There’s a particular smell that belongs only to old ships and secondhand bookshops: salt, cedar, damp paper, and time. I spent half my morning unpacking a crate of maritime logs and histories that came into the shop from an estate in Dún Laoghaire, and it completely derailed my shelving duties for the day.

Growing up in Galway, you can’t really escape the sea, even if you try. My dad used to drag Cian and me down to the docks to watch the Galway Hookers come in—those fierce, stubborn wooden boats with their dark red sails cutting through the Atlantic drizzle. There’s something deeply nostalgic about a proper ship that a modern vessel just can't touch. It’s the weight of the craftsmanship, I suppose. The thought of all those curved ribs of oak carrying hundreds of quiet hopes, heartbreaks, and ordinary lives across treacherous water.

Walking home past the Liffey this evening, the wind had that biting winter edge to it, but seeing the silhouettes of the masts against the streetlamps stopped me in my tracks. We're all drawn to ghost ships in some way, aren't we? That collective longing for a time when traveling across the world took months of courage, stars, and sheer luck.

Do you have a soft spot for old maritime legends, or is it just me getting poetic over creaky floorboards and saltwater again?