Last week, I explained everything that led up to my first day in Ireland. To be honest, last week’s blog was pretty boring. This week I am going to tell you about everything that happened on my three week trip to Ireland where I volunteered at a camp for children. It involves beer, a scary Polish girl, car bombs, Austrian musicians, a dead bird, and Evander Holyfield’s chomped off ear. Sit back, and let me take you to the rolling green hills of Ireland!

The day after being locked in an Irish YMCA and suffering a massive panic attack, I woke up a new man and ready to see the town I would be staying in. So along with the Hungarian couple David and Viola, we strolled the streets, I bought some postcards, gawked at cute Irish girls, and had a few pints at a cozy little pub. When we got back, almost all the counselors had finally arrived – best of all, Mary was there. There was another girl from the States named Cherlyn who was 25 and looked 50, there were three girls from Poland- one named Maida who was kinda cute, Gossi who had crazy dyed hair, and one named Agnishka who I still have nightmares about. She fit the stereotype of what a typical American may think of an Eastern European – underfed, stern, creepy, and dressed in almost rags. There were two girls from England – Caroline, who didn’t say much the entire trip, and Anna – who hung out with Mary and I practically the entire time.  

I have to explain that Mary being there really made the trip. It was nice to have a friend and a familiar face there with me. If she wasn’t there, I am sure I would have a good enough time, but it definitely would not have been even close to the amount of fun that we had. We had jokes about the other counselors, made goofy Irish songs, spoke in awful Irish brogues, and drank half of Ireland’s supply of Tennant’s Lager. There were too many times to even remember where we would both be laughing so hard we couldn’t even speak. Plus she put up with my complaining about paying 25 pence for a packet of ketchup, and was there to laugh at me when I would get shot down by an Irish gal. When we got back to school, every other weekend we would go out for a few drinks and dinner in the town our college was in. The highlight of that was an end of the year “Townie Bar Tour” where we ventured into local bars that the college kids weren’t welcome in. A great college memory of mine!   

We had a brief little meet and greet, and the camp leader Monica told us what to expect. The camp was open from 10-12 and then 2-4 each day, and Fridays had no afternoon session. So we had plenty of time to explore, relax, and of course- drink heavily. That night there was Mass in the gym (it was Saturday night) and I marveled at how they didn’t shake hands at the Kiss of Peace and during Communion there was no organization- everyone just shuffled toward the front. After Mass they told us that the pub McGrath’s around the corner was having a BBQ and a bunch of bands playing in their “backyard”. The townsfolk had asked us to come, and the camp leaders thought it was a good idea to introduce ourselves. Of course, Mary and I jumped at the chance and we all headed over to McGrath’s.

Little did I know what the night had in store- because it was probably one of the best nights of my life and an experience I could never forget. Behind the pub was a little backyard, with a band playing and grills set up making all kinds of food. The other counselors all left pretty early, but Anna, Mary, and I were having too much fun to think about leaving. People were introducing themselves, buying me drinks, dancing, singing along, and laughing. At one point I went to the bathroom and noticed that the Holyfield/Tyson fight was going to be on. I asked a bunch of lads when it came on, and they replied “Oh, not till 3am our time”. (So I figured I would be asleep by then!) Back outside, Anna from England was chatting up a guy named Barry, and I was talking to his friends Garry and Martin. Martin was from Derry, you couldn’t understand a word he said, and looked like a tall version of me. It was eerie. Anna wound up leaving with Barry, and Mary suggested that I go with his friends when they leave to make sure Anna is ok. The night blurred on, and before I knew it, I walk into the bar and I missed the Tyson fight and the infamous ear biting incident! It was almost 4am and I hadn’t even realized it. Mary left, and I hung with Garry and Martin. At 5:30 am, we walked out of the pub with a six pack of tall cans and a small bottle of whiskey. We went to a cab shop, and the dispatcher poured us some cokes and we all (including the cab dispatcher) did a shot of whiskey at 6am after a night out and a thousand pints. We get to the guys place- Garry made a bunch of greasy food, and I passed out on the couch.

The next day, we got a ride back to camp and some of the counselors seemed pissed at me and Anna. I was trying to be the good guy and make sure she was safe! Regardless, they were just worried and I guess that’s ok. That night, the townspeople had sent over a bunch of bottles of wine. Cherlyn and I walked through town trying to find a wine opener- believe it or not, some pubs didn’t even have one. Finally, an older man wearing a tweed coat and appearing to have been pickled in whiskey bit the cork off a bottle – and started to drink the wine! We were finally able to get an opener, and headed back. At dinner, which was some disgusting slop the Polish girls made, Mary and I put down a few bottles of wine and were also on dish wash duty. We scrubbed the slop off plates and dishes, drank wine, and cracked jokes about the other counselors.

Anna, Cherlyn, Mary and I went to McGrath’s that night, hoping to catch even some of the magic and fun that happened the night before. Anna and Cherlyn left early, but Mary and I decided to stay. The pub was empty – except for the members of the band that played the night before. We wound up drinking with them, and when the bartender finally kicked us out, we went to the one guy’s house. His parents were upstairs sleeping, but that didn’t stop him from pulling out every bottle of booze in his home. A few of the guys strummed instruments, played flutes, and showed us some Irish dancing. It was an awesome experience, definitely not something a typical tourist to Ireland gets to do. In usual fashion for me at that age, I drank way too much. When Mary and I stumbled back to camp, we were met at the door by Cherlyn who told us we were inconsiderate for being out so late. (God damn right I was inconsiderate, I was 21 years old and in Ireland for the trip of a lifetime!) Both of us laughed right in her angry face. When I laid down in my stiff cot – the entire island of Ireland started spinning around me and I ran to the bathroom and puked my brains out. David came in very concerned to find drunk college Marty (not the polite, camp volunteer Marty he knew up to then) – I yelled “get da fuck out, I’m fine”, finished my business and plopped down in bed.      

Camp started that morning, I was nursing a serious hangover, but in those days, I was resilient and could bounce back better than anyone. The caretaker (janitor) of the place was a cool older guy named Jimmy. Apparently, I didn’t do a great job cleaning up after myself and Jimmy had to clean it up. But not before he made a few jokes about my previous evening’s indiscretions. He was nice to me even after cleaning up the mess caused from whiskey, pints of Tennant’s Lager, chips, and the slop the girls from Poland made the night before. But he was indeed friendly and easy to talk to and we talked about “the Troubles”, his life, his kids, Ireland.

The first day of camp was a riot – I refereed a street hockey game and marveled at how athletic one of the kids was. I broke up a few scuffles, and tried my best not to laugh as the elementary school aged kids muttrered curses to each other. A bunch of kids got hurt- it was sheer and utter chaos and I was questioning my ability to manage and supervise children whilst being severely hung over. After lunch, I was in charge of soccer (well, football) and that was the most unorganized and wild two hours of my life – the kids were maniacs and I was waving the white flag as I couldn’t control them at all. That night, it was me and Mary’s turn to cook so we made homemade pizza that came out awful. Later, on one of the rare occasions we didn’t go out- we got some wine and some food and just hung out and watched TV.

The next few days we went to different pubs at night, I went on a canoeing trip to Loch Neagh with the kids, and there was another disco at the club for the kids. Mary and I laughed at Agnishka, the scary, rail thin, 20 but looks 50, stern girl “dancing” the entire night. After the kids disco, we went to a pub called the Fort – paid three pounds to get in, but drank Foster’s for 50 pence per beer. On the way home, we stopped at Big Mac’s, a “chippie” that served Americanized food (aka deep fried and greasy food). I ate there constantly since I couldn’t stand the foreign counselors cooking. Plus, a kid from camp’s father owned it and his cute older sister worked there at night. So along with flirting with her, I also made the mistake of grabbing a guy’s boom box and putting it on my shoulder. The dude freaked out and said “don’t touch me machine, I’ll shoot ya fecking dead in the streets”. Mary roared laughing but I didn’t think it was so funny.

Things were starting to get a bit tense in the area because it was parade season and little did I know how bad it really was. Reading about it now, things really came to a head- it was actually the last time there was widespread violence in Northern Ireland before the Belfast Agreement was signed in 1998. Paging through newspapers I kept from my time there, it’s pretty shocking how bad it was. Maybe I didn’t realize it then, because I was drunk 95% of the time, but things were dangerous. We were only about 15 minutes away from Portadown, where the marches were to take place. At all times, helicopters flew over and there were armed Royal Ulster Constabulary soldiers marching the streets. I almost bumped into one once, and one night Mary and I talked to a guy in uniform – and as we spoke to him I could see another soldier across the street pointing his rifle at us – just in case, I imagine.

On July 6^th, we headed to the Coalisland International Music Festival – this would turn out to be one of the best days of the trip. There were people everywhere, bands playing, and the pubs were rocking. We bounced around different pubs all day, and ran into guys we had met earlier in the trip. As the pubs were closing, everyone descended on the town square – it’s a sight I will never forget – hundreds of people, bonfires going, and impromptu little jam sessions of musicians. People were so friendly – I had no problems snagging beers from people once I told them I was American. We headed back to Dungannon at almost six in the morning. Mary and I had made up some ridiculous song in the tune of “Friend of the Devil” by Grateful Dead that started out “When I was in Coalisland”. We got a taxi bus back to Dungannon, filled with Austrian musicians, and on the way home we sang the Coalisland song and did impersonations of Agnishka. The highlight of the ride though, was when a bird hit the windshield of the bus (we were in the front seats). We made such a commotion, I am pretty sure Austrian/American relations took a hit that night courtesy of Mary and I. When we got back to camp, we found local counselor Patrick “Smiley” Rielly drunk amid a dozen empty beer cans. He had been waiting for us for hours. So after 18 hours of drinking we had a few more with Smiley before passing out.

Sunday afternoon we decided to go back to Coalisland to try and recreate the amazing day we had before. Upon arriving, things seemed subdued at the bar O’Neil’s we were at – because we found out that two hours earlier, an RUC woman police officer was shot in the bar! The day went on but was certainly not fun like the day before – not even close. We saw a bunch of the guys we knew and hung out with them but things seemed so unsettled. Soon we found out no cabs would run back to Dungannon because cars were being hijacked, there were roadblocks, and the roads weren’t safe. As I was making a call, I saw two guys run by me out into the street. There was a car parked in front of the police barracks and they fire bombed it about twenty five feet from where I was standing! Now we were freaked out, and as we walked through the crowd, we bumped into a guy Andy we knew who calmly said to us “welcome to Northern Ireland”.  Him, and the crew of guys we knew said we could crash at their place. We walked all the way to the one guy’s house, and he was kind enough to drive us home. We made it home OK, but from then on things were bad for the next week. That night, we couldn’t even leave our building – there were soldiers on the streets and once while looking out the window, a gun was pointed at me. To make matters worse, the alarm went off because the Polish girls brought some hippie guy to the camp and he walked out the wrong door. Not a fun night.

Things were unraveling a bit at this point, my journal entries were serious and I can remember not so much being terribly scared, but more upset that it was putting a damper on the trip. And then came the news that we couldn’t stay at the camp because of “fire code violations” – but I think that it was just unsafe in Dungannon at the time. So we wound up having to stay with Monica- the camp leader, in her place in Cookstown. We had been to Cookstown once before – and it had a pretty good nightlife, so in a way, I was excited. The first night was cool – we hung out drinking Carlsbergs with Monica and her boyfriend and listening to music. Until Cherlyn came down and shut the music off in a huff. What a bitch.

At the point in the trip, by the way, there was a huge divide between Mary and I and the rest of the counselors. In Cookstown, they all stayed upstairs and we stayed in the living room since we were out every night anyway. Anna was playing both sides, she went out with us a ton, but they didn’t seem to hate her like they hated Mary and I. Part of the problem was that we were there for a vacation, an experience, and to do some goodwill. And I had more money than I needed for the trip – it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I treated it like that. Most of the counselors from other countries were looking this as a free trip, but barely had money to do anything. I was very different back then – I didn’t care about offending anyone – I was out to have fun and didn’t care who liked it or not. I had nothing in common with these people, and was blatantly ignorant to learning more about them. It upsets me a bit now, but please keep in mind I was a 21 year old boozehound at the time! So appropriately, the Ireland counselors, by the way, loved us. Invited us everywhere, wanted to drink with us, and would go to the pub on our lunch break with us.

One night we went to a disco recommended to us from our friend Enda McGurk, who was a local counselor at the camp. It was at the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown (they still do the disco all these years later!). I wore cargo shorts and a long sleeve T-shirt – not exactly night club garb in Ireland. My attempts at talking to girls that night were laughable. You see, it sucks for us American guys. When Irish dudes are over here, girls think their accents are cute. Sadly it doesn’t work the other way around – they think we sound funny when we talk – not cute. In addition, I am not a novelty in Ireland – I looked like95% of the guys in the bar. Other than my voice, you would never tell I was American when I was over there. So, besides getting shot down, that night I was mocked by girls for the cargo shorts I had on. (Please note- this was before every twentysomething guy in the States wore cargo shorts) I was told I need to shave my legs, one girl asked if I was Australian, and one said “nice shorts” in a wise-cracking manner.

The camp was good that week – the kids were amazingly calm despite all the bombings, helicopters, and soldiers all around. I asked my little buddy Paul who his best friend was and he said “you” which was really nice. I went on a trip to an indoor water park and a place called Krazy Maze that week. The kids always wanted to impress me – one kid wore a Flyers jersey because he had visited Philadelphia and knew I was from there. They thought everything in America was gigantic, they asked if I smoked cigars and drove a big Cadillac, and they asked if Irish and Italians fought in the streets.  I wanted to tell them “only when they refer to spaghetti sauce as gravy”.

That weekend was the day the marches were to happen on Garvaghey Road in Portadown so it was advised we get out of Northern Ireland. Enda asked us to go to Galway – not going was probably my biggest regret of the trip. Instead, Mary, Anna, the four junior counselors and I went to Donegal on the west coast of Ireland. The trip took forever because the roads were so jammed. We stayed in a hostel right on Donegal Bay (which I just found out is now abandoned)– the room was dumpy, of course, but the view was amazing! The hostel owned looked like an Irish Jimmy Buffett. The first night we went out, right after eating dinner, Anna and the junior counselors all declared that they were now broke. It was only Friday night! So Mary and I had to pay for cabs, beers, etc. Saturday I got very grumpy about this and went to a nice hotel and had a proper dinner. I calmed down, Mary and I went to a bar by ourselves because the rest had went home- we needed a break from the rest of the group. The next morning I bought a sweater for forty pounds that I’ve never worn once because it is so itchy and heavy. Then we left and it was a nightmare getting home – we had no ideas of bus or train schedules so we did a lot of sitting around that day. A 45 minute drive in the States was a 7 hour trip home!     

Back to camp for the last week was sad – on top of Enda telling me how much fun Galway was, I was getting bummed out about leaving. On the way into camp one day, we heard a radio report about Versace being killed which hit home because his killer had murdered someone not too far from where I live. Another crazy event happening at home while I was away! That last week, Mary had a friend visiting so she wasn’t staying in Cookstown so we would cab it back and forth. Nothing too exciting happened the last week until the last two days. I had been flirting with this counselor Majella at the camp, and she asked me to lunch – we walked around, she helped me pick out some souvenirs, and we exchanged addresses. On my last day (I had to leave a day earlier than the rest because of my flight home), I walked her to the bus stop and when I got back, the entire camp of kids surprised me in the gym. When I walked in, they all screamed and came running towards me. One of the most memorable experiences of my life next to the birth of my son and the first time I ate a Baconator. The kids hugged me, gave me cards, posters, high fives, and well wishes. I don’t know how I didn’t cry, it was amazing.

Enda, Anna, Paul, and a few counselors walked me to the bus stop and sent me off. It was really sad thinking I would probably never see any of them again. My planning wasn’t great – my flight left in the morning from Belfast and I was going to the airport the night before. Unlike Philly and JFK, Belfast’s airport totally shut down – it was dark, there was almost nobody around, and I couldn’t sleep on the chairs. I should have just gotten a room but clearly wasn’t thinking. My flight back was sad, but I met a girl who was visiting the States for the first time and her reaction seeing New York City from the plane gave me chills- she was so excited, it was neat to see.

I got a back home and found my buddies and parents at my stop to welcome me home – it was great seeing them all and I told them all about my drunken adventures. I kept in touch with Paul and Majella for a bit, but then our letters stopped. My parents took us on vacation to Ireland in 2000 as a family – a wonderful trip but we didn’t have time to stop up in Dungannon. But thanks to facebook, I have reconnected with Paul, and a few others – very, very cool stuff. To this day, I still think about this trip all the time, and just as my parents did for me, I will fully encourage Jack to take advantage of an opportunity like this someday. Going through my journal, the memories I saved from the trip, and the pictures has been so enjoyable, and refreshed my memory of such a unique journey. To me, it’s one of the greatest highlights of my life so far!

Tweet  Print This Post

Tags: Marty digs, travel & foreign lands // 1 Comment »