The Friends Tour

I recently returned from my Friends Tour of Ireland, Paris, and Israel. I’d been planning this trip for quite a while. I have three friends who live outside the US: one in each of the countries I planned to visit. What got me started on this idea was the 2019 World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin. Once I’d bought a membership, the idea of spending more time over there seemed logical. After all, the biggest expense was getting there. I contacted all three friends to see if they were up for a visit from me. They were all amenable, so we started planning.

I arrived in Dublin super tired the first day of the con. My friend met me at the airport, and we grabbed a cab to the Spencer Hotel where we dropped our luggage and headed over to the Convention Center. The convention itself was a bit of a surprise. I’m used to US-centric cons. This one centered on Irish literature specifically and the rest of the world more broadly. I chatted with Irish and Arab publishers and bought two of Irish writer Dorothy Macardle’s books from an Irish bookstore that displayed a selection of its wares in the dealers’ room. I’ll pause here to recommend her novel The Uninvited, a ghost story, as well as the black and white movie of the same name with Ray Milland, Gail Russell, and Ruth Hussey. Macardle was imprisoned for her political beliefs and once said, “I am a propagandist, unrepentant and unashamed.” This quote reminded me of the power of words and the strength of ideas.