Skyler White

and Falling, Fly is implicitly based on a 2005 trip I too to Ireland. After I came home, I started writing, and many of the settings in the book come from notes I kept on that trip. In Dreams Begin is explicitly based on my current trip. I’m here to deliver my daughter to her German foreign exchange family and to learn as much about the Ireland, London and Paris of Maud Gonne and WB Yeats as I possibly can in a meager but packed two weeks.

With that goal in mind, Kaki and I flew into Dublin and headed to Bewley’s. It’s a magnificent old tea room that echoes the Egyptian interests of Maud and Yeats, in both name and décor.

Bewley's Oriental Cafe

Well fortified, I tromped off to spend the day at the National Library, which was very considerately hosting a Yeats exhibit. I spend two hours crouched in front of display cases, taking notes and ogling artifacts. It was wonderful.

Irish National Library during Yeats exhibit

The actual library is intimidating. I got a special badge, stuffed my giant bag into a locker and, armed only with my notebook and a pencil – can’t take your pen – went to battle the fearful microfiche. It doesn’t take long to go from lofty researcher to lowly Idiot.  But I got the Oct 16, 1891 edition of the Irish Times loaded into the archaic projector and read the entirety (early and late edition) for the day Parnell was buried in Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery. It was interesting to see Parnell’s wife’s letters to the editors, but I think I’ll end up using the quote from Maud’ diary for the endmatter of chapter three. The newspaper doesn’t mention the comet.

Thoroughly done in by library technologies (or jet lag), Kaki and I ate an early dinner of incredibly satisfying soup and the miraculous Irish brown bread that almost makes you believe in transubstantiation, and went to bed. We didn’t actually sleep, but we went to bed in our hostel bunks over the pub where the traditional Irish music of Paul Simon and Queen is followed by the street-sweeping trucks which are followed by the Changing of the Kegs (by alternately dragging and throwing the metal canisters over the cobbled streets) which is followed by the alarm clock.

Spire in Glasnevin Cemetery

It’s cold and wet and moody and we take the bus to Glasnevin. I find the perfect setting for 3.2 and leave a flower – wonderfully, the kind I carried in my wedding – for Maud.

Maud Gonne's grave

We’re cold and wet and tromp back towards Dublin hunting a converted church I’ve read about where we can get wi-fi and a meal. We find it and have lunch, tea and dinner, all at one go. We were hungry.

As we eat, the rain stops. We laugh about being dry out once we’re in, but when the sun comes breaking through the massive stained glass windows of the church, we stop complaining and change our plans. We take a train north out of Dublin to Howth and fall in love. It’s unbelievably beautiful, with the wind blowing the water into little fountains, and the houses clinging to the fierce risings of land out of ocean. Maud and Yeats spend some of their happiest days there, both individually as children, and as a couple, before they were lovers, before her son died, when he, at least, believed she might return his love. It was gorgeous, and austere and sad. I found a shell on the beach, a little white clam-like thing, and washed it and pulled the still-connected halves apart. I gave one to Kaki and kept one. I can already feel her going away.

Kaki on the beach at Howth

On our final day in Dublin, I left her with a wi-fi connection, and ran out to the museum. Got some wonderful notes on beautifully preserved Irish clothing and furniture, picked up Kaki and the luggage and got well soaked again walking to the bus for the airport. Across the street was the Gresham hotel, where Maud had stayed, so we popped over and ordered high tea. God. There is nothing like hot tea with milk and sugar to warm everything but your feet. We felt so good, just sitting in the beautiful old lobby, drinking our tea, eating the little cakes and talking to the waiter about the history of the hotel. Turns out it had celebrated its 100 year anniversary in 1964, and he knew where they had a stash of the little bound books made to commemorate the occasion. We left feeling full and well-documented to boot!

And I’m going to leave off the first part here, as we depart Ireland. Scott has been good enough to post some pictures and notes as I send them, and I will write more from London or Paris, where I am going next. But just as it made sense to start here, it makes sense to stop here too. Because Ireland is nothing if not a paradox, and if it is a place of beginnings for me, it is also because it is where other things have ended.