I had so many plans for the trip –
castles, burial passageways, concerts,
pubs, live music, the site of the 1916 Easter Rising.

I wanted to walk back in history, see the life
once lived by the grandfather I never knew.

I wanted to see the jail where Grace Gifford married Joseph Plunkett
hours before his death. His crime – standing up to the oppressors.

I wanted to see so many things.
But it was not to be.
The pandemic took over.

Pubs closed, concerts and my flight home canceled.
Dublin became a ghost town.

Stranded in a different country that somehow
felt like home, I was alone yet not alone.

Friends stepped up with offers of money, hospitality,
help finding a new way home.
But part of me wanted to stay.

So, I drank my pints and Irish coffee at the hotel pub.
I took the last tour to Belfast.
I saw Trim Castle and the Bective Abbey
I walked St. Stephens Green and the
streets of Dublin.

I made the most of it.
“All I could do was shrug my shoulders
laugh and say ‘Ah sure, that’s my life
for ya’”
Credit – from Down The Crooked Road by Mary Black