I had so many plans for the trip \u2013
\ncastles, burial passageways, concerts,
\npubs, live music, the site of the 1916 Easter Rising.<\/p>\n
I wanted to walk back in history, see the life
\nonce lived by the grandfather I never knew.<\/p>\n
I wanted to see the jail where Grace Gifford married Joseph Plunkett
\nhours before his death. His crime \u2013 standing up to the oppressors.<\/p>\n
I wanted to see so many things.
\nBut it was not to be.
\nThe pandemic took over.<\/p>\n
Pubs closed, concerts and my flight home canceled.
\nDublin became a ghost town.<\/p>\n
Stranded in a different country that somehow
\nfelt like home, I was alone yet not alone.<\/p>\n
Friends stepped up with offers of money, hospitality,
\nhelp finding a new way home.
\nBut part of me wanted to stay.<\/p>\n
So, I drank my pints and Irish coffee at the hotel pub.
\nI took the last tour to Belfast.
\nI saw Trim Castle and the Bective Abbey
\nI walked St. Stephens Green and the
\nstreets of Dublin.<\/p>\n
I made the most of it.
\n\u201cAll I could do was shrug my shoulders
\nlaugh and say \u2018Ah sure, that\u2019s my life
\nfor ya\u2019\u201d
\nCredit \u2013 from Down The Crooked Road by Mary Black<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had so many plans for the trip \u2013 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91005,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90968\/revisions\/91005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}