In a yellow house on sparkling Dublin Bay, I stay until I belong - Destinations

National Catholic Reporter, April 12, 2002 by Patty McCarty

Funny thing about Ireland. Lots of people go there. And go again and again. The island is small -- about one-third the size of Kansas. But there's lots to see, and you can't see it all in a week or two. That wasn't what I Wanted to do anyway.

I wanted to stay somewhere until I felt I was part of the place. Some may think that sounds as much fun as watching paint dry, but it was what I wanted.

On my only Other trip to Ireland 10 years ago -- a time when I did circle the island in a week -- I had spent a night at a bed and breakfast in a little town south of Dublin on the bay.

This time I would be traveling alone after reporting on a meeting at University College Dublin in Belfield, a Dublin suburb. I wanted to go back to something a little bit familiar -- the comfy beds and hearty breakfasts at Idrone House. I wanted to go into Dublin on the DART, the nifty little commuter train that skims along the edge of Dublin Bay with stops at all the little towns that were once seaside villages and are becoming hometowns for Dublin's bright young people. I wanted to walk along Dublin Bay and let its sparkle seep into my eyes.

When the taxi dropped me at Idrone House, I could smell the fresh and slightly fishy scent of the bay a block away. Bernie Potter, who was just starting out in the bed and breakfast business 10 years ago, welcomed me with tea and chocolate biscuits. She and her husband, Pat, who ran a nearby pub last time I was there, now share the work of the bed and breakfast with alternate time off for golf. (Idrone, also the name of a street that runs above the edge of the bay, is the name of an ancient barony in what is now County Carlow, south of Dublin.)

Idrone House is a sturdy 150-year-old house on a corner facing Newtown Avenue, which was probably new when the house was built. The house, which can accommodate nine guests, is made of cut granite blocks painted a sunny yellow with white trim around the big windows. The front door' is bright blue. Only two of the house's three stories show from the street. The land falls away at the back, allowing for the big back windows of the Potter's first floor apartment. I would stay here a week and then fly home.

Pat had scaffolding out behind and was painting the house, which didn't seem to need it. "Houses near the sea need a lot of painting," he told me.

My room was small, white, fresh and at the front of the house. Its big window looked across the street to the back of the Church of St. John the Baptist. The church was also 150 years old and made of cut granite blocks, but these, unpainted, were dark gray, making the church seem even more massive and, despite the airy steeples, ponderous.

A source of wonder

That church was a source of wonder to me. I visited it at least once a day and on Sunday attended a Mass in Irish. How could the Irish build a church this massive on this side of Ireland, I wondered, when my great-grandfather on the other side of the island had to flee the country after a run-in with an English soldier who jumped him on his way to Mass? He hid the soldier's sword in the thatched roof of his cottage, the story goes, took his two sons, left his wife and daughter and went to southern Minnesota. The wife and daughter came later.

Mrs. Potter had two answers to my wonderment: Catholics always built big churches throughout the island. And: A lot of people got away with murder in those days.

I had never thought of it that way.

On my first day in Blackrock, I went to the big church about 1:25 p.m. A few older people lingered. I asked a woman, "Did you have a noon Mass?"

"It's at 1:05 every day," she answered.

"The 20-minute Mass lives!" I thought. "These Irish pray fast."

That wasn't the whole story. One day Doreen Hackett, whom I had met at the church, stepped forward to lead the rosary after Mass.

Before each Our Father, she said, "Oh, my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those who have most need of thy mercy."

I knew that prayer.

After the rosary Doreen led us in "Hail Holy Queen" and "St. Michael, defend us in battle ..." I can keep up with this woman, I thought. Then she began a prayer that opened with "Mercy, my Jesus," and asked forgiveness for a vast panoply of sins. I decided she was way out of my class. Doreen later told me that was "the rosary and the trimmings."

Idrone House, the big church, the string of row houses that face the bay across Idrone Terrace, the big, old, down-at-the-heel Carnegie Library and the buildings that house a couple of blocks of shops and eateries along Main Street are the old part of Blackrock, the part called "the village." All around it are tall new office and apartment buildings and more being built.

"That old Celtic Tiger!" Doreen exclaimed. "I think we could do with a bit less of the boom, because there's cranes and building all over." She lives in one of the well-kept row houses down the street from the church. It is the home she moved to with her parents when she was a girl.