..Trip to the Past..
...ACHILL ISLAND, Co. MAYO...

Achill seemed to place a heavy emphasis on Irish as a language. I like that.
It makes me feel further away from home.

And most of its scenery is still raw and untouched, save for a few roads built through it so people can more easily access it and exploit it with their cameras. If their cars can manage the drive up and down the hills.

The Jaegermesiter almost didn’t. (The thing is 15 years old. When we drive through towns, school children on their lunch breaks point and laugh. It sounds like a sarcastic hyperbole, but ask the kids in Kiltimaugh about the monster and it’s trailer that drove through the other day and they’ll tell you.)

Our last stop of the day was to an abandoned village at the foot of Slieve More. Because of the infamous potato famine, the entire villiage had to emmigrate to the “mainland” or overseas to relatives , or worse; no one. All that’s left of the villiage are the remains of buildings, most of which were tiny houses. I mean, they were so small that I don’t know how they could’ve housed a couple properly, not to mention any children. Seeing it sent me reeling into my imagination, trying to perceive how life was back then, and how destitute the situation must have become for everyone to decide to pick up and
leave everything behind. To decide they COULDN’T stay.

.One more opportunity to take another look at the world and my place in it. A humbling moment.