August 25: An Garda Síochána (The Irish Police) (Limerick)

Most of my best travel stories come from the moments I’ve often been most afraid (getting lost in the Bosnian mountainside, getting lost in the Peruvian Amazon, being stranded on a boat in Morocco, almost being kidnapped in Cambodia, getting stuck in a dead car in the middle of the night in a jungle in Cambodia...) While not quite as dramatic as some of these moments, I suppose this day will be added to that archive of travel stories that I break out when people ask me for “crazy travel stories.”

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It’s 2am and I’m woken up to all four dogs barking madly and a loud knock on the front door. I open it to find the Garda Síochána (the Irish police) standing outside.

For context, I was feeling pretty sick yesterday: sore throat, headache, a little achy. I haven’t been sleeping well since I arrived because the dogs inevitably start barking as soon as I’ve started to drift into sleep. They are loud. Four dogs. All sort of screeching, howling, and barking at once. It’s a miracle anyone in the neighborhood sleeps at all!

Desperate to feel a bit better, I decided last night to prioritize my sleep. I fed the dogs a little later, I re-filled their water just before bed, and I opened the back door of the house just a bit. It lets out into a very tiny enclosed patio. It’s not ideal, but the dogs could use it to go out if they were desperate. While I knew this wouldn’t stop their barking, I justified that at least I wouldn’t need to get up to check on them if they started.

Of course, despite this well thought-out plan, I fell asleep with just a bit of anxiety that the door was open - not knowing the neighborhood too well yet. And this is what was on my mind the first time the dogs started barking and howling around 1am. I cringed, hearing them run onto the patio, no doubt waking the whole neighborhood. It my hazy logic, I worried simultaneously about their noise and also that perhaps they were barking at some sort of danger outside.

But, they stopped after a few minutes, so I tried to fall back asleep. It must have been less than 45 minutes later that they started again. This time with unbridled passion! It was during this cacophony that I thought I heard a knock at the door. I lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, angry, tired, feeling a bit hopeless, and now also feeling worried about the knock. Did I really hear it? What if it’s an angry neighbor? What if the cops were there about a noise complaint or worried about dog abuse? My heart was pounding. I heard it again, unmistakable this time.

I went down the stairs, grabbing the dogs’ bark collars while I did, fumbling with them as I rushed to the door. The collars don’t work at all, but I wanted to look like I was trying to do something, trying to fix the situation. In my sleepy daze, I was certain I was in trouble - because of the barking, because I had left the door open. This thought further solidified in my mind when I saw the two guards on the front step.

Immediately I launched into a shaking and and non-sensical ramble. “I’m so sorry about the noise. I’m trying to get them to be quiet. They’re not my dogs. They’ve been like these all day. I have their collars…”

The police stared at me with blank expressions that I interpreted as anger and suspicion. They mentioned something about having to knock twice, to which I again responded something like, “Yes, the dogs, I’m so sorry. I can’t hear over them…”

At some point in this new bumbling monologue, they stopped me to ask about the car in the front. I stared at them blankly. Blinked. “Is it yours?” they asked.

“No - No, I don’t live here. It’s the woman’s who lives here…”

Cue a more intense set of questioning: “This isn’t your house? Why are you here? Whose house is it? How do you know her? Where is she now? When will she be back? Do I have her keys? Her phone number?”

I regret that I had very few answers to those questions, especially at 2am, in an unfamiliar house and neighborhood, facing two unamused-looking cops. I managed to run upstairs to get my phone, which I handed to them, open on the woman’s contact details.

It’s at this point they finally tell me why they are there: the car had been broken into. “A neighbor reported it,” they said. “Did you hear it?”

“No - the dogs,” I try again.

While this is happening, the dogs are still howling. It is impossible to hear anything, let alone my own thoughts. Shaking a little, I ask if I can go try to quiet the dogs. When they agree, I race to the back door and pull it closed (still somehow convinced all of this is because of me leaving that door open). By some miracle, the dogs quieted down fairly quickly once they saw me. They must have sensed my own fear and urgency.

As I rush around to close doors and windows and put on their collars, my thoughts are coming to me in sharp bursts. Maybe someone broke the window because they were annoyed the dogs were being so loud. Maybe the dogs were being loud because they heard the break in. Maybe all of this wouldn’t have happened if the back door wasn’t open. Maybe the police think I’m suspicious in this house I don’t know of a person I clearly know nothing about with dogs I can’t manage.

When I get back to the door, the cops hand me back my phone. We couldn’t reach her. Can we have her keys?

Again, I blink at them. I’m sure they think I’m an idiot. But now I’m filled with new thoughts: Maybe they aren’t the guard. Maybe they’re just trying to steal a car. Maybe they’ll try to get into the house when I’m not paying attention. How would I even know to trust them? I quickly look at the badges on their coats. I look at their car to make sure it’s official. I look at both of their faces, still blankly staring at me.

“Could I get your names?” I manage to ask. One gives me their information, which I shakily type into my phone. “And, sorry, but can I take a picture of…” (I couldn’t say you, could I?) “… of all this? To send to the owner?”

“Of the car, you mean?” One guard says. “Sure.”

I take a blurry picture of the car window and, when I think they’re not paying close attention, I switch my camera lens to wide so at least one of the guards and their car is also in the frame. The pictures are dark and blurred, but it’s something, I decide. Still unsure, I hand them the keys.

“We’re going to take the car to the station,” they say. Perhaps this makes sense, but my mind is still racing with all the worst-case scenarios. All I can do is nod in agreement. “Tell the owner to call us when you reach her.”

Before they drive away, someone on the street yells something to them. I’m already back at the door and can’t make it out. I stand there for a moment, unsure what to do. Ultimately, the cops begin to talk to the figure on the other side of the street and I take the opportunity to close the door and lock it behind me.

The dogs, bless them, were all still quiet. They looked up at me with wide eyes when I came into the room I had closed them into. They probably looked like I did. I passed out lots of treats, more to feel like I was doing something, and talked them (and myself) into calming down.

Even as I went back upstairs, the house again quiet, I continued to drift between logic and a dream-like state in which I was certain I was going to be in trouble for this. It took me a while to finally drift into a restless sleep.

———

Needless to say, I did not get the sleep I wanted and needed last night. I woke up this morning with lingering disbelief at the whole situation. I was somehow more tired than I had been the night before.

I managed to take the dogs for a long walk in the morning, hoping to relieve all our anxious energy, and eventually made my way into the city, moving in a foggy daze. I got the most amazing goat cheese and spinach omlette at a beautiful restaurant called The Buttery, walked along the river briefly, trying to wrap my head around everything, and tried to wake up with a cup of coffee and slice of French chocolate cake at a quaint bakery called Sodalicious. Unfortunately, even with the coffee, I worried I was going to fall asleep in my cake, so I left and conceded to nap the rest of the day.

Somehow I got myself out tonight, returning to Nancy Blake’s again after a round of drinks at Mother Macs Public House, where I made a new friend. He works as a prison guard and we ended up having a long and interesting conversation about the complexities of the prison systems and generational trauma. How I managed to hold a conversation at all is beyond me!

Now, back home and completely physically, socially, and mentally exhausted, I’m praying tonight is less eventful!