Day 1 2016 – We arrive, adjust, and it begins – Malahide
There’s nothing like arriving at an airport after an overnight flight and having someone waiting there to take care of you. The first face we saw as we emerged from the Arrivals gate at Dublin was Joe Nix holding the “Inkslingers/Royal Irish Tours” sign. We fell in behind him like sleepy ducklings.
And he got us to The Grand Hotel in Malahide in record time, and the front desk got us our rooms immediately.
We’d read some helpful articles about how to minimize jetlag, so instead of falling into bed, we went to the restaurant for breakfast.
We gasped as we entered the elegant room with it’s huge panoramic windows of the river delta outside, with all the anchored boats straining toward the sea and the beautiful blue sunny Irish sky.
After a very short nap to refuel, many of us went for a walk around Malahide, reveling in the sun and marveling at the foliage and the flowers.
We made it all the way to Malahide castle…
Where we were greeted by a scream from a saucy and superior visitor.
Some of us went for a tour inside.
And some of us just enjoyed the green and the sweet Irish air.
After a magnificent dinner it was time to set up the workshop room and meet to establish ourselves as a community of writers and write together for the first time. What a delight to hear all those writers’ voices step into the circle and share for the first time.
We were particularly excited to hand out the trip textbook Inkslingers in Ireland. We handed out a copy to each participant to keep. It contained most of the literary material we’d be studying and using to prompt fresh writing ideas in the coming week, as well as a short history of Ireland and brief biographies of many of Ireland’s greatest writers.
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