The Least Irish Place in Ireland

By:  Rachel Orenstein

Monday, February 27th, 2023

If it weren't for the occasionally overheard accents, you'd begin to wonder if you were still in Ireland at all. The Emerald Isle is always a sight to behold with rolling green hills and imposing seaside cliffs. Beautiful, friendly, and filled with a deeply archaic power - that is the Irish way.

But this place, this seaside cliff-walk, was too bright, too brilliant to be part of mystical Ireland. Then again, perhaps that was its magic: the illusion of innocence. Under a smiling September sun, turquoise waves crash softly far below you and abundant purple heather grazes your arms. Despite your nearness to the Irish Sea, you could barely taste salt in the air. You trek along the thin dirt trail overlooking the cliffside, shuffling aside for passersby. 

In truth, you are quite close to a fatal drop. But it does not feel dangerous here at all. Your innate fear of heights is soothed by the curving beauty of the landscape. How could a place so angelic be scary? 

White birds soar along gentle breezes and you realize they have the best method to experience this landscape. Oh, to be a bird, following the shape of the land on parallel winds, free to touch the clear sky and bright water alike. How lucky they are, these seagulls, to be birds in a place as divinely sweet as this.

As you featherlessly march uphill, you pass houses with stone patios and tropical plants that seem more Iberian than Irish. Brightly-colored pots hold palm trees and cacti; flowering bushes and bamboo fences overlook a sandy cove. You come across a stone brick wall along the edge of a grassy cliff. The frame of an arched window looks out at sea, its glass panes long gone - perhaps they had fallen to the water themselves. You admire the random window and wonder at its original purpose. How human to build a wall but leave a window to still admire the sea.

You reach a look-out and take a rest from your hike. Standing on rocks much bigger than yourself, you breathe deeply. How tiny we are in the face of such majesty. Smaller than a breath in the great winds of the sky. And yet you realize, as the breeze lifts your clothing ever-so-slightly and the sun caresses your face, it is our breath that makes the sky.

Eventually, you wind your way back down the cliff-walk and return to the small fishing village of Howth. It is as though you wandered between worlds: leaving this stereotypically Irish town, you wandered the majesty of seemingly another place entirely. Perhaps you unknowingly crossed some portal; perhaps this land was once walked by the Irish sidhe (the native fey). It would seem this hike brought you to the least Irish place in Ireland for its otherworldliness. Then again, otherworldliness is a distinctly Irish trait.