I dozed fitfully and awoke to deep rumbles and crashes. For a second I couldn’t remember where I was, then my stiff neck reminded me that I had been lying against the hard wall of a ship’s lounge. I sat up, alarmed by the noises. Had we hit something? Was the boat breaking up? Then I realized that we were not being tossed around anymore. I got up and went over to a window. It was still quite dark but through the rain-streaked glass I thought I could make out occasional lights. Thank heavens. That meant we had come into harbor and those noises I had heard were the sounds of gangplanks being pushed up onto the boat. I peered at my watch. Four o’clock in the morning. An announcement crackled, telling passengers that the gangway was midships. I gathered my belongings and joined the hearty few who had braved the crossing with me, disembarking onto a windswept and rainy dock, apparently in the middle of nowhere. There were no signs of a city, no signs of civilization at all, and the wind was still driving the rain almost horizontally. If I hadn’t been raised at Castle Rannoch, where this weather counted as normal, I might have turned around on the spot and fled back to England. Except that I didn’t want to face that crossing again!

“Is this Dublin?” I asked a man who was striding out confidently as if he knew where he was going. I had a horrible sinking feeling that I might have taken the wrong boat.

“Dun Leary,” the man replied. I had no idea what this meant but I wasn’t going to show my ignorance. So I followed the other passengers to a bleak railway platform. I waited with the others and then boarded a small train that chuffed through the night. Eventually I could make out city streets and bigger buildings and soon we pulled into Dublin’s main station. It was still only five o’clock in the morning, much too early to show up at Kilhenny. What was more, the station was still deserted and the restaurant still closed. I sat on a bench, feeling wet, cold, miserable and far from home.

At six o’clock the station started to come to life and the café opened. I was starving by this time and treated myself to a proper breakfast. Thus fortified, I went to find out which train would take me to Kilhenny Castle. It seemed I’d have to get out at Kildare and find other means of transportation from there.

“You wouldn’t be the first person who wanted to get to Kilhenny Castle this week,” the ticket clerk said, grinning as he handed me my ticket. “I’d never even heard of it a few days ago. Now it seems the whole world wants to go there.”