After a lovely few months in Indiana with the Krouses, I was excited to continue my yearly tradition of returning to Ireland for the Christmas break. Like last year, I again embraced the benefits of remote work and made it an extended trip, arriving at the start of Thanksgiving week 2021, and returning to the US early in the New Year. At this point I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to revert to the usual ~2 week trip home.
The beauty of arriving so early is that my family and friends were largely still busy with work, so I got a ton of uninterrupted time to destress after a big year of work. My best destresser is the gym, so I was happy to return to my teenage-years gym, the Phoenix Center, the gym where I developed the bug for picking heavy things up and putting them back down again. I was very happy my Dad had picked me up an e-bike in advance, as the 3 mile uphill cycle to return home after a tough gym session would have been enough to deter me from going at all (cardio is not my strong suit).
The other major benefit of being home early was that I could join the family’s famed yearly climb of Croagh Patrick (known locally as “The Reek”), a mountain in Co. Mayo which is one of Ireland’s most important sites of pilgrimage. My Uncle Rory has been organizing this climb for more than ten years, and has raised significant money for many different charities each year, including the Parkinson’s Association of Ireland and Irish Cancer. Given that I’d been living in the US for close to 10 years, I’d never actually made it, so I was delighted to be joining for the first time, particularly given that it had been cancelled the previous year due to COVID.
My Dad and I both hit the road at 5am the morning of the climb for the long and windy drive to Mayo. We joined my Uncles Rory and Donnogh, Aunt Dearbhail (and Eimer, who was joining for the after-drinks), several of my cousins, and a large crew of Rory’s and Donnogh’s friends and colleagues to start the hike at 9am. Likely as a result of the previous year being cancelled, and everyone having a huge hunger for being out and about after multiple lockdowns, this year broke the record for most attendees. The weather was largely good, albeit blustery and cold higher up, and 43 of us made it to the top in one piece. Through pure thickness (and partially to push myself in preparation for some bigger climbs), I was the first to summit, but it wasn’t long until the majority of the group joined, and we tucked into the many bottles of whiskey folks had brought along. This was followed up with many delicious pints of Guinness at a small pub right by the trailhead upon our return. Which was also followed by many more pints at the hotel where most of us were staying, well into the wee hours. I struggle to find the words to truly describe the brilliance of these epitomical Irish moments.
The following day, with fairly sore heads, my Dad and I headed out to visit Derek, a cousin of my Granda McQuillan’s, who lives close to Croagh Patrick. Derek had been particularly close with my Granda when they were younger as they’d attended the same boarding school. We both hugely enjoyed our time with Derek, learning so much more about Granda through his stories, as well as about Derek and his family. We also got to explore a little of nearby Achill Island, a truly beautiful part of the country.
Throughout the busyness of the previous few days, Meg and I had also started to talk about a trip to London. I was already scheduled to visit my brother Cahal who lives in Mile End, but as the trip got closer, a little bit of FOMO kicked in for Meg and we had to figure out how to include her. Thankfully credit card points made this easy, and we rendezvoused at Liverpool Street station in London the morning of December 2nd.
What followed was a lovely week exploring and experiencing the city. We started with a visit to my Great Aunt Joan in Chelmsford, a city just outside London. I’d last visited and stayed with Joan during the 2012 London Olympics. It was a treat to get out for another visit, during which she served us her specialty minestrone soup (which was absolutely delicious) and shared stories with us from her and my Granny McQuillan's childhoods. Before we left, Joan even walked us to the nearest bus stop like our own Mother Goose! From there, we headed to Cahal's apartment, where we were staying for the next few nights. Cahal and his girlfriend, Joy, took on the roles of our tour guides and hosts for the duration of our visit, and they did an excellent job.
We made the most of our time by visiting iconic attractions like the Natural History and British Museums, Westminster, and Buckingham Palace. However, the real highlights were experiencing the magical Lion King musical with Cahal and Joy, indulging in a delectable afternoon tea at The Ritz, and catching the hilarious Book of Mormon in the West End. It was also amazing to see the Christmas decorations adorning the city. The lights spanning the shopping streets were spectacular, The Ritz’s custom-made ornaments made us feel like we were in a movie set, and London’s Winter Wonderland festival amazed us with its sheer scale. We still haven’t figured out where all of this is stored when it’s not Christmas, but suspect there are hundreds of warehouses overflowing with it all, keeping folks employed managing London’s Christmas fixtures year-round.
4 Peaks
At the end of our London trip, Meg and I went our separate ways. Meg returned to Indiana and I returned to Ireland to take on my next big hiking adventure. To help mentally prepare myself for this adventure, I watched Nims Purja take on the World’s highest 14 Peaks, but I was ready for something much bigger… the 4 Peaks of Ireland – a challenge which involved climbing the highest peak in each of Ireland’s four provinces: Carrountoohill in Munster (also the highest peak in the country), Mweelrea in Connaught, Slieve Donard in Ulster, and Lugnaquilla in Leinster.
I was taking on this monumental challenge with two of my best buddies from my time at Notre Dame, fellow Irishmen and ESTEEMers, Anthony and Shane, as well as Anthony’s brother Damien, who had actually completed the challenge a few months earlier and was looking forward to repeating it with the added winter challenge. Shane’s father, Kevin, also joined us for the first peak, as did Anthony’s father, Sean, and sister, Rachel, for the final three, so we had quite the crew at all times.
We managed the first three peaks and lengthy drives between them fairly quickly and comfortably over three days. On day three, however, after racing up and down Slieve Donard and speeding to Wicklow to attempt the last peak that same day, our luck ran out. We arrived at Lugnaquilla to find the Irish Army deep in a training exercise, shooting guns and blowing things up. Perhaps understandably, they wouldn’t let us onto the mountain. This left us in quite the predicament, but we’d persevered this far and weren’t to be stopped. We decided to wait until they were off the mountain, which meant climbing in the dark. This was not without its challenges, but thanks to Sean’s incredible wayfinding (Sean has summited both Mont Blanc and The Matterhorn, so knows a thing or two about mountains) and a great hiking app I use, we found our way to the summit of Lugnaquilla and made it back down safely. This unexpected obstacle made completing the challenge all the more gratifying, and I think we all look back on the experience with a sense of pride and satisfaction.
In the days that followed, I squeezed in even more hikes with family and friends and celebrated a classic Christmas at home. Unlike other years, however, I left Ireland shortly before the New Year. My friend Jason and I traveled to Dubai to visit our friends Gerard and Tom, who had been teaching there for a number of years. We were a little nervous to go as the latest COVID strain Omicron was making the rounds at a fierce rate, but given that we had non refundable bookings, we decided to take our chances.
It was a flying visit at only four days, but we made the best of it. We kicked things off with some cultural immersion visiting the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Centre for Cultural Understanding (I can’t help but think of Zoolander’s “Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good” every time I hear this name), where we learned about local traditions and ate a ton of delicious food. We balanced this out with a visit to Topgolf that evening for a different type of cultural experience. The next day we squeezed in a desert hike in nearby Sharjah, which we balanced out with some indoor skiing in the world’s second largest mall the following day (this was not the ski outing I expected to be my first for 2022!). For our final day, New Years Eve, we planned to venture deep into the desert for a day/night of camping and drinking, but sadly the weather had other ideas and we ended up celebrating with a NYE party at Gerard’s instead. We had a great night’s craic, and despite a few partygoers contracting COVID, Jason and I managed to evade it and were able to avoid being locked down in the UAE!
With quite the hangover, I managed to drag myself to the airport the next morning, where by the grace of God, I snagged an upgrade to business class for the 16 hour flight from Dubai to Chicago with Emirates. After an eventful and incredibly fun winter break this proved to be the perfect way to ease me back into life in the US.