Bicycling in Ireland

“Mo”

I glance back over my shoulder and see Norah bringing her fingertips together into two points and tapping her hands together, the universal sign motion for the word “more.” She is riding behind on a toddler bicycle seat attached to my rental bike with a bright blue helmet on and an even brighter smile. 

“Twain, she wants more!” I yell into the cool, misty air and, like a small miracle, at least to her, he pedals up beside her and holds out a clementine wedge. It is just the right size to be clasped in her tiny fist and sucked upon. 

My husband, my granddaughter Norah, and I are out biking the Sky Loop road in Clifden, Galway, Ireland. The road extends along cliffs and hills that overlook small farms and the sea for eight miles and then loops back down along the rocky coast. 

Norah is 1 and 1/2. She has never been on the back of a bicycle before, and this seemed like a perfect first experience. 

There is a wet mist that is almost rain, soaking the roads and pinking our cheeks, but the three of us are well prepared with slickers, rain pants, and boots, and the gray sky almost makes the green of the moors greener. 

“Mo!” She calls again as we crest another hill. Again Twain happily obliges.

Up and down we pedal, the lane bracketed by ancient stone walls that mostly hold livestock in their pastures. We pass shaggy, fattened cows and “Mo” turns into “Moo” from behind me. We pass donkeys, chickens, and horses and, of course, we pass sheep. 

The sheep here are not white. They are multicolored with swaths of brilliant blue, verdant green, and glowing pink across their backs. Some of this is to identify one flock from another, but much of it is from big colorful crayons that the rams wear on their collars that serve to mark their chosen ladies. Norah neighs and baas and the rainbow flocks scurry from one fence line to the next, sometimes breaking out onto the road and looking about worriedly at their freedom.  We pass a small castle in ruins struggling to rise up out of the mud that surrounds it. We pass white-washed homes sunk into the hillsides with smoky peat fires trailing from their chimneys. We watch the waves push up against the shoreline. 

Ireland makes me feel old because everything here seems like it is sinking into the land as it slowly sinks into time.

Sometimes, this can feel heavy, but today, as we stop on a vista to look out over a bog I gaze back at Norah and see her lightly misted rosy cheeks and realize that I am experiencing the very best gift that getting old can bring. On the back of my bike, I have the equivalent of a sprig of wild rosemary bursting through one of these weathered stone walls, their exquisite lavender flowers all the more beautiful for the crags that they are held in.

This is a different kind of bike touring; nothing too much, no searing heat or gusty storms, no endless hours in the saddle or anxiety about where we will bed down for the night. It is just wide open, fertile country that welcomes us and hopefully gives Norah her first inkling of how the world can open up around you on a bicycle.