Most editions of Lighting the Path deal with an aspect of my family’s 2016 or 2023 journeys to the northern hemisphere; sometimes both. So please make sure to carefully note the dates of each post as you browse in order to better understand how it relates to the others.

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Before continuing I should acknowledge a communication received from a soccer-mad subscriber to Lighting the Path in response to last week’s piece, in which he shared his own perspective on Australia’s defeat by Iran in their qualifying football match on 29 November 1997. It turns out that very night saw the delivery of this particular reader’s first child. An unfortunate coincidence of timing, which left our friend in the awkward position of having to pay due care and attention to his wife’s circumstances, whilst simultaneously keeping himself abreast of proceedings at the MCG, thereby necessitating regular clandestine visits to the hospital’s waiting room in order to check the score on the television located there.

Thankfully, we are assured that the safe arrival of the couple’s bonny, bouncing, baby boy late in the evening more than made up for the pain of Australia’s failure to progress to the World Cup finals. The greatest of all possible silver linings it seems.

1 July 2023 (cont.)

Today Linda and I have another country to add to the list of those we’ve visited together, the Republic of Ireland being the first new entry in our shared travel catalogue since our ill-fated journey to Thailand just over six years ago. (Let’s hope we don’t have to endure the same unfortunate concurrence of illness, criminality and misadventure here in Eire that we did in old Siam back in 2017!).

There are of course still quite a few boxes left unticked on our Bucket List Itinerary. But the reality is that we fully appreciate how fortunate we have been to experience more than twenty different nations together first-hand already; so that if our tally - when curiosity and courage desert us in due course, as they inevitably will at some point - numbers thirty or thereabouts, we will consider ourselves without doubt two of the very lucky ones.

If further boxes are indeed to be ticked in the not-too-distant future, it seems Canada & Alaska, the Iberian peninsula, and Scandinavia have the strongest claims, with South America and southern Africa sitting a little further down the pecking order, but becoming progressively less likely destinations as each year passes.

But back to the present. Today’s onward transit from the United Kingdom to the (ironically) European nation that sits immediately to its west was a reasonably straightforward exercise. Happily our midday arrival left us with the entire afternoon to explore some of what our first port of call - that being Ireland’s official capital, Dublin - has to offer, before meeting up with the group of complete strangers who are to be our travelling companions over the next six days.

I found Dublin a little difficult to pin down on first exploration. Our hotel, situated slightly west of the city centre, but in close proximity to the ubiquitous River Liffey, and just a (very impressive) stone’s throw from the Guinness factory, was comfortable, and well-presented. However the area surrounding it was as seedy as a vegetable garden on a windy day. Indeed both sides of the disappointingly dark and dirty waters of the Liffey appear to be home to an almost unlimited supply of down-and-outers. Knowing nothing of the antecedents of any of these people, or the options otherwise available to them, I try to remind myself that it may well be (ill) fortune, rather than merit, that has determined our relative positions, and offer as friendly a smile as I can muster to those few who appear willing to receive it.

In contrast, the area known as Temple Bar - cultural and creative hub by day, and a widely renowned, and densely populated nightclub district after dark (or on the weekend, as we are today) - offers as much noise, colour and vivaciousness as tourists our age can realistically be expected to handle. Meanwhile the historic sites and sights within walking distance of this precinct - including Dublin Castle and Trinity College, around 800 and 430 years old respectively - prove well worth our time and effort.

We also enjoyed sharing some healthy banter with a few of the rowdy Gaelic football fans who are wetting their whistles en route to the quarter-final of the All-Ireland Championships taking place at Croke Park today between their team, Tyrone (the underdogs we were assured), and the might of Kerry. Croke Park is not the home ground for either of these teams - a bit like the MCG playing host to last year’s AFL Grand Final between the Sydney Swans and the Brisbane Lions - but it hasn’t stopped the throngs of (apparently very thirsty) supporters of both teams making their way to Dublin for the big knockout clash.

Unfortunately there would be no Cinderella story for Tyrone today, with Kerry winning the match comfortably, and moving on in due course to play in their 62nd All-Ireland final; a contest in which they were narrowly defeated by Dublin in front of more than 82,000 fans. Now how’s this for a stat? Kerry and Dublin have won a total of 69 All-Ireland Championships, with Kerry taking home the title 38 times, and Dublin 31. Every other team that has ever played in the Championships - and there have been another 23 of those competing squads over a period of 137 years - have won a total of just 68 finals between them all! And I used to think the English Premier League was a stacked competition. Seems it’s got nothing on this tournament.

But this wide-eyed observation and genial frivolity was really just a way for the two of us to fill in time as we readied ourselves, somewhat apprehensively, for the commencement of what was to be our first-ever overseas group tour. Why apprehensive? I guess it’s the fact that, especially as we get older and more set in our ways, there’s a temptation to worry ahead of time about what it could be like to be “trapped” for days on end in the company of a bunch of people we might have little in common with, as well, of course, as being required to operate to a timetable and itinerary over which we have little or no control. Fear of the unfamiliar is not something I feel overly comfortable admitting to, but there you have it.

As things turn out we need not have worried. Although the fact there were no real duds amongst our tour group, from our perspective anyway, does lead to the awkward question: Were we, in fact, the duds? Hmmm.

It’s interesting too how the people we ended up bonding with most strongly during the course of our shared week were those we found ourselves gravitating towards right from the outset over drinks and dinner during our very first evening together; almost as if there was some sixth sense in operation as we collectively speed-dated our way through the initial pleasantries.

And those opening exchanges were pleasant enough indeed that we were able to sleep soundly tonight, confident in the optimistic, but now realistic expectation that the next few days are more likely to be a memorable shared experience than a torturous period of voluntary group confinement. Phew.