Last updated on August 30, 2025
You can find the first part here. Over the coming weeks or months, I will be posting this because, I am not sure it would see the light of day anyway. However, the story deserves to be told. Plus, I mean, it is great filler, right? It is meant to be seen as an autobiographical tale, of a man who lost it all, refused to see the good, and well, gets trapped in his head.
The adage is, write what ye know. And lads, I know a few things. I know grief and heartache. And I know what a good pub will do for ye. So, as we continue the introduction, the narrator turns to remembering a place (and yes, it is real) that meant so much to him, a place he never intends to see again.
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The walk in the woods is lovely, but my thoughts keep drifting north, back to Farren’s Bar. I started smoking there, watching the sea beyond the window as my heart beat in rhythm with the laughter surrounding me. Farren’s felt like a world apart— something about each of the people I met there that week crashed into my mind. The Guinness was perfect, poured with care, and the owner treated every patron like an old friend, whether it was a lively night with music or quiet reflection.
There’s a timelessness to Farren’s as if the walls themselves were imbued with an ancient kindness that can’t be found anywhere else. It wasn’t just the drinks or the hospitality—it was the sense that you were known, accepted, and understood. There is an intent to know the name of the person buying the pint or the shot, and it is surrounded by a feeling, perhaps as old as Ireland itself, that you are not only welcomed but appreciated beyond words. Perhaps if sacred scripture had known of Farren’s Bar, it would have reserved its highest praise for that small corner of the world, where pain seemed to dissolve like sea mist.
For six nights, it was the only place I felt whole again. Maybe you find your heart shattered like mine is, but somehow, while there, it felt different. It felt like it should heal. Sitting there at night, there were times – was it only a month ago? – that something there told me that, given time, my heart would be okay. Maybe you doubt this place exists, and you will decide to go and see if it does. Or perhaps you’ll need a drink after reading all of this. Either way, there is no better place in all of Ireland—or perhaps in all the world—where a soul can find rest. If mine ever does, it will be there. It is funny how now, at the journey’s end in County Kerry, where I have longed to be, my heart turns to that place. By now, it is a million miles away, lost in the fog of my memories; I intend tonight to make it a further million miles away by tomorrow. I doubt they know their impact on me, but I wonder if I could have found myself at Farren’s.
I have made it a point not to drop my butts on holy ground, and for some reason, I see this castle, with the ghost of Hilda Blennerhassett and her rose, as holy ground. So, I walk in the woods – besides, I find crying in nature less solitary than crying in my room – to smoke. The birds are here. The sun, not as rare in Ireland as I have been led to believe, shines through the clouds and the looming trees high over my head. The new gravel, still not so well traveled, crunches beneath my feet so loudly that I sometimes walk on the dirt just to get silence. This wood has a nice stream of water babbling through it, the cliché of all clichés. The road is off in the distance, with the sound of the passing cars helping to cover my sobs. It has been like this for weeks now, my heaves of woe coming upon me suddenly.
I initially took up vaping on the night we reunited. We had known each other before. But that day, that late October day full of the approach of autumn, with the leaves starting to turn golden and the crispness of the air settling in on the Western Slope of the Rockies, was the perfect day. It began with an invite to brunch, later found to be, well, nefarious in intent by a mutual friend. Fast forward to the Mexican restaurant later that evening, after brunch, she was vaping. And the only thing I could think of was being close to her lips. So, I started to vape. That led to serious vaping later. But when I landed in Ireland in May – was that only 31 days ago? – I took up smoking to help pace myself while drinking. Plus, I liked the initial high of that first cigarette. Either you commit or you don’t, and like everything I commit to, I am all in. I am now sitting at about two packs a day.
My final walk in the Irish woods brings to mind all my visits to Ireland. As I prepare to give you my life, I find myself paralyzed by the realization that these last two years have woven together the threads of my life, connecting them to my experiences here. Even memories before coming to Ireland seem to have found a resonance here that makes sense of them, connecting them to this island in some grand reverberation that suddenly makes my existence seem less of a discordant cacophony and more like a symphony orchestrated by Holst. I have no idea why or even where that sudden insight comes from, but it strikes me in such a way that I sit by this creek for a moment to take it all in. It is as if my entire life has led me to this point, to Ireland, but that is an apophenic spell I must be under. Am I a restless dreamer tracing constellations in the mundane as if the blank canvas of randomness had meaning? How can life be so ordained, so determined to lead us to a point? Do we not see stories in the echoes of silence to make sense of it all?
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