Nearly nine years ago, I stepped off the plane (after a series of travel problems) and walked onto a bus being driven by a man named Paddy. Out the window, all the grass was green, like Arkansas in Spring, with the landscape being broken up by shrubs to control the wind and a giant stone statue of a salmon.
I have very little photos of the summer I spent in Ireland, at least if you take into account how long I was there, and I have almost no photos of any of the cities we were in, preferring to preserve the landscape. It’s strange that the things I remember the most–the salmon statue and walking in Cork and being led around campus by a lovely blind guy, the vegetable soup I had for lunch in Galway, the time Niall (our tour guide throughout the summer) played American Idiot on the bus so that we could hear something of home, and the day I lost my wallet and ate cake for lunch–I have no evidence of.
My trip to Ireland was also the year after Once was released, which I was obsessed with, and it happened to also be the year P.S. I Love You came out on DVD. I watched the latter movie for the first time on the plane ride over, and considering “Galway Girl” by Steve Earle was played in every pub all summer, I’m glad I did or I would have been quite confused.
Over the years, I have made many, many mixes (2016, 2010, for example) around St. Patrick’s Day in celebration of this trip. They almost always include “Galway Girl” by Steve Earle, because of the nostalgia, but if I made an entire mix this year, it would probably also include “Galway Girl” by Ed Sheeran.
If you’re tired of my Saint Patrick’s Day mixes, you can try the new Ed Sheeran album for some modern Celtic sounds this year. For the most part, I really enjoy the entire album (minus “Barcelona” because it just seems so out-of-pocket with the rest of it). There is just enough Celtic vibes in Sheeran’s “Galway Girl” and “Castle on the Hill” for me to remember the feeling I had as soon as I got off the plane and stepped on Irish soil–like I was finally home.