly lovely, a woman named Sam who came to our rescue when our first rental car died (what are the odds that we'd pull into a side street and the woman who sauntered up to us saying "Got a problem, girls?" would turn out to be a mechanic?), and Laura Anne's friend Kate, a Kinsale girl who not only told us where to go and what to do (and to get the smallest car possible because omigod those roads) but showed up and went out to dinner with us--so now I have a friend in Ireland! We went to a lead soldier factory, and to Old Head (the coastal point off which the Lusitania was sunk) and walked--lord, how we walked. If you ever want to go outside the capital to a lovely, walkable town with good food, I can highly recommend Kinsale.

Then we drove back up to Dublin, returned our car (it was great to have a car, and even better to be carless...) and took up residence in our three-story flat, 7 minutes walk from the Convention Center. The first day I went off to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells--walking there and back (I clocked something like 44 miles in a week, according to my Fitbit) and getting to see all sorts of wonderful things. Dublin is a city where the old and new sit in comfortable harmony, an aesthetic I find deeply pleasing. The Book itself is a gorgeous thing, delicate and tough and beautiful. And the Long Library is one perfect version of the ultimate book-room--vaulted ceilings and marble busts and the musty, leathery scent of old books.

I also went looking for a department store and scored a French press for the apartment, which was singularly lacking in facilities for coffee making. Because some things must happen. And later that day Laura Anne and I went to a tour and tasting at the Teeling Whiskey Distillery, which was fascinating. I may have brought a bottle home with me.

I also got to go to the Chester Beatty Museum and the Kilmainham Gaol; the Chester Beatty has an amazing collection of early books--papyrii, codices, early Western bindings, all the way up through the 18th century, as well as Islamic, Buddhist, and Hebrew books of the same era. Needless to say, I took Too Many Pictures™, reveling in seeing in the flesh things that I talk about in my daily work. And Kilmainham Gaol, a Victorian prison that I visited on Monday, was also amazing: useful visual research for the Sarah Tolerance books (courthouse! prison! ambiance) but also fascinating in terms of its connection to modern Irish political history.

Oh, and there was a science fiction convention there somewhere, wasn't there? I am ashamed to say that other than Opening Ceremonies (which I went to because Ellen was co-hosting) I didn't go to a single convention event: all of the panels I wanted to see were totally filled, and after a while the idea of queuing half-an-hour beforehand was not appealing. On the other hand, I spent hours talking with people, drinking just a little too much, eating far too much, and having a splendid time.

I highly recommend Ireland. Not that Ireland needs my encomiums, but really: Ireland is great.