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One Spring Margot and her family made a dream come true by going to Ireland. Their trip began in Dublin, which is filled with intriguing history and the humour of the Irish at every turn.
But their favourite adventure happened in beautiful County Kerry.
Early in the morning a van picked them up at their bed and breakfast. It took them to Kerry town where they transferred to a funny old lorry. From there they climbed constantly uphill with the lorry chugging and bumping along like the little engine that could. It seemed as if the higher they climbed the further they left the modern world behind. When the lorry could go no higher, they were at Kate Kearney's Cottage, a pub so old that soldiers and smugglers had stopped there.
It was time to change mode of transportation again. There was a choice — one could travel through the Gap of Dunloe only in the same ways the Irish had for over two hundred years— by foot, on horseback or by pony trap. As Margot used a cane, she had to go by pony trap. A few kind Irish helped her get in. The trap man and the rest kept referring to her as The Lady. Phil and Nicole joined her and off they rattled and rumbled down the narrow, windy road into the past.
When
some sheep and their lambs wandered across the road Nicole
and her Dad got out to walk with them and pet them. So
Margot was left alone in the cart. As often happens in
Ireland, it began to rain quite hard. The trap man (who
walks along beside, holding the horse's reins) stopped.
He climbed into the back and tucked a tarp around her
and got back out. He spoke with a very strong Irish accent
and was dressed as his father and grandfather before
him would have been — with his tweed jacket and
cap, shirt and vest, warm pants and heavy shoes. As the
rain teemed down, Margot huddled under the tarp and felt
bad that she was riding along all covered up and the
trap man was out there wading through puddled potholes
and getting soaked.
She called to him, "Sean, please join me in the trap."
He answered, "No thank you, my Lady. It is for you to be sittin' there and me to be walkin’ here."
Just then the rain began to gentle and Margot gasped at the beautiful rainbow arcing from one mountain top to another. Suddenly she felt as if she had truly traveled back in time — that she was the Lady of the Manor on her way to tend to her tenants' sick children. The feeling lasted but a few minutes, but the magic of it stayed with her all the way back to Canada.
And it is a good thing too because only two weeks later Margot became dangerously ill and ended up in the hospital for six weeks. She was sent home to a much different life. She had to give up her teaching and her television work as The Book Lady. She was now in a wheelchair and could not even go out without someone with her.
Not being able to teach her beloved students and continue her work as The Book Lady left Margot very sad. When her friends asked her how they could help, she said, "Please bring me Irish books." Through those, she escaped her troubles and journeyed back to magical Ireland.
One day while reading a passage about Irish hedge schools in Jane Urqhuart’s novel, Away, a question came into her mind. She wondered, "What would it have been like to be a young girl living in beautiful Kerry during that ugly time?"
Her main character, Meggy, came to answer her question. Margot describes this magical moment, "Leaning close to my ear, she whispered her story to me in her lilting voice."
The hedge school facts came from history. But the feelings came from Margot's own struggles.
She and Meggy both found ways to love, laugh and learn even during dark and difficult times.