The Bridge

Every Sunday morning, we met between The Five Lamps in the middle of O’Connell Bridge. It seemed like an apt place to meet before making our way to church. Actually, it was a bit more for me to cross River Liffey than for her, but nonetheless, it was our habit, and we made a game of guessing which side of the street the other would appear on. From our meeting, we would laugh our way to St. Michan’s Church. I so enjoyed those mornings of sitting with her in the 900-year-old chapel. It wasn’t far, then, to walk toward Keatings, a quaint café.

To get there, we simply traveled away from the Spire on O'Connell Street, down Henry Street and Mary Street. The café sat at the junction of Mary Street and Jervis Street. She knew the owner, and we could sneak in the service door and sit quietly in a musty corner, and chat before the cleaning crew arrived.

We were students, then: a chance-meeting in a class at Trinity. She was at the top of the Irish Literature Class, and was considered an authority on George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Oscar Wilde. But, she told me that she disdained Ulysses and Joyce. We were studying European literature in a special program. After classes, we daily crossed the river to one of the popular coffee shops.

Seamus Heaney bought us a cup of coffee at the Metro Café. Personally, it wasn’t my favorite spot in the city, but she liked to be with the crowd, and rub shoulders with the writers and would-be poets who gathered there. One night, she managed to get free passes to the Abby Theatre. We walked from the Café with a crowd, and arrived in a mass. It seemed like a scene Becket would approve; we were indeed storming the marble.

Often, on rainy weekends, we went to the National Museum. The artifacts from the Viking period impressed me the most. There, we could track Irish history through the revolution. Many times, we simply avoided the crowds at the museum and stayed at school—pretending to study history for our classes, we visited the Book of Kells. Even after the tourists had passed, we could sneak in and stand in awe at the gospels. The intricate works contain the words of the Vulgate, a translation of the Bible by Saint Jerome in the fifth century. Sometimes, we stood and stared; other times, we prayed. A mystical sense that can only be described as “God’s presence” filled the room.

On cold winter mornings, we often rode buses, and went to St. Patrick’s for the day. St. Patrick’s is the oldest site of the Christian Church in Ireland. Other times, we might ride out to Kylemore Abby and visit her sister, and hike amid the ruins and restoration of the old estate. Her sister lived at the boarding school, and we enjoyed our minutes together, wandering the beautiful mountainside.

The night before our parting, we went to Limerick to visit her parents. Her brother was a rugby player, and that night, we stood in driving rain on the banks of the Shannon River, to watch him play.

The morning brought beautiful, clear weather, and we motored to Shannon Airport for my departure. We stood on the walks, amid the buses and taxis, and prayed together that someday we might be together again. We left saying those meaningless things: “I’ll write and plan on a visit.”

This morning, I drank my tea, and looked out over the Atlantic. Our gentle shoreline has not the majesty of the Cliffs of Morr. Though I love my country, my heart is still with her in Ireland.

Perhaps I should save a little for another class, catch a ride to Boston, negotiate a ticket to Dublin, and see if she still crosses O’Connell Bridge on Sunday.