Bicycle Vacations in Europe and the Allure of Ireland
Editor’s Note: After five years in Alaska, Joe could have retired anywhere, so I asked him why Ireland. Joe explains that the real goal was simply to live in Europe. Summer bicycle trips of three weeks at a time had left him in love with the languages, the countryside, the towns and villages and the sense of history, and he had promised himself he would one day be immersed in it. Ireland, always in the back of his mind because of his Irish ancestors, offered the practical advantage of dealing with visas and bureaucracy in English, with the continent, or the Irish language, available later.
Transcript
Speakers: WJB — William J. Bowe; JH — Joseph Hart. Transcribed from the recording; punctuation added and obvious mis-hearings corrected.
WJB: And why Ireland? If you’re retiring here after five years in Alaska, there are a lot of places in the world to go. You might have gone back to Oregon. Why Ireland?
JH: Well, it’s a little bit of a curious decision, because the reason I wanted to move was just to move to Europe. I had gone there a number of summers to cycle, ride my bicycle in Europe, and I just fell in love with Europe. Some of that fascination had to do with all the different languages. Some of it had to do with just the different look of the countryside, the different planning for towns and villages, and just the feeling of the history there. And of course, that’s where all my ancestors came from, was from Europe. So it just was so interesting to me that at the time, I would go there for about three weeks. It didn’t seem to be worthwhile to travel 6,000 miles and just be there for one week. So about three weeks was the most vacation I could take at a time. So I would go, and I’d cycle around different parts of Europe for three weeks, and then come back. So I kind of promised myself that at some point, I would live in Europe just to soak up the ambiance and be immersed in one of the languages. So when the time came, and I had retired, I thought, “Well, if I’m ever going to do this, fulfill this dream, I need to do it now.” So I had to decide if I’m going to move to Europe, where? Where am I going to start living if I make this move? And so it was the fact that my ancestors — I’d had this branch of Irish ancestors that were always kind of in the back of my mind. I’d always wanted to visit Ireland, but when I finally decided where to go when I went to Europe to ride my bicycle, I thought, “Well, it’s kind of rainy in Ireland, and if I want to ride my bicycle in the rain, I can do that in Oregon and Washington.” So I thought, “Well, it’s probably about time. If I’m going to go there, and I’m going to live there for a while, why not go to Ireland? I’ve always wanted to visit, but I just didn’t think I would have a great time riding a bicycle in Ireland.” So that’s where I decided to go. I thought, “Well, I can—”
WJB: And where did you end up in Ireland? What part did you end up in?
JH: Yeah, I’m getting to that point. So the other advantage of moving to Ireland was that even though I was particularly interested in being immersed in a foreign language, I thought, “Well, if I’m going to move there, making that first step and dealing with visas and bureaucracy of getting established would probably be a whole lot easier to do that in English rather than in a foreign language.” So I thought, “Well, even though they’re trying to continue to have Irish as a living language, you can still deal with the bureaucracy in English.” So, that was another reason for getting established in Ireland. Then if I wanted to be immersed in a foreign language, I could move to the continent later, or try and learn Irish. So—
