r REFLECTIONS
A moss-covered stacked stone fence, one of many across the island, inside Killarney National Park. It’s impossible to capture the intense green of Ireland, at least with a cellphone camera!
There’s something about the Irish BY DAYNA DEL VAL
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Another beautiful brick and plant-covered fence, this time on the east coast of Ireland at Ballymakenny in County Louth.
72 | MARCH/APRIL 2021
rosted Lucky Charms. They’re magically delicious!” “Fresh and clean as a whistle!” When I was little, those two commercials pushed me over the edge. It wasn’t just the accents, which I thought were divine (although looking back, they were pretty awful), it was that cold cereal and soap had some kind of fanciful enchantment. The rainbows, the intense green grass and trees, the leprechauns and pots of gold, the slivers of green and white soap — all those things signified that Ireland must truly be a place of magic. Then there’s St. Patrick’s Day. The holiday where people claim to have Irish grandparents, drink green beer and celebrate with cabbage, corned beef and potatoes as well as community parades across the country. Because of the potato famine starting in the 1840s, 2 million Irish descended on America desperate for a better life. Those early immigrants from the Emerald Isle didn’t receive the warm welcome they had been hoping for, but they persevered in spite of the outright cultural discrimination they faced. Today, America has seven times as many people of Irish descent as Ireland itself. INSPIREDHOMEMAGAZINE.COM
