Deirdre’s

Deirdre’s

August 8, 2025

Dingle, Ireland

Ireland is breathtaking and heartbreaking all at once. I thought about that this morning after being awakened in the middle of the night by drunken young people stumbling back into our B&B after being out all night. From my window, I could see them standing under the lights outside, laughing loudly before slamming the front door behind them.

At breakfast, I recognized them immediately—had they even gone to sleep? Their eyes were glassy. Clearly hungover, these young men were no longer laughing.

Lachlan looked up the statistics: Ireland has one of the highest rates of hazardous drinking in Europe. He said, “Studies estimate that roughly seventy percent of Irish men and more than a third of Irish women engage in dangerous drinking patterns.” And, “Nearly three people in Ireland die every day from alcohol-related causes, and for young men between fifteen and thirty-nine, alcohol contributes to nearly a quarter of all deaths.”

I don’t know how people can romanticize the pubs and drinking if they know these statistics. Alcohol abuse leaves damage inside families and communities everywhere.

I’ve seen it up close—in people I’ve known and cared about. In Sara, once my bully and now my friend. And in Heather, an Overcoming Obstacles student I met nearly thirty years ago in Indianapolis.

Heather was just a teenager trying to survive in a difficult home filled with anger, grief, and a mother addicted to alcohol. Heather told me she grew up watching people around her “getting locked up or dying.” She said that learning how to handle conflict and peer pressure in healthier ways became “a lifesaver.” Today, she works in a psychiatric unit, de-escalating conflicts between patients.

The Murrays and I headed out to drive the Slea Head Loop around the Dingle Peninsula. We immersed ourselves in beauty that made us gasp. Wildflowers in deep pinks and reds and purples lined the dark stone bluffs, while waves crashed below in layers of blue so vivid they looked painted—deep navy giving way to turquoise and then frothy white foam exploding against the rocks. Wind and water from the sea whipped against us as we photographed this incredibly special time together.

Then it was time to tour the town. What drew me back to Dingle wasn’t the scenery. It was Deirdre’s.

John and I were in Dingle for one day in the summer of 2017. One precious day that became unforgettable. We had driven along Slea Head with Sean, our guide in Ireland. He was the one who’d suggested Dingle for us, and he knew everything about the area—including a small café, Deirdre’s, tucked along a side street promising the best coffee and food we could imagine.

John had started using a walking stick around this time—years of rugby in South Africa had caught up with him. If you asked him as an older man whether he still would have played rugby if he had known what it would do to his hips and knees, he was emphatic: “Absolutely!”

Sean had played rugby in school. He and John immediately bonded over sports. When we arrived at the café, I saw this as my opportunity to get some me time and explore this quirky town. Before I left, I kissed John goodbye.

“Be careful out there,” he said. I wasn’t sure if John said that because he loved me and wanted me safe, or because he loved me and had come to depend upon me for so much in his life. What I hadn’t yet realized was how much I depended on him too.

But wandering the streets of Dingle? I was in heaven! Colorful buildings lined the narrow roads. Music drifted from the pubs. I stopped into shops and laughed as I walked through Dick Mack’s, where leather belts hung on one side of the store and whiskey was poured on the other. You came in for a belt of whiskey and left with a belt to wear.

I completely and joyfully lost track of time.

When I finally looked at my watch, there was instant panic. More than an hour had passed, and I had no idea how to get back. I couldn’t remember the name of the café or even what the building looked like. I stopped strangers trying to describe it: “A café! . . . Maybe pink? Maybe blue? Yellow? . . . I remember flowers!”

Despite childhood fantasies of becoming a spy, I possessed none of the necessary skills. And the more lost I became, the more upset I grew because I knew John would be upset too.

Finally, after speed-walking nearly every street in Dingle, I saw it: Deirdre’s. And standing in the doorway was my husband.

Sean held the door open while John stood there with the funniest expression on his face—anger along with overwhelming relief. I snapped a photo. John’s brow furrowed as I approached.

“Where have you been?!” he whispered loudly.

No coffee for me. No pastry. No conversation. Straight to the car he went, and I followed. I apologized repeatedly while Sean laughed from behind the wheel. He knew I was in the doghouse. John remained silent.

But as we pulled away, I showed John the photo I had taken. The photo of an incredibly handsome man standing in the doorway of a charming Irish café. Making a squirmy face at his wife.

John looked at the photo, and the anger melted away. He smiled, reached out, and held my hand tightly.

I don’t remember a single other thing about that drive north from Dingle. But I remember that moment. I remember the love. That’s why I needed to come back here.

Lachlan went for a long walk by himself. Isabele joined me in my quest to find the café that had meant so much to my husband and me. She’d never met him, but she refers to him as John and knows as much about him as any of my friends in the United States do—if not more.

We found the street where I thought the café had been, but there was no café. Instead, there was a clothing shop. Next door, we saw two older women enjoying the sunshine outside a shop. I showed them the photo and asked if they remembered the café, and they said, “Oh yes! Deirdre closed her café in 2018.” Just months after John’s and my visit, Deirdre’s was gone.

For dinner, the Murrays and I decided to return to the restaurant where we had eaten last night: The Fish Box. The B&B owner had said it’s owned and run by Micheál Flannery and his family.

Micheál remembered us from the prior night. He asked us about our day, and I shared my disappointment in not finding the café that had meant so much to my husband and me. I’d wanted to meet Deirdre and tell her how much the memory of her place meant to us.

Micheál asked, “Deirdre’s? That was my mum’s café. She closed it in 2018 to help me here. She’s our chef!”

Micheál went to the kitchen to tell his mother my story. She came out, we hugged, and chatted about our husbands and families. She shared that she would be coming to New York sometime soon, and I offered to take her on a food tour of the Upper West Side.

As Lachlan, Isabele, and I sat talking over dinner, I remembered something Lachlan once wrote after reading an early draft of Packets of Hope: A Journey of Healing and Rediscovery: “I love the opening of Day 3! ‘No friends on the ship’!!! Boy, oh boy. How that is going to change!” He was referring to meeting the two of them when the Queen Anne arrived in Sydney—one of the best new friendships of my life.

Later, Lachlan told me he felt sad reading how lonely I had been when I’d first boarded the ship. But he laughed because, by the end, he said, I had found “some pretty cool people.”

They are far beyond cool. The Murrays’ credo is: “Seize the day!” They are inspiring.

And perhaps that’s what this entire journey is about. Not hiding from grief. Not escaping loneliness. But allowing life to surprise me again. Allowing strangers to become friends. Allowing old memories to become living ones.

After hugging Deirdre goodbye—after promises of food tours, future visits, and stories about people we both loved—I lingered outside for a moment, listening to the sounds of the town drift through the streets.

And I swear I heard John again.

“Where have you been?”