That first night we walk away from the city, away from the crowds that gather where the river enters the sea. Low lamps line the path toward the promenade, which wink off around midnight. “I guess women are on their own at this time of night.” The high grass teems with whispers and fumbling bodies and stinging nettle. I take a photo: the moon rising above a white necklace of lights, and a shore cast in red.

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After 1 am, the crowds have melted away and it's just us, giddy on wine and company and moonlight. We pause at the salmon weir bridge to gawk at the full thunder moon. I had been slow all day in the heat, not a person but a semi-sentient puddle, a tingling skin-bag, flesh and blood and bones barely held together by clothes. But at night among friends, I acquire shape and vitality: a river singing as it winds its way through the city toward the sea, dark except where the moonlight caresses it.

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After I post a photo of the river shining in the moonlight, a friend, a Gaelgeoir, comments, “Cosán Dé… God’s footpath as it’s known in Conamara.”

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