In one short weekend spent in Ireland, I learned how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness, the real story of St. Patrick and, most importantly, that I need to go back.

Being part Irish-American, I set off for Dublin with high expectations. First of all, the Irish accent is a personal favorite of mine and I wasn’t disappointed. “What a musical language,” I thought as my bus driver exited the vehicle at three in the morning to verbally abuse the cab driver who’d just cut him off. “How mellifluous!”

Even the one small caveat in our vacation plans — the fact that the city’s popularity on St. Patrick’s Day weekend left us without a place to stay for Saturday night — didn’t dampen my enthusiasm. Another point won by Dublin— the airport officials don’t mind if you crash at the airport McDonald’s.

Which was a good thing, because in the early hours of March 16, every booth was occupied by someone in a Guinness T-shirt with a jacket pulled over his or her eyes.

It’s true that Dublin does pull out all the stops for St. Patrick’s Day weekend. The crowds were packed shoulder to shoulder in Temple Bar, which is not one bar but an entire block, and by the time the bars shut down, the street was ankle-deep in bottles and crushed beer cans.

But my favorite parts of my trip to Ireland had little to do with its world-famous party scene.

Dublin’s streets are almost as animated during the day as at night.  The city is filled with costumed street performers, singers and dancers. Most pubs feature live music at some hour, and crowds gather to listen to musicians play everything from traditional folk songs and ballads to Beyoncé covers.

The shopping scene is also well worthwhile. Clothing retailers offer everything from traditional wool sweaters and Claddagh rings to the season’s latest trends. And George’s Street Arcade is full of stalls and small stores that boast vintage clothes, records, books and jewelry.

Even Irish food, with its reputation for blandness, exceeded my expectations. After months of eating tiny slices of baguette for breakfast, the “proper Irish breakfast” of eggs, bacon, toast, potatoes and coffee was long overdue. Ireland even offers other traditional American fare not easily found in France, like Starbucks.

But some of my favorite moments in Ireland came when we left Dublin behind on an all-day cross-country bus trip to see the Cliffs of Moher. For a country smaller than Ohio, Ireland is incredibly geographically diverse, yet uniformly beautiful.

It only took three hours to drive from one coast to the other, including a slight delay caused by what our guide called a “Western Irish traffic jam” — a woman chasing a herd of cows down the road with a stick. But in that time, we passed hills, flat farmland, rivers, cliffs and huge swaths of rocky coast called the Burren.

Our tour guide explained to us, among other things, that the hubbub around St. Patrick’s Day is a fairly modern phenomenon, started by Irish-American immigrants looking for a way to celebrate their heritage. Ireland embraced the holiday, partly because of the lucrative tourist business and partly because it’d be insane not to appreciate a holiday defined by drinking in celebration of how great your country is.

But this story reminded me of how much more Ireland has to offer than St. Patrick’s Day parades.

As much as I appreciated the citywide party that is the weekend leading up to St. Patrick’s Day, I want more than ever to see Dublin again when the city isn’t full of tourists wearing leprechaun beards — and when bartenders don’t ludicrously overcharge for beers. The beautiful landscapes, historical sites and friendly people all deserve a second visit.

Unfortunately, I have no idea when or if I’ll be able to return to Ireland. Until then, an Irish saying will have to hold me over: “May peace be within you, may your heart be strong, may you find what you’re seeking wherever you roam.”

Maggie Cregan is a sophomore history and magazine journalism major. From Cleveland to Syracuse to Strasbourg, she enjoys rocking out and getting hopelessly lost. If you want to talk to her about this column, or are Keith Richards, reach her at mmcregan@syr.edu and follow her on Twitter at @MaggieCregan_SU.

Published on March 18, 2014 at 12:23 am