Some people look at Armagh and say “why?” 

Actually, almost all people, as far as I can tell, look at Armagh and say “why?”

One of the things that surprised me the most about interacting with the people of Armagh is how stunned they are that a group of eight American students would come here to study creative writing, playwriting, and journalism. The reactions I get after introducing myself are all variations on a theme, tailored for audience and level of formality.

“Well, it’s not a big city like Belfast, but it’s a nice enough town.”

“Strange place for you to pick to come to, isn’t it?”

“You’re living in Armagh? It’s a s***hole, isn’t it?”

(This last one was from a fourteen-year-old boy who invited us to come have a lovely smoke with him of something that probably wasn’t a cigarette, so take his judgment with a grain of salt.)

Sure, there might not be tons of shopping malls and concert halls in Armagh. There might not be a decently-sized bus station. There might not even be that many places for you to buy dinner when you don’t get home until 8:15 pm on a Saturday. But that’s not to say that Armagh isn’t a fantastic place to come and write.

I’ve gone through waves of loving Armagh and wondering how it’s possible for a town to be so small. I’m hardly from the big city myself, but I was just remembering yesterday 24-hour restaurants, coffeeshops open until 2 in the morning, people up and about on Sunday mornings. Armagh doesn’t have that. Calling Armagh a “city” might be stretching it, semantically.

But what Armagh does have is that Northern Irish something that makes it a fascinating place to live and a great place to write. I get to see the towering steeples of the Catholic cathedral every morning when I walk out of the hostel. (Though, if truth be told, one of them might be leaning just a wee bit...*) Everyone I talk to is incredibly friendly and helpful, even dedicating hours out of their day to help  me recover data from my computer when my hard drive decides that six days before the Hewitt Festival would be the ideal time to die. Sure, we might get pegged instantly as “part of that American group living up at the hostel,” but we’re not treated badly for it. It’s curiosity, not negative judgment.

If Armagh were exactly like home, I wouldn’t feel any particular connection to it. I came abroad not only to get some serious work done, but to see life from another viewpoint, one that might make me feel uncomfortable, but in the best of ways. And if that uncomfortable new-ness involves tons of sheep and a horse wandering by the side of the road unexpectedly, so much the better.

Some people look at Armagh and say “why?”

I look at Armagh and say “why not?”

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*Also, my life’s goal is to go more meta on Chris Warman than Chris Warman. I’m doing my best.