The Emerald Isle: Dublin

The last leg of our journey in Ireland was spent in Dublin. We got up not-so-early at our b&b in Galway, had a bite of their breakfast to eat (eggs, bacon, toast, yogurt), and hit the road. If I thought driving elsewhere in Ireland was bad, Dublin was even worse. Not only were roads not marked and my directions ridiculous, but we had to factor in traffic as well. We spent a good hour in Dublin itself trying to find our hotel. Once we did finally make it there, our car was there to stay. We didn't attempt to drive around in the city again until leaving for the airport.

Driving can be stressful, so we just relaxed when we got to the hotel. The amenities included a pool, so we wandered down to the basement to check it out. Really, the time in Dublin was meant to be more about relaxation than about sightseeing so much.

Since we arrived fairly late in the afternoon, we decided on a dinner from the hotel's bar & restaurant. We both got the chili con carne, and it was delish. A bit spicy, cheesy, and all around yummy. It was a nice way to end the stressful day of driving.

From the hotel, it was pretty much a straight shot to walk downtown to the Temple Bar Area. We swam in the morning at the hotel, and got a fairly late start. Taking in the city while we were walking, we decided to stop along the way to have lunch at an Italian place. It was fairly cheap, and very good quality for the price. After lunch, we just wandered the Temple Bar Area, and I tested my memory of the first time I was there, over 2 years beforehand.

On our walk through the area, we saw a place that sold Cornish pasties. So, the next day for lunch, we went back to that place and I got a cheddar broccoli pasty, while mom got some curry chicken one. They were more or less out when we got there, and neither of us was super satisfied with them, but they were sustenance. From there, I tested my memory further and walked us over to St. Patrick's Cathedral, and along the way we walked by the Christ Church Cathedral.

From there we got on the hop-on hop-off bus, and basically just sat and enjoyed the ride around town. As usual, there was a ton of information, never really felt it was worth it to hop-off, and we went in a circle around the town. I did get to see things I didn't see on my first trip, though, like the Guinness building, but as neither of us like beer (nor the smell of it), we just stayed on the bus.

The next day after going for a swim, we wandered down to the center again, and stopped at the Italian place for lunch again. While we were eating, I realized that across the street was the hotel I stayed at the first time I was in Dublin. I had been keeping an eye open for it, but didn't remember exactly where it was. We had walked by it several times and I hadn't even realized it!

We did a little bit of window shopping, then headed for the National Library where, we learned on the hop-on hop-off bus, one could do some genealogical research. This might have been more worth it had we had more time, but as it was we were only there about an hour. One of the people working there helped us to find the types of microfiche files we should look through, but even then it was a shot in the dark. All of the mention of the Finnerty we were looking for was in the same area, and mom ended up looking through a book that was the catholic parish's record of weddings and births. It was pretty difficult to even read what was written, and she saw the name Finnerty a couple of times, but the first names weren't any we knew of, and it just was very uncertain whether they were related to Martin Finnerty. We were also told that there was a similar place to do research in Galway, so maybe one day we'll go back and just do a research trip.

We walked back to the hotel through St. Stephen's Green where everyone was claiming their own patch of green on which to soak in the afternoon sun. We had our last pub meal at a place called The Bleeding Horse by our hotel, which claimed it could quite possibly be the oldest pub in Dublin, but doesn't actually have that distinction because the records don't officially call it a pub as far back as another establishment does.

That night we packed up in anticipation of our departure the next day. Driving to the airport was not as difficult as driving into the city, especially since we found an airport bus and followed it nearly the entire way. Hugs were exchanged, and mom and I parted ways for the next two weeks - that was all the time I had left in France.

Since coming home, we've visited my grandparents where my mom received copies of a sample of Martin Finnerty's writing - apparently he went back to Ireland years later and wrote a correspondence article with the local paper in Missouri By fate, luck, or chance we had visited all of the places he mentioned in his article: Cork, Limerick, and Galway. Maybe his writings will lead to another adventure for my mom and I to go on - trying to find his entire series of articles in the paper about his trip. He writes in a way that makes me think he may have even had a permanent job on the paper, writing more than just about Ireland.

"I see some things that I once saw, but the most is gone. The vallies are cut away and burned; the hills are leveled and thrown into them. The people that were here then are no more, and the young ones have taken their places. I find some of the old people and some of the old landmarks, but both are rather scattering. The ditches are wider than they used to be or I cannot jump as well as yore."
- M. N. Finnerty, July 13, 1897

The Emerald Isle: Galway

Prior to leaving for Ireland, my mom started to do research on several ancestry websites about our family that came from Ireland, and she actually found out quite a bit. She found the ship manifests showing Martin Finnerty coming to New York (he said he was 28, but he was actually 16), she found censuses that indicated when he was in Missouri, and she found information about land where Martin's father may or may not have rented and farmed (this is more uncertain because she could not find more than his name, but it was pretty certain that he came from that area). She even found a patent for a plumbing fixture that Martin had signed as a witness after he was in Missouri, which we think has led our family to believe that he was in plumbing. So when we got to Galway, the mission was to find out more information about the Finnerty's.

We arrived in the afternoon of our seventh day in Ireland, and immediately went to our only bed and breakfast of our trip. It turned out to be less 'grandma cooking you a meal every morning' and more of a business enterprise, but that turned out to be okay. The owners rented buildings that they renovated and had elaborately decorated, and they had about 3 b&b's that were doing very well in Galway. We drove down to the sea, and had dinner at an Italian place near the beach.

Mom had printed off information about where to go to find the Clonbrock manor, where the Finnerty's had rented land to farm, but we weren't really sure if our directions would get us there. So, my brilliant suggestion was to go to the tourist office in Galway. We started off by trying to go to the one near the beach, but it was only open during the busier summer season, so we went into the center of town. After parking, we went into the tourist office and asked a few questions, which only confirmed what we already knew, and we were also able to pick up a few more pamphlets about touring Galway.

Since we were already in the center of town, mom and I walked around the city center, and I continued my search for a Claddagh ring. The ring actually comes from Galway (or, to be exact, the fishing village of Claddagh which is right next door), so this was the place to find it if it was going to happen. I really enjoy the symbolism behind the ring - the heart is love, the crown is loyalty, and the hands are friendship. One version of the story goes that there was once a man who was captured and enslaved on the high seas the week he was to be wed. He was given charge of the goldsmithing, and he stole a tiny bit of gold every day. He used that gold to fashion a ring for his bride-to-be, hoping that she would not forget about him. Much later, the king of England made a deal, and the man was allowed to return home. His sweetheart had never married, and he presented the ring to her. Then, I suppose, they lived happily ever after.

Many stores spouted stories that they were the original Claddagh makers, but who knows. One of those original maker stores also had a small Claddagh ring museum room, and they had rings from as early as the 18th century.

Since I'm difficult, I wanted one that was a little bit different from the norm, and after walking all around, and nearly giving up, we went into a store that we had decided to come back to later since it was full when we walked by, and to my delight I found the ring I was looking for. The band was braided, and the hands, heart, and crown were on top of the braiding. It was just different enough, but still had Irish flair to it.

Our walk through town also took us through a couple of tourist shops, and we ended up having a late lunch at a fairly old looking pub. I mistakenly ordered a caesar salad, not realizing that sometimes the dressing had sardines in it, yuck, but we also ordered some loaded potato wedges, which tided me over.

After eating, we drove northeast of the city to get to our ancestors' area of Ireland. We got to drive through some places with very interesting names, such as Carrowmanagh, Cromagh, Ahascragh, and Kilconnell. In Kilconnell, there was the ruin of a church out in a field, so mom decided to stop and try to visit it. We walked through a horse gate between two houses, asked someone who was in their backyard if it was okay to walk across the field, and ended up at the Kilconnell Friary. It had been in ruins for years, but the inside and the environs were a cemetery. There were three horses in the field, and just wandering through that gorgeous place was very surreal. Mom said it was one of her favorite things in Ireland, and I have to say that it was one of mine as well. You just don't see ruins of a friary that have been around since the 1400s, which was built on top of another place of worship that had been there centuries before that.

After our gallivanting in the cemetery, we hit the road again. Pretty soon, mom spotted a petrol station with the name W Finnerty. Now, this was only really the second time we had even seen the name Finnerty. The first time was in Cork on a war memorial. Since we believe the family came from this area, we decided to stop in and talk with the owner.

The man inside was the son of William Finnerty, after whom the station was named. He took over the business from his parents, and he was getting on in years himself. It seemed like he lived a pretty quiet life, probably just getting up and walking to work every day, with nothing much else. He had a little fireplace in the wall, and photos of his parents up in the small shop. He was a bit of a nervous fellow, and he always seemed to keep his eyes a bit averted (when we told this to the people at the b&b, they said it was probably whiskey). Mom explained her mission and showed him all of the documents she had found so far, and he seemed pretty interested that we might be very distantly related. It seemed that William was a fairly common name in his branch of the Finnerty's, as it is in ours as well. Even though it's a common name, it does seem a bit of a coincidence.

He gave us a bit of direction to get to Clonbrock Manor, and we asked him to top off our car's gas. He was shocked that we wanted to completely fill it, as it cost about 30 euros, but it would have to be done somewhere, so why not just let him get the proceeds?

As usual, we got a bit lost trying to find the manor. We seemed to just be going in circles around it, and had to stop a couple more times to ask for directions. The last person we asked told us to stop in at a house (we never really figured out which one he meant) and ask the owners to show us around. If we'd have found it, that probably would have been interesting, but as it was, we found the manor before we discovered a house that matched the description he gave us. Going back into the estate's property was like driving through a park. There were benches along the sides of the road, families out by the creek, and bikers enjoying the forest. When we arrived to the manor's drive, there was a gate blocking the entrance. It would have been easy enough to open it and drive on in, but we decided to walk from there.

The manor wasn't too far away, and it truly was a sight to see. This is where the Finnerty's would have come to pay their rent or other things like that, and it truly seemed like it was an intimidating place. The manor had been in good condition until the 1980s when it caught on fire, and now only one wing is supposedly inhabitable. The bare bones of the building are still there, but you can see the sky through the windows where the roof should be.

There was really no evidence of anyone living there, other than a dog that came out to visit us. She was on the other side of a locked gate, and she was pretty cute. She would bark, whine, run to the end of the corner wanting us to follow her, then come back and whine some more with huge eyes. I think she probably had puppies she wanted to show us, but we couldn't follow her.

We continued to wander, and mom went into areas that seemed pretty dangerous to me. I guess being up to date on your tetanus shot is a good idea :-). There was a stable area that looked like it had once also been housing for servants, and there was even evidence of a blacksmith once being there. She wandered around the debris and had a blast, while I wandered the outside and waited for a shout for help. It never came, and she re-emerged covered in cobwebs and dirt.

While we were in the area, we also stopped in at a couple of cemeteries and just looked at headstones to see if there was any mention of Finnerty in the area. The big problem, though, was that many of the headstones had lichen or something growing on them, so if they were from before the 1930s they were illegible. But there were some interesting cemeteries built around the ruins of churches, and a few different kinds of burial mounds.

On our drive back to Galway, we stopped in at the W Finnerty petrol station again as the man was closing up. Mom asked him where his family was buried with the thought that we might return and visit on our way to Dublin. He gave vague directions, but in the end we didn't go back. We returned to our b&b that evening and had a fast food dinner.

Our last day in Galway, we took a drive through the Connemara region. One of the pamphlets from the tourist office had a suggested driving route, so we just went. On the way to the region, we took a drive through a golf course on the land of a huge castle, but it didn't seem worth the entrance money. It was amazing how the green countryside quickly turned quite barren, but all the while beautiful. We stopped in an area that has an inlet of water that is home to pods of dolphins. I didn't see any, though. We stopped a few times along the way in tourist shops, but mainly we just went for the scenery and the killer sheep. We also saw the Quiet Man's Bridge, which was pretty scary to drive over since it's only one lane and you can't see the other side of the bridge as you begin to go over it.

On the way back to Galway, we noticed a 10-foot wall just above the shoulder of the road, and just walking around up there were two horses. Mom wanted to try to get a picture of them, but they didn't quite convey the fact that these horses were walking, without a fence, ten feet above the road and even though they're smart enough not to, they could jump down into the highway at anytime.

We got back to Galway in the late afternoon, and ate a lupper at the Galleon. They were serving a Sunday special, which seemed to be close to a Sunday roast, but I'm not certain. It was roast beef with gravy, the three types of potatoes, and the mash that we had come to expect. It was fairly good, and it was a nice meal to end our time in Galway. I think mom was satisfied with visiting the areas she had found on the internet, but I can tell she's still itching for some more information about the family. More on that in Dublin!

The Emerald Isle: Limerick

Our fifth day in Ireland we headed for our second location during the journey: Limerick. But I just couldn't take the easy way there, I found stuff to stop at along the way on our journey there.

The first stop was the Lismore Castle. It was a beautiful place, and just what you would imagine a castle would look like. It's been used as a place to film movies (BBC's 2007 version of Northanger Abbey, for example), and is a private residence open for rentals for special occasions. In more recent years, it has played host to people like John Lennon. I was under the impression that we would be able to visit the castle, but no, only the gardens were open to visitors. To be honest, it wasn't really worth it. Yes, the gardens are some of the longest cultivated lands in Ireland (dating back to the 1100s, I believe), but the flowers weren't really in bloom yet, and there just wasn't much to see, not to mention it had just finished raining. So, mom and I wandered the grounds, went into the small modern art gallery (neither of us are much into looking at art), and then headed back out. If you decide to visit someday, choose a time when the gardens are in full bloom, otherwise, the view from across the river onto the castle was the best part.

We took to the road again, and after a couple of wrong turns (silly directions saying to go 2.7 km then turn left on unmarked road, but our odometer was in miles, so we went too far, or not far enough), we stopped for directions and bought a sandwich to-go. The convenience store worker just said that the Irish never have problems with finding where they're going, even with the unmarked roads, which would be amazing if it were true. In any case, his comment about being happy wherever you end up turned true as we turned a corner on the road and overlooked Tipperary County. We had been driving in fog for a while, and then the sun burst forth and we had a great view overlooking the county.

We continued on the path he gave us and then made an unexpected stop at the Cahir castle. It was straight out of the middle ages - a real fortress. The insides were pretty much threadbare, but imagining what it once would have been was fun. You can see the warlords and ladies strolling through the buildings, and feasting in the banquet hall after a victory in battle. But then, when looking out over the moat at the modern city, the fantasy begins to dissolve. The rain then starting falling harder than ever when we were leaving, and we hadn't even brought umbrellas in with us, so we got a little soaked.

Since this day was so rain, shine, rain, shine again, we ended up not seeing one, not two, but three rainbows as we continued our journey by car! Unfortunately, we never made it to the end of the rainbow to find the Irish pot of gold.

The next scheduled stop along the way was to be the Rock of Cashel. We got there after it was closed, though, so all we really got to do was drive around and take pictures. This castle on a rock was up above the rest of the city surrounding it, and there was an abandoned friary nearby and sheep on the hill leading up to the castle. I wasn't too disappointed we didn't get to go in, though, because all of the others we had been to had been much more impressive looking from the outside than the inside.

We then made our way to our accommodations for the night. In Cork we had stayed at a real hotel. In Limerick, we actually stayed quite a ways outside of the city at a lodge that was somewhere between a b&b and a hotel. It was pretty awkward the entire time we were there - we were the only guests, and we never really saw the property owners. The beds weren't too comfy, and the phone rang all night long. I eventually went out into the lobby and unplugged their phone, but it was plugged in again by the time the morning rolled around, and there was no one to ask about it. But we're getting ahead of ourselves - that first evening, we went to the nearby village of Adare to eat dinner. There's another castle in Adare that is surrounded by a golf course, and you have to go on a tour with the city's tourism agency to visit it. We never went to visit it, but the town was quite cute. We ate at a place called Archer's, and it was one of the best meals I had had thus far in Ireland. Three types of potatoes, that carrot/cauliflower mash, and lean pork tenderloin in gravy. Scrum-didly-umptious!

We also made quite a discovery at a grocery store near the restaurant - fresh baked muffins (possibly pop-overs). With Irish creamery butter, they were the best thing to start off the morning the next day. After that died-and-gone-to-heaven moment, we drove into Limerick - on the same day the pope was there! Unfortunately, we didn't see him, but we saw the effect his presence had on traffic. We were routed around to enter the city from a different direction since he was at the university. We ended up getting lunch from a Chinese take-away place in a mall, and then wandered down the streets of Limerick.

Not really having a plan, we then took a leisurely drive by King John's castle in Limerick, then headed to the country. Our goal was a sign we had seen for Lough Gur. What was it? Who cared, there was a sign :-). Along the way to get there, mom noticed a sign for Grange Stone Circle. We stopped at the site, went up and started reading the sign, and before we knew it this older gentleman came driving up and started to talk with us about it. Most of the circle had been excavated, and bones and other relics had been found. The Grange Stone Circle is the largest of its kind in Ireland, and it is a bit of a mystery as to its purpose, but it probably had something to do with animal sacrifices. The man pulled out a book about Ireland from the early 90s in which his children were prominently featured playing in the circle, and they were even on the book's cover. Before leaving us to visit the circle, he pointed out that he was the person who took care of the circle, and he even installed a handrail for people to use to go up the little hill. He then asked that, if possible, we pay two euros apiece to visit it. Yes, that may have been a bit of a hassle, but he really wasn't asking for much, really. He left us, and we went over to the circle where cows were chilling along the edges, and we saw that the circle had been there for ages. There was one section in the rocks where people had put down coins, but who knows what that was meant to signify.

We also learned at the stone circle that Lough Gur was a lake, and we loosely drove around it, but never really got super close to it. We then went back to the lodge for another restless night.

After eating some of the yummy muffins for breakfast, we went to check out of the lodge, but there was no one in sight. I left the keys on the check-in book and we left without seeing anyone. Since I was a fan of the terrible roads, I decided we should drive by the Cliffs of Moher on our way to Galway. We drove by several more castles along the way - Bunratty Castle that was meant to be sort of like entering a period play, but also was quite pricey to enter (so we skipped it), and several others on tops of hills that may have been fortresses or maybe just ruins of ancient barns.

When we got to the Cliffs of Moher, it was just about lunchtime, so we decided to picnic with a view. Now, on a nice day, this would have been glorious. However, it was hazy and spitting a little bit of rain, so it wasn't the most leisurely of lunches. After eating, we went and walked up the northern side of the cliffs up to a viewing point. The cliffs were breathtaking - just what you imagine of when you think of Ireland (probably because they're featured in just about every film from Ireland). The cliffs are also home to puffins, which I'm sure I saw, but since they live in the middle of the cliffs, I wasn't exactly close enough to see one up close and personal. After going up the viewing tower, we walked back down and listened to a harpist that had set up shop on the stairs. I walked up the Southern side of the cliffs, and mom headed to the visitor center that was built into the hills surrounding the cliffs. I walked to the edge of the property used for visits, but there were plenty of people who hopped the fence and continued on a bit further, despite the no-trespassing signs. At the furthest allowable point up the hill, there was a plaque commemorating all of the people who had died from falling off the cliffs. I guess it's easy to get too close to the edge - I even saw a couple of people that went over the fence to get closer to the edge of the cliff, and a security guard went after them. You just have to stay safe!

On the last leg of the journey to Galway we drove through the rocky Burren area of Ireland, made a side trip to a beach where the rocky sand was dark gray and the shells were purple, and then we drove down Corkscrew Road into the heart of Galway County.

Can you guess what's up next?