I should speak about Ireland now, with its green fields and its crumbling castles and its eternal rain. Mary had come to work at Tir na nOg, “Land of the Children,” our host’s indoor playground. Anne practically raised Mary and Thomas, and her son Kieran was almost a younger brother. (Now he is a surly teenager, who loves hurling, but over two weeks spared not a dozen words for conversation.) Now she spends her days running her own business, bringing brightness especially to children with special needs. By the time she got home, she was exhausted, but still she managed to run the household.

Fortunately we weren’t just there to mooch. I suppose I expected to be taken around the countryside and the coastline, shown the wonders of the Irish world, but what I saw I did on my own steam. Thomas, Mary, and I spent a day in Cork city — a bit disappointing, to tell the truth, but it’s the company that makes the day. Our day trip to Killarney was far more exciting. We took the tour of Ross Castle, and our guide had a soft lilting narrator’s voice. It was like exploring the setting of Beowulf or my most recent read, The Pillars of the Earth, all the while listening to a book on tape. The rain threatened us, but we made it to the ruined abbey on Inisfallen Island, clambering over the half-tall walls and gaping at the luscious lake scenery.

Having walked all afternoon, we compromised with a horse cabby and rode halfway to Muckross Abbey. Mary bemoaned the loss of its pristine ruination, since it was covered with scaffolding — restoration is sometimes less authentic than leaving things to disintegrate. But suddenly we were an hour away from the last train to Charleville, and we had to walk all the way back to town. Even speed-walking we were unlikely to make it. My solution? Hitchhike! A plan of indeterminate success, as car after car passed us by, but as Mary’s wellied feet began complaining, we were picked up by a friendly North Irishman — a visitor like us!

As wonderful as Ross Castle was, it hardly compared to Buttevant Castle. No one knows about Buttevant Castle — not even life-long residents of Ballyhae or Charleville, who live less than half an hour away. In fact, it was tucked away in a back street, with a rusty chained gate as a symbolic deterrent, and its walls were nearly stone rubble in a verdant jungle. With a little — okay, a lot — of encouragement from Thomas, we climbed through the half-gone towers and found nesting birds and second-story trees. This was the Ireland I was looking for.

But mostly the Ireland I found was at home. Thomas and I helped a bit at Tir na nOg, starting with jobs like “making sure the castle is safe” — really just license to fire the air cannons at one another and fly down the slides — but inevitably ending with cleaning up. I honestly don’t know how Anne does it all day, every day. The funny thing is, working with the kids, you find that their accent is about as contagious as their germs — Mary picked up both, and although I never got sniffles, I did start lilting a wee bit.

Anne and Paudie’s families all live in the area. Everyone seems to have large plots of land, some with fields of rolled-up hay, plenty of cows, and a few horses; in the middle of each, somewhere off the pedestrian-hostile roads, is a good-sized two-story house. Everything besides the ruins is new as of the Irish Tiger, and everyone has stories of growing up in third-world conditions — Paudie had so many siblings they had to eat dinner in shifts! Except for the shiny houses, you’d hardly guess Ireland was so new to middle-class-dom. Yet they got both sides of the sword: now they have American-style problems in addition to American-style prosperity.

One family who is friends and neighbors with Anne run an organic farm. They had us over for tea, and showed us all around — though they kept apologizing for the messy state of affairs, I loved the slight wildness of the place, with under-ripe apples at eye-level and fresh currants for the picking. (I get a thrill from eating food right from the ground, so used to stores am I.) They were so enthusiastic about sharing their passion for organics and polyculture, and I was so enthusiastic about seeing it all first-hand, that they invited us back for dinner the next day — pasta with tomato-chickpea sauce, and fruit salad mixed with orange juice, all followed by a struggle of Scrabble.

I must also mention the kittens, for they were adorable. Jill, their mother, was quite young herself — a teenager in cat years, yet she had had two failed litters before this one. This was the first time I saw cats actually feeding themselves with wild-caught things, though they were supplemented with store-bough cat food. There must be some semblance of domestication, of course! We took one kitten to its new owner when we were there, carrying him to a little girl who bossed us around (“Thomas, you have to go to jail. You’re too pretty.”) and who was determined that the kitten be a Dora (though when she finds out his real gender, we’re hoping for Dorian or Dorito).

The flight back was uneventful except for the failure of Orbitz to tell US Airways that I’m vegan, but I had inspired Anne to change her family’s meals for the healthier — she’s hoping to keep my “vegan shelf” in the pantry a little while longer — so I ate my home-made muesli with orange juice and was happy.

And now I am home again, with Thomas and his family on Cape Cod, reading and eating and swimming and socializing, and I could hardly feel more welcome and comfortable than with my own family on the other coast.

Oh how I love this life that I’m living!