It’s unreal, and not in a good way, being tucked into a safe¹ corner of Ireland while the United States careens from bad to worse on almost every front. It’s not comforting being so distanced from everything, knowing I have so many friends and family stuck back in the US. With most of the world closing their borders to US residents it’s not even like you have many options to leave if you wanted to.²

Most of the people I know are keeping their heads down, and just trying to get through to November.³ And voting the current administration out would certainly improve things.⁴ But what sticks in my mind, though, is that none of this is some radical new step for the United States. These same tactics — even utilizing the same departments — have been employed by the government for decades against all sorts of people: immigrants, protesters, minorities.

Portland is shocking only because those tactics are being used against mostly white American citizens. The president has indicated he’s sending police forces against Democratic cities, making them explicitly a weapon used to punish his political enemies. But it’s easy to trace all their antecedents, from the decommissioned military equipment being handed off to domestic law enforcement, to the black ops interrogation sites of the War on Terror, to the strategies used against the Native Americans protesting oil pipelines, to the stop-and-frisk policies used by the NYPD and others.⁵

All of these developed during both Democratic and Republican administrations. All of them have been previously deployed against American citizens. The only thing that’s different this time is the kinds of citizens they’re being used against. And if you always just assumed, having developed all those tools, some administration or another wouldn’t eventually get around to using them against you or your friends, I’m not sure what to tell you. It always seemed kind of inevitable to me.

If it’s any sort of consolation — it’s how I’m consoling myself, thousands of miles away — I think the smart money is still on a catastrophic electoral loss for the Republicans come November. And the Black Lives Matter movement has already started some grassroots change in how we police cities, which may yet bloom into genuine, real reform. But dismantling the militarized carceral state is going to take decades of directed, concerted efforts, and doing so in the middle of a hyperpartisan political environment makes real progress nearly impossible. Don’t lose hope, but don’t expect easy victories, either. The work takes generations.

As for me, I’ve been in Galway for the past month, and doing basically nothing. I was nervous about getting into the country — I double and triple checked all the requirements before I left Korea, so I know I was in compliance with the guidelines⁶ and still got an immigration officer who decided I didn’t deserve to be in the country. They subsequently only gave me permission to stay for two weeks.⁷ So I self-isolated for the requisite two weeks, and halfway through discovered there’s a blanket extension of two months in place. I mercifully don’t need to leave Ireland before September.

I was staying with friends, and I am eternally grateful for their hospitality. I have a rough guideline of not spending longer than a week crashing with people — it’s very easy to overstay your welcome, and I’m sarcastic and mercurial enough to get on anybody’s nerves eventually — but there’s a pandemic on and I hadn’t had an in-person conversation more complicated than “Can I get the noodles with that?” since I flew to Bangkok back in January. So it’s been a huge boon to my mental health.

I’ve been making use of the time by cooking. I haven’t been anyplace with a properly stocked kitchen since December,⁸ and just as importantly I haven’t had anybody to cook for.⁹ But now I have, and I’ve been working through a steady list of stuff I’ve missed and stuff I’ve wanted to try, a mix of chorizo tacos, and reubens, and mashed potatoes with corn-jalapeño gravy, and báhn mì.¹⁰

Among other things, it’s proved a reliable way to get out of the apartment now and then, stopping at the shops to pick up rye bread or Worcestershire sauce or the odd vegetable or two. There’s a farmer’s market downtown that’s open Saturdays, with one-way traffic due to COVID-19 and a semi-reliable line on things like leeks and heirloom tomatoes.¹¹ I did put in a day trip to Dublin to pick up particularly odd ingredients for Ireland¹² (with a stop at Ladurée because apparently that’s still open)¹³ but haven’t gotten out much beyond that.

The one exception was my birthday, conveniently a week after I was permitted to stop self-isolating. My friends and I rented a car and motored down to the Cliffs of Moher, across to the Aran Islands by ferry,¹⁴ then in and around Bunratty Castle before heading back to Galway for a proper sit-down dinner in a restaurant.¹⁵ Much of this wouldn’t have been possible a month ago, but there was a loosening of restrictions around the start of July.

It’s been interesting to see the difference between Korea and here in how the restrictions are in place. Here people seem more careful to socially distance themselves¹⁶ — I basically never really saw that in Korea — but mask usage was almost ubiquitous in Korea while here it’s spotty at best. Very few people wandering around outdoors are wearing them, and relatively few indoors as well, although public transit seems to have pretty good compliance. That’s probably mostly down to the official guidelines, but I’d be happier if everyone were to wear masks, if only to let me know they were at least nominally considering the health risks of their actions.

But I guess I’ll see how Ireland is responding to the Coronavirus all over. I’m currently on a train to Dublin, where I’m spending a few days before I start traveling around the country for a few weeks, taking advantage of the relaxed restrictions to see some of the places I haven’t. Ireland’s in Phase 3 of reopening, which means they’ve removed all restrictions on travel within the country, reopened museums, and now permit indoor gatherings of 50 people and outdoor gatherings of 200. I don’t know if I’m entirely comfortable with all of that¹⁷ but I think I am comfortable with renting a car for a few weeks and seeing some of the countryside on my own.

So that’s the plan. Head to Belfast and the Giant’s Causeway, then down the east coast past Tara, then zigzag up to Sligo, before heading down to Cork and returning ultimately back to Galway, where I’ll be spending a final two weeks with my friends before my permission to stay in Ireland expires in September.¹⁸ I’m sticking mostly to windswept crags and gardens and castles, always social distancing, always wearing a mask.¹⁹

I haven’t made plans beyond that. Things are still so in flux, so it seems foolish to think more than about three weeks in advance. But I’ll find someplace. I’m open to just about anywhere, as long as it’s not the United States. I just wouldn’t be able to bear it.

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Footnotes

¹ One hopes, anyway

² Although Ireland still seems to be open, if you’ve got someplace to self-quarantine for two weeks and the money to afford the flight. And can convince an immigration officer to let you in.

³ Some are protesting, of course, and those who can afford to are helping in other ways. But I have a lot of friends with kids or parents who rely on them, and the threat of getting disappeared or having your eye shot out by a “nonlethal” round is is dampening their enthusiasm for being on the front lines.

⁴ Although, let’s be real: do we really think the Q-Anon-addled right wing is going to react with grace and equanimity to an electoral defeat?

⁵ Stop-and-frisk in New York often consisted of small groups of plainclothes police officers jumping out of unmarked vans and rounding up people loitering on street corners, if that sounds at all familiar.

⁶ And coming from a country with a better handle on COVID-19, too

⁷ And I get it, honestly, there’s a lot of bad actors out there. But if you’re going to refuse entry based on whether you think people deserve to be allowed in, it seems only fair to make that criteria available before people travel, so they can tell if they qualify or not. You can’t demand that people restrict themselves to “essential travel only” and then reopen all your seaside resorts without expecting people to get confused over what exactly qualifies as “essential” here.

⁸ While I stayed in AirBnBs during the three months I spent in Seoul, most had at most a cursory set of utensils and cookwear. I probably could have managed a pot of pasta, but the outlay involved in anything more elaborate just never seemed worth it. Not with a dumpling place down the road that would serve me a dozen fantastic flash-fried vegetarian gyoza for less than $5.

⁹ I just don’t really cook for myself. Food is meant to be shared.

¹⁰ All appropriately veganized. I had assumed it would be difficult to find vegan ingredients around, especially away from Dublin, but it’s been surprisingly straightforward. Most larger grocery stores stock almond milk and vegan butter and the usual mix of fake chicken nuggets. Even ingredients like tempeh, which have proven nearly impossible to local across much of Europe, proved rather simple to find in local health food shops.

¹¹ Apparently much smaller than usual these days, but still respectable

¹² Matzo and poblanos being fairly high on that list. I struck out on the poblanos; for some reason Ireland sells virtually all spicy peppers packed in bags helpfully labeled as “fiery mixed peppers” and even if you did manage to identify one as a serrano or a jalapeño you’re stuck buying a couple packs since they’re likely to pack one each of three different kinds together. It’s madness.

¹³ Did you know Dublin had a Ladurée? I sure didn’t.

¹⁴ Inis Oírr, to see the Plassey Shipwreck. We took the passenger ferry there and back.

¹⁵ It is killing me that I’m spending all this time in Ireland and I’m not going to feel safe going into any pubs unless I’m the only customer there. The restaurants seem to be a safer bet, since almost all of them seem to have spaced all the tables far away from one another and are wiping down all the tables with a renewed zealousness.

¹⁶ Although somewhat haphazardly; you’ll still sometimes see people queuing up in a crowd or a bunch of teenagers ignoring the signs blocking off seats on trains.

¹⁷ I’m certainly not planning on joining any indoor gatherings of more than 5 people, let alone 50.

¹⁸ There’s a possibility they’ll extend it again — they just gave everyone whose permission expires before August 20^th a month’s extension — but I’m not holding my breath. I’m plenty grateful for the time I’ve been granted already.

¹⁹ Sadly, I don’t think I’ll be attending any concerts with live singing, although they’re permitted under current guidelines. I’m still considering whether I’d see a movie in a theater; I trusted them in Korea, but that was in a population with very different mask compliance, and what felt like more rigorous sanitation procedures.