have thought.
Although I ground the gears once—okay, twice—using the stick shift in the Opel Corsa on my way out of the rental place and swiped the curb with my back tire, I still felt confident enough to take on the narrow roads and rolling hills ahead of me. I purposefully didn’t look back to see if the car-rental guy had clutched his chest and keeled over when I left. Best not to know.
The start of my route took me through Killarney National Park. The sun popped out of the clouds, which I took as a good sign. I switched the radio dial to Radio Kerry, which was broadcast out of Tralee and served the surrounding counties. There was some lively fiddle music happening, and I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel as I cruised over the narrow stretch of road.
I gingerly passed a tour bus that was pulled over to the side, and then a second, then I had to brake hard for a goat, who seemed in no hurry to move out of the road at all. In fact, when I honked, she definitely moved even slower. Lovely, a goat with oppositional defiant disorder. I hoped it wasn’t an omen for my trip. Finally, I was off the tourist route and onto a narrower and rougher patch of road that cut through the middle of the Ring of Kerry, the tourist loop that took visitors all around County Kerry, and well on my way to the village of Finn’s Hollow.
The rugged path wound up through the craggy hills. Sweeps of velvet green were studded with gray granite rocks jutting up through the earth like fists punching up to reach the sky. Despite the cold, I rolled down my window a few inches to bring in the fresh air while the car’s heater kicked out a steady stream of warmth, keeping my feet toasty. The sweet cool air from outside was thick and lush and scented with the smell of fresh grass and damp earth. I felt something inside of me shift as my memories of this place filled me up with a sense of joy. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed Ireland until this very moment. It felt like coming home.
It was early afternoon before I reached the turnoff onto an even smaller and narrower road that would take me to my ultimate destination—a bed. The midday coffee was wearing off, and I was feeling a little shaky as I turned down the steep hill, took a long curve, climbed up another hill, and came to a stop at a four-way intersection where there was not a single soul in sight. I paused to take in the vista of the village below.
A cluster of stone buildings were nestled in the valley as if they’d been planted there. It was exactly as I remembered it, and I was surprised at how little Finn’s Hollow had changed in seven years. But then I realized my impression was from a distance. The town, like me, might appear the same on the outside, but significant changes had likely happened within, possibly not noticeable until I was in the heart of it. I stepped on the gas.
Finn’s Hollow was small, even for a village, with one church, a post office, a modest grocery, three bed-and-breakfasts, and a pub called the Top of the Hill, which seemed to be a bit of a misnomer, since it actually sat at the very bottom of the hill at the end of the road.
Michael Stewart, who’d owned the pub when I’d last been here, liked to tell the tale of how the pub had started at the top of the hill but one year a horrible rainy season had come upon Finn’s Hollow. It rained and rained and rained some more. It rained so much that the townspeople had to use boats to get around instead of cars, the sheep began to grow gills and fins, and then one night, during the heaviest rain of them all, the pub slipped down from its foundation at the top of the hill and landed at the bottom. The townspeople were happy because they hadn’t been able to get up the hill for their usual nip, and the bar owner was as well, and he announced to one and all that he wasn’t going to change the name, because anyone who went looking for the pub on the top of the hill would surely be able to find it