Travels In Ireland

“Travels In Ireland” is a creative non-fiction essay with elements of travel writing. It follows my journey around Ireland, including Killarney, Dingle, Kell’s Bay, Castle Desmond, Galway, the Aran Islands and Coole Park. This essay is in communication with other travel writing pieces as I experiment with the genre. In preparation I read many different examples of travel writing including Travels with Charley, Stones of Aran, and On the Shoreline of Knowledge. My initial plan for this project involved studying cultural differences and experimenting with the genre of travel writing. While I began this project without a clear picture of what it would become, it has developed a main theme of preservation and lost history. This both applies to larger historical artifacts and our own lives. In my readings of travel writings I discovered that while location and facts were important aspects, the best pieces relied on the actual experiences of people. Instead of being only about the place, it is a personal essay and tool for thoughtfulness as well. Through the use of folklore, history, and my own personal experiences I explored the differences in culture between Ireland and the United States. Folklore in this essay is used to demonstrate what we remember about the past, both fictional and factual. History contained in this essay ranges from ancient to recent, as did the sites I visited. The historical points out things about our own lives that perhaps we forget to notice or preserve. Finally, and most importantly, this is a story about my grandma and me and our adventure.