Hands

Reflecting on my trip last month to Ireland, I realized that it was the group of ten women and two men that made it so special. The women especially: seasoned, smart, adventurous, flexible, no complaining about the rain that was constant although light, a combination of mist and drizzle. I began to photograph some of their hands as we sat listening to a lecture.

Our faces show the inevitable effects of age but our hands seem to me to retain a little of our youthful hopefulness. The trip reinforced the optimism that is so hard to preserve during these terrible times in our world. We were not in the parts of Ireland that were implicated in the rebellions that eventually forced the colonizing British to retreat. Instead, in central Ireland, we were treated to private visits at the big houses and formal gardens the Brits established in the eighteenth century when their control seemed likely to last forever, and it was touching to see, in two cases, that the owners were hanging on, managing to secure enough tourists to help at least a little with their enormous expenses. But mainly I think these elderly owners are hanging on because of the pride of ownership—that might be considered an affliction.

My mother’s family—her great-grandfather is the link—were not from this part of Ireland but from the north where a 19th-century relative was dean of an Anglican church in the tiny town of Dromore. There is nothing left there; they did not have the means to build big houses. The Irish connection, over time, has lost its power; my mother’s family did not celebrate their connection with all the troubles that have plagued this amazingly resilient country. In the New World they found or hoped to find a new way, free of political turmoil and to some degree I think they were successful.

These hands are my tribute to persistence and humor and courage—in visitors as well as in the Irish themselves.

In Women, Travel Favorites of 2023 Ireland Mary Clifford Caperton Bingham