After shaking off the worst of jet lag in Dublin, we boarded a bus for Derry. We passed by the sorts of rolling green hills you’d expect to see in Ireland, with happy sheep and cows and picturesque little towns. (At one intersection we saw four absolutely identical old houses on the corners; the bus driver explained that these were gifts from a fairness-obsessed father to his four daughters.)
In Derry our hotel was a short block away from the church-like Guildhall where we would play our first concert in Ireland. Next to the Guildhall is the old walled city of Derry, the last walled city built in Europe and one of the few places where city walls survive intact. Our bus arrived at the hotel at dusk, and even though it was rainy and darkening, Agnes Gottschewski and I were eager to see the old city, so we quickly stashed our luggage in our rooms, grabbed our umbrellas, and raced over to walk along the walls.
Stairs led us up to the top of the wall, and we walked along the top for a while, until a closed gate forced us to turn back. From the top we could see the narrow streets of the old town inside the walls, and outside the walls city lights twinkled prettily. We got back to the hotel, our cuffs and shoes a bit soggy, just in time for me to join a dinner expedition. Jordan Christoff’s research had turned up a nearby Chinese restaurant. The food was decent, and it was the first time I’ve been in a Chinese restaurant without seeing a single Chinese person. (Our waiter sounded Indian or Pakistani.)
The next morning, before rehearsal, I went back to walk the full circumference of the city walls. The rain had stopped. Even though I paused often to take pictures, it took only about half an hour. The wall is about 1.5 kilometers in diameter; these medieval towns were tiny. In places the wall is wide enough for a truck to drive along the top. Cannons bristle from various points, and trees are line some sections. At one corner of the old town is a gorgeous church, the first cathedral built in these parts after the Reformation; the sea captain who wrote “Amazing Grace” worshipped here.
It’s a lovely walk. Along the way plaques describe important features and events, and I got the impression that Derry is still celebrating victories and licking wounds that go back to the 1600s. (Maybe it’s a little like those places in the American south where people are still grumpy about the Civil War.) The city walls were never breached, though a famous siege took place here. During the Troubles, which started in Derry, a city gate might become a checkpoint that could delay and harass people on their way to work.
Derry has two names that reflect historic divisions in Northern Ireland. I think the town’s first name was Derry, but when the English settled here they renamed it Londonderry to affirm their ties to England. Which name to use? Lately, in an attempt to please, people have called it “Derry-stroke-Londonderry.” More recently a radio announcer shortened that to “Stroke City.”
Our morning rehearsal in the Guildhall was also surrounded by history. Warren Jones had been reading the beautiful stained glass windows, which include panels donated by the various craft guilds (including a panel donated by the musicians of Derry!), commemorations of the founding of the city, memorials to soldiers who fought in World War II, and a recent addition memorializing innocent victims of the Troubles.
After rehearsal six of us took a cab to the Giant’s Causeway, one of Ireland’s most famous natural sites, about an hour away on the sea. On the way we stopped to see an old ruined castle perched on a crag above the ocean. Apparently the kitchen of this castle abruptly fell into the sea one night, during a huge dinner party back in the 1700s.
At the Giant’s Causeway I was glad to breathe ocean air and walk in the sunshine between the cliffs and the water. The first part of the path reminded me of northern California, with craggy outcrops and fallen boulders. But then we came to the place that makes this site so famous. It’s easy to believe that this landscape was built by some giant: hexagonal pillars of rock rise from the ground in tightly-bound clusters, making bizarre hillocks for climbing, flagstones for walking, organ-pipe-like groupings for admiring. It’s the sort of landscape my son might build out of legos. A wide path of these hexagons reaches out into the sea, like a huge ramp. As at every other tourist site on this trip, I saw visitors lifting their digital cameras, as though making a ritual gesture to preserve the memory. Our little group did our share of documenting the Giant’s Causeway, too.
With this brief but intense experience of a uniquely beautiful and strange landscape, I finally began to feel like I was someplace.
Back in Derry in time for a short nap before the evening’s concert, I strolled to the Guildhall and had a brief chat with Kevin Murphy, who runs the concert series. I had met him years before at Apple Hill, the New Hampshire music camp that brings together musicians from conflict areas, including Northern Ireland, to make music together. Kevin has hosted the Apple Hill Chamber Players for “Playing for Peace” workshops in Derry; he is a fine example of a musician using music to help the cause of peace and understanding.
The concert at Derry, like all the performances so far, made a good connection with the audience, and this audience seemed extra friendly. I talked with audience members who were moved and impressed. Ian Wilson’s Messenger Concerto, despite its modern-sounding thorniness and its density, seems to touch people’s hearts quite consistently.
After the concert Kevin led us to a local pub where traditional Irish music is often played. The atmosphere was friendly, the crowd seemed happy. Three musicians were playing fiddle, guitar, and banjo by the front window. After a little while Adrian Spence ran to the hotel to fetch his flute so that Suzanne Duffy could sit in with the band. Suzanne plays regularly for contradances in California, and she knew most of the tunes that the Irish band was playing. She started playing slong, and it seemed to me that the energy in the pub lifted. A larger crowd gathered around the musicians, and two people started to dance.
The pub seemed to have people of all ages. One man with white hair and beard tried to tell me something, and it took me a long time to figure out that he was saying “Newport Beach.” His brother lives there, I think. Mostly I talked with our Camerata bunch, but we were surrounded by a lively welcome that, I’m told, is typical of pubs here. The music was too loud, but it didn’t matter, because the overriding atmosphere was so happy. I didn’t notice anybody attempting to be cool or concerned about appearances; this was more like a crowded family gathering than a bar scene.
The pub was festooned with artifacts: wild boar and other animal heads, unidentifiable meats hanging from the rafters along with a pig’s head wearing sunglasses, a very nice-looking bass drum and a head from another bass drum with the name of a flute band, sashes and tools and fish and plaques and memorabilia. This is the kind of place interior designers must be imitating when they try to make a bar or restaurant look homey and Irish, but somehow I think that no interior decorator was involved here. A calendar of Republican martyrs was for sale, along with “Free Derry” patches. Stickers encouraged supporting Palestine and boycotting Israel.
At one point, amid the noise of conversation and loud Irish music, I shouted to Adrian Spence, “Now we’re in Ireland!” He looked happy, holding a properly poured pint of Guinness, surrounded by colleagues who are also his friends.
--John Steinmetz
4/30/08
on the bus from Derry to Dublin
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