Caol Áit in County Donegal
by Stefanii Morton
CAOL ÁIT IN COUNTY DONEGAL
A favorite family tradition had always been a tenth birthday trip for each of our children. We have covered a lot of miles together as a family, but for our four girls, doing anything with a parent on your own was a rare and treasured event. For each of their birthdays, the oldest three joined their dad on a work trip, including plenty of exploring and celebrating. The first went to Guatemala, the second to Greece, and the third to the United Kingdom.
Sadly, our fourth daughter turned ten in 2020: the year of the pandemic—and our divorce. There were no work trips (or trips of any kind), and family life was really, really hard. Her tenth birthday trip didn’t happen that year. Or the year after, and not even in time for her thirteenth birthday.
As I watched my youngest navigate the challenges of quarantine, social distancing, and the changes in our family structure, it all seemed to hit her just a bit harder than any of her sisters. The loss of her birthday trip was deeper than just a trip; it represented the collapse of everything she thought she knew about how our family and the world worked.
In 2024, I planned a mother/daughter/granddaughter trip to Ireland—something completely different than her sisters’ previous celebrations. The logistics were not easy. Balancing the abilities and interests of a fourteen-year-old and a seventy-six-year-old is tricky. How much could we reasonably expect to walk in a day? Could grandma start the day a little bit later and granddaughter a little bit earlier, and both be appeased by an extra cup of coffee at a cute sidewalk cafe? I asked them each to name one thing they most wanted to see and planned the itinerary around those highlights. I booked the lodgings, bought train tickets, and downloaded the regional bus app. My youngest talked incessantly about each thing we planned; it would finally be her turn, and excitement and expectations both ran high.
Twenty-four hours before departure, my mother’s husband was admitted to the hospital for heart issues. While she cancelled her flight, I scrambled to salvage the trip. Many of our reservations were non-refundable, but the emotional toll on my daughter worried me more. I could not bear to cancel. The plan had been for grandmother and granddaughter to fly home together while I traveled on for a week of work. My daughter couldn’t fly home alone as an unaccompanied minor, but she also couldn’t join me for the intense week of meetings I had planned. I booked a last-minute ticket for her nineteen-year-old sister, who hadn’t yet lined up summer employment (procrastination worked in her favor that year). She packed her suitcase, and we took off as planned—but also completely unplanned.
With four daughters spanning six years, the potential mélange of personalities is almost limitless, and the dance changes constantly, depending on who is together. The combination of Daughter Two and Daughter Four is unusual, and they don’t always get along. They don’t have a lot in common. One would enter high school in the fall, while the other would leave home to start university. One talks all the time; the other speaks only when she has something worthy to say. One wakes up ready to tackle the world; the other needs two meals before she is fully awake. But both are eager adventurers, and I hoped that would balance the differences.
I put Slieve League Cliffs in County Donegal as my request on the itinerary. Getting there involved a four-hour coach from Dublin, a one-hour local bus to Carrick, and a tour van to take us the last twenty minutes up to the trailhead. We did not have the gear for the two-and-a-half-hour hike to the summit, nor would my feelings about heights let me even attempt the pass between peaks that are barely wide enough for one person. When traveling, you quickly learn that some things do not live up to expectations, but the views even from the base left me without breath or words.
There is a rich history of Caol Áit—known as thin places—in Celtic spirituality, and the Cliffs are palpably thin. The physical place certainly felt closer to heaven, but even the air itself vibrated with a holy energy. Everyone around us spoke in hushed tones, and the usual tourist hubbub around Instagram-famous sites was noticeably absent. Hikers of all ages stopped frequently to simply gaze, breathe, and be. We squinted in the sunlight, brighter in the thin air, and braced ourselves against wind gusts that challenged our balance. The sky above flaunted a dozen shades of blue, and the water below ranged from clear azure to inky black when clouds scuttled the light. We were too high up to hear the crash of the waves, but the magnitude of spray left no doubt about their power. I saw the awe on my daughters’ faces, and we lingered until the last possible minute before nearly missing the shuttle back down to the bus stop.
The rest of the trip changed quite a bit from what I had originally planned. We walked more, slept later, and they each chose places to stop that I hadn’t considered. We wandered castle ruins, learned about the history of conflict between Ireland and Northern Ireland as we walked the walls of Derry, and missed our bus to the airport on the last day of our trip. They navigated the international flight home together without incident, and they each have favorite stories to tell. They didn’t come home best friends, but they now have a set of shared memories that is uniquely theirs.
Not one of us has been able to describe our time at the Cliffs adequately. We can recount the hexagonal stones at the Giant’s Causeway and review fish and chips from various pubs, but when we talk about the Cliffs, words fail. We sigh and leave the memories unspoken. I thought I was planning a mother-daughter-granddaughter trip, but God turned it into something else. I don’t know where my daughters’ faith journeys will take them (oh, how I wish I did!), or how their sister-bond will change over the years, but I know that we experienced a thin place together.
And when you stand where heaven touches earth, heaven leaves a mark that is not soon erased.
STEFANII MORTON
Stefanii reads to see how others make sense of the world, and she writes to process, remember, and sort things out. She grew up in the church but dislikes the current meaning of evangelical. In the wake of her divorce, she relearned how to find joy in small practices, like a day at the beach, time in the garden, bread in the oven, and the occasional foray into knitting or crochet. When she’s not doing one of those things, she’s probably out walking her dog, who needs far more than 10,000 steps a day to be a good boy.
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