Hiking Ireland Coast to Coast (Day 1)

Hello you. Welcome to the video. Welcome back. Are you ready? I'm ready. This across the road is Hollistreet Hospital. Maternity Hospital. And I thought what better place to start my walk than the place where I first entered the world. Where my energy first came into the world. So I was born in here on the 26th of April 1982. My two brothers were also born in here as was my sister-in-law and all three of my nephews. So this is where I'm gonna start the walk. Interestingly enough I cleaned the windows in this building here when I was younger too. So I know the building very well and the area. Head good, body good, feet good, mind good, all good. Let's go. As we turn the corner on my left is Merrion Square and just ahead of me on the right hand side is where Oscar Wilde grew up. So Oscar Wilde's childhood home is just up here in the corner. Let's go take a look. See this house on the corner over here was where Oscar Wilde grew up in the second half of the 18th century. Oscar Wilde was a world famous playwright and poet and he was said to be the first ever celebrity in the world. Celebrity in the modern sense of the word. And that was because he was very flamboyant, very outspoken, very controversial with his ways of thinking and talking. And the thing I loved about him was that he was a non-conformist. So he didn't just go along with everyone else's thinking and he came up with very unique ideas and thoughts, poems etc. which are now celebrated today. Not statue which feature lines, famous lines and quotes by Oscar Wilde. But I want to read something to you which really strikes a chord with me. With the abolition of private property then we shall have true beautiful healthy individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things and the symbols of things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist. That is all. This pyramid here also in Merrion Square which is where I am now is a memorial for all of the defence forces that died during service for the state. Beautiful buildings lining the road. Even more beautiful with the sun lighting them up. I used to sit on I think it was the second floor in this building. I did that for three years. I worked in Bank of Ireland Investments. I very much liked my job at the time. I was very good at it and I saw my future in this here place. But after my parents passed away which was around 15 years ago now or more than that. I totally lost interest in my career and essentially began asking myself is this the meaningful type of work I want to be doing with the rest of my life. And because I know this life ends and I've seen it with my own eyes with my parents. Perhaps I should be looking further afield than the desk in the window up here. This is Patrick Cavanagh a very famous poet to come out of Ireland. His work, his words, his poetry was said to have a transformative effect on culture. And one of the poems he wrote was about this exact spot where I'm sitting now. It's called Grand Canal Walk. But another of his probably more famous pieces of work was called Raglan Road. And this poem was then turned into a very famous song. Raglan Road is a poem about Patrick's doomed infatuation with a girl by the name of Hilda Moriarty. We've all been there. So this is the road where Patrick Cavanagh first laid his eyes on Hilda Moriarty. And Hilda was the inspiration for his poem Raglan Road. I just realized while trying to recite the poem to myself before this video that I can't recite the poem unless I sing it. And for anyone that knows the song, if you try this right now, try to recite the words without singing it. It's very difficult. Which means I'm gonna have to sing it for you. So it goes like this, or something like this. On Raglan Road of an autumn day I saw her first and knew that her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue. I saw the danger and I passed along the enchanted way and I said let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day. Starting to feel the weight of the bag already and disappointingly my legs. I suppose my legs are just not used to carrying this amount of weight. So it is early to be feeling that pain. But it is what it is. Just got to keep walking. Right now I'm going to look for a cafe, not just to have coffee, but so that I can use their bathroom. I stopped on the bridge back there to look at the apartments across the way. I was actually living in one of those apartments a couple of years back and I often used to look across at this grass bank and think to myself I should put my tent there some night. Just beyond as well is where my mother went to college. She went to like a secretarial college. She learned to type and to write in shorthand there. She would eventually work as the secretary to Mr. O'Neill from O'Neill's. Anyone from Ireland will know O'Neill's, the sports company. So it seems wherever I go in this city and on this walk today there's just all these different connections and I'm sure it would be the same for you if you were to do this. And it's interesting to experience in first hand because all these memories come flooding back and it's not just nostalgia. It's something that helps you feel connected to the places you're walking through. Something that helps you feel like you belong even.