I’m writing from 35000 ft. above the Atlantic 850 miles from Shannon Ireland. I don’t sleep much on these flights. I need to be horizontal to sleep, give me that and I can sleep nearly anywhere. Absent that, sleep is illusive. One of the surprises of the day and trip has been my brother and bandmate Morgan has been with me the entire trip. You may ask, why is that anything special? Originally Morgan and Peg were going to be at a violin bow event in Brussels, Belgium. They were going to then fly together to Ireland where we would all hook up. That trip fell through so Morgan had to book his tickets separate from me. James and Bridget left for England last Friday, visiting family and they are coming into Shannon about an hour after we land. I wasn’t thrilled having to fly half the trip on my own, Morgan and I were going to meet in Newark, but somehow we had the same flights which pleased us both. I was reluctant to check my Cittern through. Unfortunately in its protective case it’s too big to get in the passenger section. I was sitting next to the window above where they were unloading the cargo and saw my case come down the conveyor. It was handled carefully which made me sigh in relief. I’m still a bit apprehensive until I pop the case open in Shannon. Interestingly the plane we flew in from Seattle is the same one we’re in now. they removed my Cittern to get the other cargo out only to put it back in.
On the flight from Newark to Shannon I’ve been seated next to a lovely Irish woman named Irene who’d been visiting friends in New Jersey and New York. She lived in New York City between 1983 and 2012 and moved back to Limerick. We’ve had great conversations most of the night. Neither of us can sleep. She “gets” our love of the music and country and seems delighted to encounter someone who loves dropping into Ireland and savoring the experience, sharing the joy of music.
We’re driving down to Cork today and have one session we’ve been invited to. I became aware of a young Bouzouki builder named Macdara O’Faolin who lives in Cork. Morgan found a series of videos produced in Ireland on YouTube, In one he’s playing with concertina artist Edel Fox and fiddler Neil Byrne. He’s a very good musician and fine player. I’ve been corresponding emails with him, speaking of Bouzouki building approaches, talking shop. I shared with him that we were visiting and asked him to let us know if he were playing out so we could listen. Instead he told me of a session he and his wife conduct at The Corner House Pub in Cork city. He said “bring your instruments.” That’s on Friday, in Cork City.
We landed in Shannon about 10:30 IST, my Cittern traveled beautifully and one of the cargo handlers holding it in his arms walked it in to the oversized section and carefully handed it to me.. Going through Irish Passport control was the opposite of entering the USA. Our man was joking with people, bantering and having a good time while putting us at ease. We drove south into Cork and through an amazingly circuitous route on mostly tiny country lanes and arrived at our rental in Inchydony. The house looks across a bay full of water when we arrived but at low tide is sand or mud flats. Morgan remarked that there’s a lot of clams in those tidal flats. Hmmmm? I’ll elaborate more tomorrow and post photos as well. I’ve had about 2 hours sleep in the last 36 so sleep is calling.