An Unexpected Hello from Clifden, Ireland

Life Advice from an Irishman of Deep Years on a bench

At about 2pm on Monday, May 11, nearing the end of five months of travel, I had already had quite a long day. I had just finished hiking Diamond Hill in Connemara National Park, about two hours from Galway, and my feet were almost as tired as my will. It was one of those days where travel just does not agree with you. I had to run to just barely make my bus that morning. The projected hour-and-a-half ride took over two hours. To top it all off, my bus home had just been cancelled.

The original plan: Galway, Connemara, Galway. Easy, simple, quick.

Part 1: An Itinerary Gone Wrong

But alas, easy and quick was not meant to be that afternoon. So, I decided to cosplay someone who goes with the flow and hopped on a different bus to a tiny neighboring town to find a bus to Galway from there. With this fun twist, I found myself with a spare two hours to kill in the small but mighty Clifden, Ireland.

The new plan: Galway, Connemara, Clifden, Galway.

Once my initial wave of annoyance passed, I realized what a beautiful Irish neighborhood I was stuck in. The streets were few, but colorful and bursting with small-town culture. It felt like the perfect setting for an Ireland-based Gilmore Girls, as nothing romanticizes a small town in autumn quite like that show.

I walked the streets, passed in and out of the aesthetically pleasing bakeries and shops, and wandered until there was no more to see. I knew my exploration of Clifden was complete when I turned my head to see I was surrounded by packs of sheep.

To end my exploration, I bought a celebratory coffee and scone, in hand from Lidl. I know it’s not the most romantic of choices, but I am a woman on a budget, so forgive me. The clock read 2:32, leaving me 28 slow minutes before my bus arrived. I sat on a bench next to a kind-looking elderly man in the miniature town square to waste away the time. As I reached into my pocket to grab my AirPods, I heard a spirited “Hello!” coming from my right.

The town square in Clifden, the bench where Talia met Mickey on the left

Part 2: A New Perspective from a Clifden Local

My head turned and I saw this man for the first time. He was wearing a button-down light blue shirt and a wide-brimmed hat, which to be fair, he pulled off, and a rocking white goatee. The man had his own style, that much was clear. “Hi,” I said with a slight head nod.

“And how are you today?” he asked. I was surprised at the continuation of the conversation, thinking that a mutual hello was the natural wrap-up of these types of interactions. However, though I was surprised, I was not upset by it. The kindness in his voice and curiosity in his eyes made my fingers, which were curled around my AirPods, loosen and set them down. I didn’t need them right now.

I discovered a lot about this elderly man in the wide-brimmed hat. His name was Mickey. He moved to Clifden in his retirement after working as a radio host. He had a son who lived in Galway with his girlfriend. He once rented a bike and rode all around Tel Aviv and parts of southern Israel. And he was now waiting for his phone, which was being repaired “downtown” (two blocks away).

Don’t worry, Mickey was as inquisitive as he was talkative. After his initial shock that I was not from Dublin, but from New York, he wanted to know it all. He asked me about my journeys around Ireland and why I ended up in this small corner. He asked about the origin of my name, Talia, and was pleased when he discovered it was Jewish, something I am always slightly nervous to share. He made a “hmm” sound that read as a mix between an “ah I see” and a smile. I told him how I loved my time traveling and the people I had met. I told him I wanted to be a writer. I told him I wasn’t actually sure where I was going in life, to which he nodded with understanding. Mickey was an honest man, and wasn’t going to say that that was okay and everything was going to be alright. Instead he just said, “Yes, there used to be a lot more time in a person’s life to figure that out.” I appreciated that much more.

I checked my phone as it reached 2:48, which was three minutes after I had originally planned to walk toward the bus stop, but decided I had a few more in me. Mickey asked how I found the Irish people, to which I happily replied that they had been kind and wonderful, welcoming me in with full arms. A sadness washed over his face and it suddenly felt like there was a weight we had to carry tied to our bench. Mickey said, “Yeah, people are nice, but let me tell you, they used to be nicer. You used to talk to everyone, but now you just can’t. People just don’t talk anymore.”

It had not been the first time I had heard this, so I replied and said, “I think it stems from a breakdown in trust. It’s harder to know if someone is dangerous or what they want, and you can’t always take that risk.”

He nodded and told me about his childhood, where hitchhiking was common and conversation was an expectation. Surely, he was romanticizing this era, but I let him do it.

We sighed in tandem and let the longing for the past, the one he missed and I never knew, linger in the air. The clock struck 2:57, and I decided this is where I cut off my “go with the flow” attitude. Reluctantly, I stood from the bench and told him it was time for me to leave.

Like the gentleman he was, Mickey stood to meet me. With an earnest smile, he reached out his hand for me to shake and said, “Thank you for saying hello.”

I nodded and left my new friend Mickey to sit on the bench we had shared for the last 25 minutes. None of our time together felt like a lonely old man thirsting for interaction. He was just a human looking for connection. I never got a picture of Mickey nor any form of contact, but I knew this moment, and the honesty of his thank you, would ring in my head for a long time. I knew that I would say hello more often. It made me wonder how many unreturned greetings Mickey had given.

It made me glad I put down the headphones and said hello.

Written by: Talia Horn

Talia Horn is a journalism student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who travels where she can, when she can. New foods and new hikes are part of the fun, but meeting new people is where she thrives and why she does it. She has visited 14 countries this past year and hopes to keep that number growing. Talia is the Arts Section Editor for Moda, her campus culture and lifestyle magazine, and writes about all of her journeys on her Substack. Follow her at: substack.com/@taliahorn

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