Seáinín Lynch did not drive, so her trip to the summer solstice festival at Tara had to be meticulously planned. Irish public transport was sparse and not joined up if you lived in a small village twelve kilometres from Limerick, and her old bike would not be up for the job.
So: get a lift into Limerick, two trains to Dublin with a half-hour wait in between, a tram between train stations in Dublin, followed by a crappy diesel commuter to Dunboyne and then, finally, the private bus that would take them the last stretch to the Hill of Tara, a sacred rise in the middle of agricultural land, where the High Kings of Ireland had held court millennia ago, and the Lia Fáil, the Stone of Destiny, thrusted out of the ground at the summit.
She hadn’t been behind the wheel of a car since she was a student in Galway, taking lessons. It had all been terrifying, especially that bitch of a hill-start on Threadneedle Road, right on a junction, above the Salthill Promenade. Find biting point, the instructor had repeated, getting louder and more insistent as she revved and the car growled, until she finally lifted her foot off the clutch – only for the engine roar to die and the red battery icon appear on the dashboard.
And then…the slide backwards. The sickening terror that made her breakfast repeat on her. The instructor finally pulling up the handbrake with a graunch as she bawled her eyes out. The lesson ended early that day.
In her magical life, Seáinín was not so fragile. She had studied with a shaman in Peru, and with a yogi who instructed her how to open all her chakras for Kundalini energy. She was a Wiccan, but also maintained a deep interest in the Qabbalah and its tree of life. She had also studied the entire works of Aleister Crowley, though she retained the “an it harm none” that Crowley had dropped from the most important command. She was just twenty-three, but already widely respected in the Wiccan community.
She just didn’t do all that well with cars.
That morning, waiting for her lift to Colbert station, she smoothed down the dress she had chosen for the day, an olive-green cotton piece with a dropped waist, detail on the bodice and a hem she had taken up herself since she was only five-foot-three, though in the height of her spellcasting powers, she gave off the aura of being much taller. With that and a light cloak she had enough. Even Irish summers weren’t cold enough to demand anything more.
At the end of her long trip, she was tired but exhilarated, looking forward to the magic that was surely to come. It was half-nine at night and the June light was beginning to recede, but it was just bright enough for Seáinín to lift her skirts and avoid the mounds of cowshit dotting the sacred path. At the last few yards, she joined in a procession of healers, druids and Wiccans all carrying thick white church candles in round brass holders. They gathered around the Lia Fáil, making sure they made as perfect a circle as possible before Maureen Waldron started the chant: O Mother Spirit, O Macha hear our call.
Hear our call, the crowd responded. And again the call, and response. But it wasn’t working. There was no magic here, no presence. Seáinín was sure of it. The lights and noise of the M3 motorway a kilometre away disturbed the sacred silence, the birdsong at dusk barely audible. The whole thing was a washout.
Seáinín spent the night in a roadside hotel in Dunboyne trying not to listen to live country music in the bar, and feeling depressed. Was there anywhere in Ireland left where magic could gather or had modern life ruined everything? She’d heard the King of England read out a poem: all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell. She was no fan of the royal family, but that poem encapsulated her feelings perfectly.
The following morning she reprised that long, grim trip, which even fine weather couldn’t take the edge off and the weather was not very fine; skies were grey as discoloured white underpants in the wrong wash.
Without enthusiasm Seáinín made the six-hour journey in reverse: diesel commuter, tram, then the Cork train which she would alight from at Limerick Junction and wait another three quarters of an hour for the next train to Limerick city. This was the bit she was dreading.
Limerick Junction was a long, featureless hellhole where the wind seemed to blow harder than anywhere else. The line from Limerick to Waterford cut the main Dublin Cork line at a sharp angle, meaning trains going from one to the other had to reverse, a cumbersome operation. The fences and railings to the entrance looked like something to trap cattle at a mart. The one vending machine in the waiting room coughed out something that was called coffee but was weak as piss. There was no shop, nowhere to plug in your phone. There wasn’t even a village to speak of. It was the station in the middle of nowhere.
But when she finally set foot on Platform One, when the Cork train lumbered off on the southbound track and she was standing almost alone with drizzly rain flicking at her cheek, she felt it.
Magic in the air.
There was something about this unloved, unassuming place that crossed a boundary between the physical world and the spirit world. In the damp air, Seáinín could feel astral beings dancing. She wondered if the Irish Rail people would object if she raised her arms and just began a little invocation. Oh Goddess Macha, hear my call…
And there I will break off, for portentous omens and great miracles were wrought that evening by Seáinín Lynch on that cold, exposed platform where the trains rattled by, and should I speak of them I fear I would not live to tell the tale.
Many people on socials spoke of Limerick Junction station being a “thin place” and Green Party TD Brian Leddin even went so far as to upload “A Love Letter to Limerick Junction” to TikTok!