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Walking along the city wall of old Derry, my mind slipped back to the first time I had
been in Northern Ireland. It was 1973,
and I was in the midst of a semester abroad program through the University of
Edinburgh. One long weekend, I took it into my head to go see Ireland, knowing
from stories my father had told that I had Irish ancestors in my family tree.
Back then, the accepted mode of travel
for students on limited incomes was hitchhiking, and this was how I got from
Edinburgh, Scotland to Liverpool, England. I couldn’t hitchhike across the
Irish Sea, however, so I bought passage on an overnight ferry to Dublin. This
way I didn’t have to pay for lodging.
When I arrived in the Irish capital early the next morning, I wasn’t sure what to do next. Many friends in college had talked about the Guinness Brewery, so I went there for free samples. After a draught or two—or four—I felt energized enough to wander around seeing the sights. Following my usual travel pattern, I found the Dublin Youth Hostel that afternoon and stayed the night.
The following day, I decided to explore the
countryside of the Emerald Isle. It was only March, but the land was moist and
green, living up to its moniker. As I walked along the roadways, I held out my
thumb each time I heard a vehicle approach. It turned out getting rides in
Ireland was quite easy. The people were very friendly and helpful. In one day I
got all the way from the east coast of Ireland to the western side to Killarney,
whereupon I found the Youth Hostel there, as well.
That evening a rainy cool front moved
in. It struck me that I had only two days to get back to Edinburgh for school.
Unperturbed for the most part, I set out for Dublin again the next morning,
walking along with my thumb out. I’m not sure what I thought I would accomplish
that day since there was no way I could walk all the way across the
Emerald Isle in a day. As it turned out, I didn’t have to. One of the rides
that stopped for me on my trek back from Killarney was a group of three young
men in a small compact car.
“We’re heading over to Kilkenny to
visit a friend,” they said. “He’s sure to have a lunch for us. You’re welcome
to come along.”
Some people might say I was foolish to
accept this ride with three males I didn’t know. But in some strange way, I
wasn’t worried. God has seen me safely thus far, I thought. I’ll just
keep following his lead.
When we arrived in the town of
Kilkenny, they went straight to what looked like an old church. Parking the
little car, they led me into the ancient-looking stone building. A man in a
rough brown monk’s robe met us in the hallway and exclaimed, “Ah, so good to
see you fellows. I see you’ve brought a friend. Come on in, I have a light
lunch here to share. There’s always enough for a guest.” (Years later, I’d
learn there was a deeply-rooted belief in Irish culture to help the stranger or
traveler along their way, whether by food or other means.)
After our meal of fruit, cheese, and
bread, the monk asked me, “Where are you heading today, dear?”
“I have to get to Dublin,” I replied.
“Ah, well then we’d best help get you
on the right road,” he smiled.
The next thing I knew he was standing
beside me in his long brown robe, helping me thumb a ride. Of course the very
first car stopped. Yes, they were going to Dublin. As I climbed into the car
and waved good-bye to my new friends, I couldn’t help thinking that it would be
nice to have a monk along on future hitchhiking trips.
I arrived back at the Dublin Youth
Hostel shortly after dark. Getting out my map, I contemplated how far I still
had to go in only one day. Another fellow-lodger was looking over my shoulder.
“You don’t want to hitch in Northern
Ireland,” he said. “It’s not safe like it is here. The Troubles, you know.”
I was well aware of the Protestant and
Catholic violence in Ulster in the 1960s and 70s, so I wasn’t all that keen on
visiting Northern Ireland at all. “I’m not sure I could hitch all the way from
Liverpool to Edinburgh in a day, though,” I said. “The ferry would take half my
travel day.”
“You could take a train from here to
Belfast.” He pointed at the route on my map. “There you could get to the Larne
Ferry to Scotland. That would connect you with trains to Edinburgh.”
This would be more expense than I’d
hoped, but it did give me a guarantee of making it back to my goal in one day.
So the next morning I bought a ticket for the Belfast train.
Riding along, I watched the green
countryside of the Republic of Ireland fall away behind me. Trains often travel
through the bleaker parts of cities and landscapes, and this ride was
punctuated by high walls with barbed wire and broken glass embedded in the tops
of stone or concrete walls.
Once we reached Belfast, I was told I
had to go to a different station to change trains. At an information desk, I
asked the attendant, “Which bus do I need to take to get to the Larne Ferry
train?”
“No buses are running,” came the
reply. “One was bombed last week.”
My heart did a flipflop.
“You’ll have to walk,” the attendant’s
voice continued. “Here, take this city map. It shows you which streets to
take.”
My heart pounded as I took the city
map and set out in the streets of Belfast. Walking along one row of
glass-fronted shops—with bars protecting them from possible outside violence--I
happened to hear a low rumble. When I turned my head, I saw a huge armored tank
rolling by, British soldiers--with their guns ready--seated on top.
This was the mental picture my mind
jumped back to when I was standing on the ancient city wall of Londonderry
almost fifty years later, looking at the fence constructed to keep out the
Molotov Cocktails which were being thrown from Bogside.
***
As our tour group walked to the next
stop, I told the guide about this Belfast adventure, especially the tank.
“How old were you?” he asked.
“Not quite twenty-one.”
“I find it very surprising that you’d
so such things alone, and so young.”
I shrugged. “Maybe I was foolish, but
God took care of me.”
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