Field Notes 001: Dublin to the West

Field Notes is a new series of brief dispatches from wherever the work or the wandering takes me.

We went to Ireland earlier this month. Seven of us, aged 40 to 82. I usually try to travel and blend in, but I knew this trip would be different. Being a tourist, it turns out, was harder for me to accept.

Inis Mór felt like a movie set. Surreal, but expected. Like much of Ireland, there was tension between local life and tourism, which was magnified by the island's remoteness (it is only accessible by boat).

John Fallon’s ‘The Capstan Bar’ in the Liberties in Dublin has been in operation in some form since 1619. It felt local, despite being next door to our hotel. At night, it would fill with people, most of whom seemed to come from the surrounding neighborhoods.

Frank’s felt intimate and familiar from the moment we walked in the door. The space was long and narrow, dark, with a communal table running the length of the restaurant. It reminded me of P. Franco (now 107 Wine) in London, which was an inspiration for one of my favorite Charleston wine bars, Graft.

The streets of Ireland were clean but gritty, and with an abnormal (for Ireland) amount of sunshine on most days, I found myself drawn to making black-and-white photographs.

The bright colors, grounded in the Irish landscape, drew me in. Signs of a tourist-driven economy on an isolated island.

Mother Mary. Kegs of beer.

We drank Guinness in pubs, many older than America, across Ireland. The St. James Gate Brewery tour was the most touristy stop we made on the trip, but pints of Guinness, poured fresh in pubs, often to the tune of trad sessions, will be memories that I carry with me.