On June 26, 1997, the Spice Girls were dominating the radio airwaves, Evander Holyfield still had both ears intact, and I was 21 years old sitting in a bar at JFK airport drinking a Bud. I was about to enter my senior year of college, and was afforded an opportunity of a lifetime – I was selected to serve as a volunteer for a children’s summer scheme in Dungannon, Nothern Ireland. Back then, I had no idea how much that trip was going to affect me. 14 years later, and I still think about it, and am reminded of it, on an almost daily basis. For three weeks, I would be staying at a Youth Center in Dungannon and would have the time of my life. Evander Holyfield, however, wasn’t going to be doing so well – but I will get to that in a bit.   

This all came about during my junior year when I became the de facto President of the Mt. St. Mary’s Irish Society. What did we do as an Irish Society at a college? Well, of course we had “socials” at bars and would wildly celebrate at my yearly St. Patrick’s Day party. Which by the time my senior year rolled around – practically everyone on campus’s plans for St. Patty’s Day was “Marty’s Apartment”. But we did also visit a senior citizen home once a month to play Bingo and keep the old folks company.  Our faculty moderator was Dr. William Buckley – who on St. Patty’s Day would play Irish music at a bar called Bushwaller’s in Frederick, MD. One week, he came to our meeting to tell us about an opportunity with Pax Christi to serve as a volunteer at a day camp for kids in Northern Ireland. As enticing as it sounded, I was too broke to do it, and figured I’d never be able to make it happen. I could barely afford eight bucks for a case of Milwaukee’s Best, how could I pay for a trip to Ireland? But when the meeting left, he looked me straight in the face and said “you are doing this. You are perfect for this trip and you will thank me for the experience you have.” 

I applied for it, but like everything I did back then – it would be a mix of passion mixed with a touch of half assed-ness and laziness. I wasn’t really banking on getting picked. But in May, a few weeks after getting home from college I still remember getting the call from Dr. Buckley telling me I was selected. I ran to my hallway, looked down the steps at my dad, and screamed “I’m goin’ to Ireland!”That night,  I was late meeting some friends at the bar, but when I got there I was floating with happiness telling them about the trip I was about to embark on.  Looking back, it was such an awesome time in my life, the Philadelphia Flyers were about to start the Stanley Cup Finals, I didn’t have a care in the world, and was about to visit the Motherland. I’d do anything to have that feeling go through me again.  

The good thing was, I wasn’t going to be alone over there. My friend, and college classmate Mary McNamara was going to be a volunteer there as well, and we had planned to fly over together. However, in between the call  from Dr. Buckley and the actual trip- I had to get my wisdom teeth out. Mary and I were never able to coordinate the same flight, so I would be flying alone. A bit of an unnerving thought, as I had never been on a plane for that amount of time, let alone crossing “the pond” over to Ireland. But I was so excited at this point, I could have rowed to Ireland in a dinghy.     

The night before my trip I couldn’t sleep very well and was in and out of dreams. I dreamed of the rolling green fields of Ireland, I dreamed of meeting a pretty Irish lass and bringing her back to the States and having a million red headed children, and I dreamed of drowning in a sea of Guinness. Morning finally came, and although I was exhausted, I was eager for the long day ahead of me – I took a car service to JFK, and got to the airport five hours early. Luckily, I armed myself with magazines, books, my walkman, and a ton of mix tapes. What is very rewarding about the trip is that I kept a journal about what I did every day, how I was feeling, and the places I visited. It is written in mainly drunken chicken scratch. But reading it now, it brings me right back and reminds me how my 21 year old mind worked. I talk about beer and girls a lot in the journal, so really, not much has changed.

I wrote a bunch in the journal before I even arrived in Ireland because I had so much time. President Clinton was flying into LaGuardia so all air traffic at JFK stopped. We were on the runway for what seemed like days, and I was basically developing a hangover from drinking in the airport bar all day. As I was sitting on the tarmac for hours, I wrote that I was a bit nervous “partly because the wing looks taped and partly because the inflight movie is “Jungle 2 Jungle”. The plane was empty – it was pretty cool, it was a DC-9 and people could literally lay across the middle row of seats if they wanted to. I had a window seat and was sitting a seat away from a writer/photographer named Chris. I misspelled his last name in my journal and have fervently tried to google him for years. He was a super nice guy and very friendly giving me a bunch of great tips for visiting Ireland.

When I landed in Dublin, we had a layover- it was something like 7am Irish time, and 2 am on my clock. I didn’t sleep very well or much at all on the plane, so I was working on almost a full day of no sleep. But I had to have a Guinness when we touched ground and made a beeline to the airport bar in Dublin. At this point, there were only 13 of us making the flight from Dublin to Belfast, however, there were new passengers on at Dublin who were headed to the States. I befriended a guy my age named Declan Daly – his parents were Irish immigrants and he was going to visit family. Miraculously, we had the same exact flight home, so we planned on sitting together. (I was flying home about three weeks later, so it was odd that we had the same flight) Thinking back, I am amazed that I didn’t have some plans laid out. Now, also, keep in mind the internet wasn’t really around back then and we were still a year or so away from toasters with wings and creepy dancing babies. But I had no ride from Belfast to Dungannon, I think my plan was to get a bus or train or whatever was available.

Another one of the 13 that made the trip to Belfast was a guy named Jimmy, who had lived in New York City for the past 12 years and was home to visit family. He offered to drive me from Belfast to Armagh, which was only about 10 miles from Dungannon and I would just have to catch a local bus. It would save me time, money, and a big hassle of trying to figure out how to get all the way there from Belfast. I know it sounds weird to catch a ride with a total stranger, but this was Ireland. The worst possible crime this guy could commit on me would be to kidnap me to the pub! I didn’t feel unsafe at all with him, and the ride was very entertaining. He told me some history on “the troubles”, and kept referring to people biased against Catholics as “black bastards”. He also referred to brandy as “good material” and told me not to be confused when the Irish would refer to something as “good craic” (Crack) because it meant a good time, not the stuff you smoke.      

 The bus pulled into Dungannon, and my first impression was that It was kind of a dump.  But it was a dreary day and the streets were empty. I saw a mural dedicated to Bobby Sands. I saw graffiti that read LVF “Loyalist Volunteer Force”, basically a terrorist group who were very dangerous back in the 90’s. (bitter enemies of the irish nationalists) I worried about possible violence in the town while I was there as I lugged my bag up a hill to the Youth Camp that I would be staying at. I found the place, walked in and was half-heartedly greeted by a few of the counselors. They weren’t expecting most of us until tomorrow, and did not seem happy to see me. I wasn’t the first volunteer to get there though – a Hungarian couple, David and Viola, were there already and all settled in. The troubling thing was that they told me that nobody else from America was coming – which freaked me out and had me wondering if by some crazy chance Mary and I wouldn’t be working at the same camp. It definitely set me off on a bad foot.

I was given a tour of the place – basketball courts, play room, game room, recreation area, backyard, and our “bedrooms”.  David and I, the only male volunteer counselors, would be sharing an all tile room that was basically a locker room in America, just no lockers. There were two very uncomfortable looking cots already set up for us. I threw my bags down, and despite being so sleepy, I was itching to walk around and get a lay of the land in Dungannon.  It was a dreary Ireland day, and most of the stores and shops were closed. So I had no choice but to find a pub! I went to a place called Weaver’s and got a chicken sandwich that had way too much mayo on it, and drank two pints of Tennant’s lager, which would be my go-to beer in Ireland.  

When I got back to the camp, they told me there was a disco for the kids that night, so I decided to take a nap and be ready for the evening. I took probably the best nap I have ever taken in my life on the most stiff and unforgiving cot – I may have reached hibernation status. When I awoke, the disco was just underway. It was a riot, little 8-9 year old kids slow dancing, running around, and singing along to songs, all wearing football tops or track suits. I can’t recall exactly, but seem to remember chuckling about what American songs they all went nuts to. The camp leader introduced me at one point in the evening and the kids gave me a “hip, hip, hooray”.  I felt like a rock star that night – the kids all wanted to talk to me, they clamored to get in pictures me with, they asked to get pictures with me. They told me stories about themselves, they asked me questions about my life and what America is like, and the kids who have traveled to the States puffed their chests with pride and told me about it, and if they had relations in the States, they asked me if I knew their Uncle Paddy, or Seamus, or Michael – no last names. But you know, its Paddy! They wanted me to dance with them, they roared laughing when I did a few goofy dance moves, I locked arms and made a huge circle with what seemed like a thousand kids. The bottom line, these aged 7-12 year old children made me feel so welcome and so appreciated I considered moving to Dungannon the very first night I was there.

There was one kid who stuck out to me that night – he was like a poster boy for Ireland. His name was Paul Corrigan – red hair, blue eyes, freckles – textbook Irish. His older sister was a junior counselor at the camp and when I met him I took a shine to him immediately- he was like another younger brother to me. He was a very polite, rather shy, but very funny little kid. And for the next three weeks, he was my right hand man- while camp was in session, he would just hang out with me while I ran an activity. The kids all loved me at camp, in part because I was American, and let them be kids, and didn’t discipline them like some of the counselors from other countries did.  But Paul was my favorite, and you could see the kids were jealous of that, and Paul seemed proud of the attention and fanfare I gave him. Thanks to the wonders of technology, Paul and I have been able to reconnect via facebook. The once shy nine year old boy is now a 23 year old talented musician living in Belfast. Recently, he did me the favor of taking a few pictures of the camp building to show me some of the changes in the area. Very, very cool that I am able to keep in touch with him.

The whirlwind night came to an end, the disco shut down, and the kids left for home. And the camp leader told us for the first night she would need to “lock us in” the building – which meant rolling down a metal gate that went over the front doors and padlocking it. She assured us that the next night and for the rest of the trip we would have access to the lock, but that night she wanted to make sure we were “safe”.  So we were basically trapped in this building for the night – if an emergency happened, we could exit through a fire door – but an alarm would sound. This was definitely unsettling to me, because I don’t like the feeling of being trapped.  My wonderful night took a drastic turn – the Hungarians slept together in the girls room, I could not get the tv on in the lounge, was jetlagged, couldn’t fall asleep, and was trapped inside a building in Northern Ireland thousands of miles from my family and friends. And I was still bugging out about whether or not Mary would be working at the same camp as I.  These fears rushing over me unraveling into the worst panic attack I have ever suffered and when I finally got the phone to work I called my dad to calm me down. My dad, aka “The Lion Tamer”, has always been able to calm me down and make me feel better.

Finally, after doing an Irish crossword puzzle, frantically writing in my journal, and listening to Barenaked Ladies on my Walkman, I dozed off to sleep. It was an emotional day – the excitement of arriving in Ireland, the attention I got from the kids, and the late night trapped and lonely feeling was just a wild rollercoaster ride for a jetlagged guy who had drank about 10 beers over the course of that day. I woke up to a new day, I felt refreshed, and when I came out to the main room, I found out that Mary was indeed coming to the camp. Little did I know, the adventure was just about to start!

(join me next week for the next installment of my Ireland trip!)

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