A traveller’s tale by Linda Rooney
Earlier this year, in February, my partner told me he had to travel to England, and asked if I wanted to come too. ‘Sure,’ I said, and immediately started thinking of how we could get across to Dublin. When I hatched my sketchy plan to travel across the Irish Sea from Holyhead in Wales to Dublin Port in Ireland, I had managed my expectations to limit this experience to be as interesting as any other ferry trip I had ever been on, such as Sorrento to Queenscliff or Circular Quay to Manly. On that basis, I understand the question, ‘How can you make a story about a trip on a ferry interesting?’
Before the ferry trip, was the road trip, a two-hour drive from Liverpool to Holyhead which also exceeded my expectations. ‘What were those?’ you might ask. I think they were mud and rocks interspersed with a little grass. Instead it was bucolic countryside dotted with little villages and a roadside littered with interesting signs, like the one that promised coffee and something delicious, next left, up the hill. But all there was on top of the hill (aside from mud and rocks) was the shell of a building enclosed in cyclone fencing and a padlocked gate. Driving back down the hill we stopped at a servo and bought ourselves something called coffee from a vending machine. With the snow-capped peaks of Snowdonia in the rear-view mirror we continued on our merry way.
Holyhead port was a sea of cars and buses queued to board the Ulysses, a giant vessel looming in the foreground. This was not your bay ferry; this was a 12-deck ship. Later I would learn there is 4.5 kms of car and truck parking space on the lower decks. We parked the car, grabbed our backpacks, and made our way up the passenger stairwell. In my backpack was James Joyce’s Ulysses, bookmarked at the final chapter, ‘Penelope’, which I planned to finish reading whilst on board the Ulysses, travelling to Dublin to visit iconic landmarks mentioned in the book. How meta.
We exited the stairwell into the foyer of Deck 9. There in front of us was Leopold Bloom’s traditional Irish Pub and around the corner was Boylan’s Brasserie. This really was the Good Ship Ulysses. A steward approached us as we were about to enter Leopold Bloom’s. ‘Perhaps you’d like to make your way up to the club lounge on Deck 11,’ he said. Did we look like a couple of lightweights? Up the stairwell we went and entered the Martello club lounge. At this rate, I might not need to visit any of the famous landmarks when I arrived in Dublin. Later, though, having wound my way up the narrow stairwell in the actual Martello tower in Sandycove, I could see that the stairwell to the Martello club lounge on the Ulysses ferry was no comparison.
Photos by author
In the club lounge we were spoilt for choice. Which ocean view should we choose? What style of plush comfortable seating should we plop ourselves down on? We chose a couple of swivel lounge chairs in front of the floor to ceiling window above the bow, overlooking the Irish Sea. Looking closely, we could make out the horizon, distinguished by a slight difference in shade of grey. Should we get a drink and a snack? No, there was plenty of time for that. Suddenly the club lounge became a sea of green and red. It soon became apparent that the buses waiting to drive onto the ferry had indeed done so, and had offloaded hundreds of Aberystwyth University students, all on their way to Dublin to watch Ireland versus Wales in the Six Nations Rugby Tournament. It was now an obstacle course to the bar. An hour later, two drinks and a sandwich arrived. The hour-long queue at the bar called for thinking outside the box. Many uni students made their way down to the duty-free shop, returning with cartons of beer hoist upon their shoulders. More than a few empty cartons later, we were serenaded by the lubricated voices of Aberystwyth’s finest, as we sailed towards Dublin Bay.
We didn’t get to visit all of the notable attractions on the Ulysses ferry during that sailing; we did, however, dine at Boylan’s Brasserie on the return trip. I was expecting the menu to be replete with the gastronomic specialities favoured by Leopold Bloom: crubeen, sheep trotters, ‘thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with breadcrumbs, fried hencod’s roes’, maybe a gorgonzola sandwich, but no. It was a full Irish breakfast for us, complete with black pudding (hold the side of chips with curry gravy).
We also didn’t take a leisurely stroll along the Sandycove promenade deck, on account of not having packed our snow gear. We also didn’t visit the Cyclops family entertainment centre. I can only assume the entertainment involved hurling biscuit tins around.
I was asked if I would like to make the same trip across the Irish Sea by ferry again, that’s a resounding ‘yes I said yes I will Yes.’
Linda Rooney is a member of the Tinteán editorial collective
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