St. Patrick's Day: Memories of the Coombe

St. Patrick's Day reminds me of the year I spent living in the Coombe in Ireland, while teaching English at Trinity College Dublin. Here's a photo from that era, with my friend Serial Susan and two of the girls from the family next door, on the edge of the tarmac park just outside my front window. Not a lot of green space in the Coombe, a poor neighborhood a stone's throw from St. Patrick's Cathedral.
(Here's a Chieftain's tune called "The Coombe.")

One of my favorite memories from that year: the sonorous, joyous church bells marking the hours of the day. Spring in Ireland is a beautiful thing, as longer nights unfold and spring bulbs pop up in the parks. On the tarmac that year, all the neighborhood kids were doing the moonwalk.