Tis Grand, april 20, 2014

we went to Ireland for spring break.  i did not blog about it right away because i did not know what to say.  nothing specifically spectacular happened, but it was the most fabulous trip ever, and  i did not know why.  i needed to marinate on it.
this trip was not easy.  I spent a good amount of time driving on the opposite side of the road, in a stick-shift car with the shift on my left, grinding gears, the lovely shotgun red-head insisting that i stay on the road.  what the *!*#.    it was beautiful.  Ireland is the most beautiful place on earth.  ok, many will argue for other locations, and I will concede, but as a whole, this island can not be matched.  it's a postcard.  every time i ground a gear around another corner, i was presented with another amazing scene.  i loved the  place.  i can not explain it, but i need to go back.  I have been to Ireland before, but i rode the train, i did not see the land.  patchwork-quilted fields overlooking the ocean.  it's a beautiful place.  and the people? if i had a euro for every time someone told me "it's grand."
I have been reading a lot about the civil war in spain 1936. i have to get  my info from books because you will be hard pressed to get a spaniard to talk about the civil war and the franco-ruled forty years that followed. it is a time to be forgotten.  this is because the spanish civil war was not regional like the american north/south civil war.  the spanish civil war pitted,  neighbor against neighbor, father agains father.   sadly, it is not inconceivable that your neighbors grandfather killed yours.  it is something that all spaniards would rather forget.
I think that is happening in Ireland.  this beautiful country has decided to forget about it's sad past and move forward to the "grand."  I can not help but feel the beauty in this attitude. any problems i may have are a pittance to their past, but still they say "everything really is grand."  this place touches me.  i want to go back to Ireland.

9am on the second floor of the bus.  it was pretty cold by the way

the place hauls beer by the truckload  

we went to Trinity college to see the "book of Kells",  the line was this long. we did not see the book of kells.

James Joyce

we started in dublin.   after two days in dublin i had decided that the folk song "dirty old town" was written about dublin.  it did not help that the all the busses we rode played the song on their sound system  (fyi, the song was originally written about a town in england). our hotel rate included a bus pass for the big green city tour bus.  there is a big (place color here) tour bus company in just about every major european city.  CB & corri loved the big green bus. the bus started at 9 am, and so did we.  we drove all over the city for a few hours while the driver pointed out landmarks, talked history, and sang "Molly Mallone" over the load speaker. it was a grand time, just ask the driver he'll tell you.   later, we visited the Guinness brewery.  the holy grail of beers.  the original Guinness factory was established on the site in 1752, thats before the USA was even born.  the founder, Arthur Guinness, signed a 9000 year lease for the site with one of the king Georges of England.  we took a self guided tour,  and then they gave a tutorial  on how to pour a perfect pint of the lovely brew.  then we drank it.

St Patrick's cathedral

St Patrick's

corrinne & CB in Guinness advert

CB learning how to pour the perfect pint.  

from dublin, south to waterford, where we toured the famous waterford crystal factory.  that was cool.  tourists are still able to watch every step of the process, including glass blowing.  we spent the night in a see-town named Youghal (y'all).  having dinner in the local fish place i watched an older man having his supper.  dressed in old wool/tweed cloths, speaking Irish, and holding his fork in the fist of his hand, just like my Grandfather used to do.  this guy could have been Papa's brother.

they are watching Patric engrave a piece of waterford for us.  

we drove thru Cork and stopped to meet a relative of mine.  my Mothers cousin, Sister Mary Martin (born: Eileen Healy).  Sister Mary is around 80'sh.  a semi-retired nun who spent her carreer teaching the youth of Nigeria.  she returned to Ireland because, "I got the arthritis you know."  she was a kick.  I was teasing her a bit and she just laughed and gave it back at me.  corrinne was showing her how her pillow-pet was a stuffed animal that turned into a pillow and she replied "well how bought that, tis handy isn't it." she talked about her family and all the relatives that had passed away, and still said everything "was grand" at least five times. we walked around the convent grounds.  "it's good for my arthritis".  it was a grand visit, and i am glad we got to meet her.

Sister Mary Martin

Noreen Collins and her two grand-daughters

Papa's old house in Knocknagree,  two rooms, no bath.  

from cork we traveled north/west a bit to visit knocknagree, where my grandfather John Duggan (Papa Magee) was born.  The old two bedroom house that he lived in is still partially standing.  from the back it looks in great shape.  the front, unfortunately, is in disrepair.  the wall has fallen down and the interior is open to the elements.   the old house is on it's way to falling down.  Another of my Mom's first cousins (Noreen Collins) still lives on the property (in a newer house).  Her son, and his family also live there.  as should be expected,  they were the nicest people.  the kids played with corri, and at the end of the visit they gave her two chocolate Easter eggs that they were not able to eat because it was still Lent.
man,  where do these people come from?  when I was little and my Papa would visit, he would slip us kids a shiny dollar, or half dollar, when he was leaving.  he always did it when my parents were not looking.  well here comes Noreen Collins.  as we drove away, i find out that she slipped Corrinne a few euros.  it was very sweet.

from Knocknagree we spent the night in Killarney.  just another of the hundreds of picturesque towns all over Ireland.  we spent the whole next day in killarney because, as it turned out, Killarney was hosting the world championships for Irish dance.  what timing!!  we went to check it out the night we arrived but the competition had just ended for the day.  there were a few thousand girls in the auditorium waiting for the results from the last competition.  they where all full of energy after the stress of the day.  popular modern music began to play from the loud speakers and the place erupted.  thousands of girls  dancing in front of the stage, in the  aisles, on their chairs, screaming their heads off, taking over the place.  talk about girl-power.  corrinne loved it and decided then-and-there that she was going to be an Irish dancer.  she had not even seen a dance.  the girls where all dressed in colorful costumes and wore bouncy curly wigs, what's and eleven-year-old not going to like?

Ross castle in Killarney

from Killarney north, Galway the goal, but overnighted half-way in a hotel that had donkeys on it's front lawn an a river running thru it.  the drive was beautiful. every five kilometers, another town that could be on a postcard.

she has food in her pocket and they know it

corrinne has taken an interest in barcelona football.  her favorite player is Messi.  barcelona was in the playoffs.  the game was on the teli in the pub and CM insisted on watching it (i know there is not a game on the screen, it's a commercial.  she like commercials too)

Lahinch was a town we actively sought out.  our friends DeeAnne and Keith brought us t-shirts from lahinch 15 years ago.  my t-shirt recently fell apart so we needed to replace it.

t-shirts from Lahinch

cold & windy in Lahinch

we drove the coast. stopped in doolin next to the cliffs of Moher, a a lot of other fab little villages.  we eventually made our way to Galway.  another great town.  it was Easter weekend and they were holding a food fair.  Galway is all about Irish football (rugby).  we did not see a game because it was Good friday,  all the pubs where closed on Good Friday, and if there is nowhere to drink after the game whats the use in playing?  saturday we headed back to cork for a sunday flight.  my nephew Shawn and family were in cork somewhere.  we looked for them at a huge Viking festival to no avail.  then we went to a football game that he expected to be at.  he did not make the game,  he was stuck at the viking festival.  we probably walked passed him a few times.  but I did get a chance to watch some Irish foodball.  this is not a game i would want to play.  what a bunch of beefers.  seriously, these guys were a bunch of bricks, and a lot of them had bloody bandages wrapped around their heads.  I do not understand the game, but it was fun to watch.

it was cold & windy in Ireland.  but it was grand