Ireland Honeymoon 3rd Day - March 11, 2013

Travel Journal Ireland March 11, 2013 – Steve & Kate Honeymoon

This morning we had a couple of special treats with breakfast.  We were up nice and early, but that never seems to matter here – conversations are always had and friendly or visual distractions are always in place.  And it doesn’t matter – we don’t have to stick to a set schedule on our own honeymoon!  But this morning for breakfast we came downstairs to the breakfast room and we were ecstatic to find FRUIT!  And different fruit juices and water!  I ate two bowls of fruit immediately and drank OJ, cranberry juice, and water.  I don’t even remember if I had coffee as well, though I’m sure that Steve had tea.  We also had a different set of choices for breakfast – I delightedly had French toast as my main breakfast.  I don’t remember if Steve had the same but it was just nice to have fruit.  We also were provided what seems to be the requisite 6 half slices of toast and some brown bread – I guess we’re going to see that every day! 

Since it was just us in the B & B today (we’re in the Ashfield) we asked Mary Brennan (our non-relation) to sit with us and chat a while.  We also heard a dog, and asked her if the dog could come in too, as we love dogs.  The dog was a sweet shepherd dog named Pippa, but 14 years old and has pain in her hind legs, so we had her lie down and gave her lots of tummy rubs and scratches behind her ears as we talked to Mary.  Mary collects plates, and since she was so sweet to us, even though we weren’t really relations, I was hoping that she didn’t have a plate for Chicago.  We talked about her travels – she has been to New York a few times shopping, and then behind a window curtain I found a plate from Chicago.  I was disappointed because it would have been a lovely thing to send to her.  I may look to find a plate from Northern Michigan to send to her for being such a sweet woman.  Before we left, we made sure to have Steve try to photograph me with Mary and Pippa the dog, but the dog may not have made the photo quite right (it’s so hard to get them to look at the camera at the right moment!).  We hugged her and told her we’d return again someday.

Of course, our first stop of the day (I drove again today) was to the gas station, for three reasons though today – one to buy diet Coke, and the other to get directions to Coomnakilla, the village where my Great Great Grandparents homestead once was, and also to get gas.  We were able at least in this instance to have the people helping us with directions to write out where we needed to turn at landmarks.  However, as we would learn all day today, the differences between Americans giving directions and the Irish giving directions are that the Irish a.) have a thick accent, and b.) have no concept of distance.  They give directions as though where you are looking to get to is “just up the road a few miles”.  So what you think will take 10-15 minutes may take an hour or more.  They did, however, write the landmarks down for us, and warn us about the scary scary roads we would be taking to such a tiny village!

We started out driving, thinking that Mom’s map from 1979 and the directions from the gas station folks would get us to the right direction very quickly, but it seems that the drive was much longer than we expected.  However, we were driving part of the beautiful Ring of Kerry – and the views were spectacular and wild and rocky and mountainous and the snow on the top of the mountains came as such a surprise to us!  However, whether it was the directions or the navigators, or the beautiful Ring of Kerry views, it turns out that we had missed our pub turnoff to the road to Coomnakilla, so we had to do a U-turn (a little more dangerous than it sounds on winding narrow Irish roads) and back track to the pub landmark to get on the right road to Coomnakilla (we found out later that day that if we had been given different directions, the road we were on at first could also have gotten us to the bottom of the same road to Coomnakilla…go figure). 

Regardless, we made the U-turn and headed back in the direction of Kenmare, then we got on the right road, and it was just as harrowing, if not more so, than the gas station folks had suggested.  Really, it was barely wide enough for one vehicle, with sharp, blind corners, and the possibility of oncoming vehicles (especially farm vehicles) hanging over our heads with worry.  In fact, we had to take a break to de-stress and take some photographs of the sunshine over the beautiful mountains, despite the occasional snowflake that seemed to be falling from the sky!  We had found a spot to pull over a bit off the road, and a farm vehicle Land Rover came upon us and I thought he wanted me to move my car so I did, but Steve noticed that he had actually rolled down his window, likely to help lost tourists!  I felt guilty about that – and made a mental note that everyone in Ireland seems to want to help and be hospitable.  It’s something I think we could all learn from. 

Once we got driving again, the occasional snowflake turned into a more constant but light snow, which truly caught us by surprise.  I really expected rain in Ireland, not snow!  nd seems to want to help and be hospitable.  It' d, but Steve noticed that he had After more than “just a few miles” up the road, we finally reached the Blackwater filling station/post office/pub – yes, 3 in 1.  We went into the station and there was a woman at the counter and I explained that I was the Great Great Granddaughter of James and Mary Brennan, former residents of Coomnakilla, and wondered if she might know where the Brennan homestead had been or if there were any relations in the area.  She called her husband out, and I explained to him who I was, and his immediate response, in the loveliest of Irish brogues, was, “Would ye like to see a photograph of yer Great Great Grandfather?”  And I said, “Of course”!  We followed him through the back of the store and into the pub section, and there hanging on the wall was an old photograph and 2^nd from the left was my Great Great Grandfather James Brennan, standing directly next to the man in the pub’s own Grandfather.  It turns out that the photograph was taken because it captured the image of the local “Survivors of the Famine”.  The wife then appeared, with a book about local history, and the same photograph was in the book.  I asked her where she had gotten the book, and she said that she and a number of other locals had compiled the area’s history so that it wouldn’t be forgotten.  Immediately I asked to buy it from her, and she was much obliged.

We were so enthralled in conversation with them about where the old homestead was, and where Aggie had lived (Agnes Brennan had been a relation that my mother visited briefly on her 1979 trip), and they explained that the old home had been torn down and a new one put up.  The gentleman tried to explain to us how to get to the homestead, and how to get to the cemetery where my Great Great Grandparents were buried, and his accent was so thick and we weren’t writing everything down, so we got the directions very mixed up in our heads, but he did direct us by walking out in the middle of the road and told us that Theresa Brennan, an 84 year old woman, lived “just over the hill in a yellow house” and that we should stop and see her because we must be related.  As we went back into the shop, his wife said her house was more pink.  These details are relevant in just a short bit here.

Anyway, they said, “Would ye like to see your relation?” and they looked up her phone number, gave Theresa Brennan a call, and said that she would be waiting for us at her house!  Steve and I were almost filled with adrenaline and giddy and very excited…until we got in the car and couldn’t remember where the other directions (the old homestead property, the graveyard, etc.) were supposed to take us.  So we decided to just focus on finding Theresa Brennan’s yellow/pink house.  As we drove, we expected to literally find a yellow house at the bottom of the hill just as he had told us.  Nothing.  So we kept driving, likely passing wherever the old homestead of my Great Great Grandparents had been without even knowing it, and kept going and going.  Finally, we came upon a yellow house, so we stopped.  We went up to the door, and there was a dog, but no one was home.  Back into the car.  At the next yellow house we opened a gate and drove to an almost car park, then went up to the door and rang the bell, and Steve saw that the post had been delivered and checked the names on the mail, and though there were several different names, none were Brennan.  So we got into the car and drove some more and checked another empty house (it was a Monday, mind you, so most people were at work).  Nothing.  And none of the houses have names or numbers on their houses, or mailboxes.  I don’t know how the mail reaches anyone!

Finally, by the 4^th yellow house, we were about ready to give up.  But we saw a car in the drive, so we pulled into the driveway, and a young woman came out and met us in the driveway, and we explained who we were and asked if she knew Theresa Brennan.  She said that her husband was a Shea and that they were relations so we were probably related to her as well by marriage.  She then said, again, that Theresa’s house was just up the hill and down again, but she described it as a creamy yellow.  Down the road we went again – it was going on another hour, and we really should have thought about lunch, but we decided that “ISH” time was the time we were working on now – nothing happened during the amount of time you imagined, and you couldn’t really plan on all the detours, so you couldn’t estimate what time you’d be do anything, so it’s “12-ish” or “8-ish”.  My sister and I learned about “ish” time in Greece, and it seemed to also be applicable to Ir-ish time!

We drove and drove past plenty of orange houses, and finally got to the end of the road and could see the graveyard.  We even considered stopping and asking at a hostel that we found at the bottom of the road, but I decided just to call Theresa with our phone and tell her we had reached the end of the road and still couldn’t find her house.  At that moment, she said, “Oh, I’m just up the road, the first house on the left.  I asked her the color of the house and she said ‘Cream’”.  We turned around (a very scary U-turn up a hill) and then drove and the first house on the left was a big modern grey slate home.  So obviously she wasn’t really the first house on the left.  Maybe it was not a lived-in house, and so it wasn’t considered a house yet. Then we found a house but it was bright ORANGE.  We were coming now from the wrong direction and even though Steve was able to get the gate open, I could only get the car into the beginning of the gate and we just had to leave it there.  An old woman was waiting outside and so we figured we were in the right place.

We greeted each other and stood outside for a few moments, constantly dabbing at her eyes which both seemed to water nonstop for all the time we spent with her, perhaps due to glaucoma or some other eye condition.  She was thrilled that we were there, and then invited us into her house, just as it started to snow again.  Her house was freezing – we could see our breath in her kitchen, but she had a little living room with a fireplace (wood with peat bricks that she tended as we talked), and we pulled 3 chairs close to the fire and just sat and talked.  She was beautiful and weathered and had stories about all the old families and asked about the relations that I knew and about my Grandmother Margaret (my Mom’s Mom died before I was born, but we always knew she was Peggy, and it never occurred to me till that day that she was born Margaret).  She asked about Dr. John Brennan and Joan, and the girls, saying that they had been to visit recently (at least some point in the last couple of years).  We talked about Chicago and she had some nieces and nephews in Chicago and gave me their contact information.  We talked about our wedding and just talked and talked.  Steve even took out his phone and tried to discreetly record her speaking, though it was hard to hide that he was doing that and it’s a very quiet recording.  We went into her sitting room (it had no fireplace though - just an oil heater) and looked at framed photos of relatives I didn’t know I had.  What’s amazing is that there was a First Communion photo of a young girl, and Steve and I both looked at it and looked at each other – it could so easily have been Maureen Julia Lindsay and we both said it right then.

I’ve never quite had the emotional response that I had today.  It’s kind of like looking into the past, but it’s your past, a past that through by so many little moments and events came about in the way all the way to your own creation, knowing that if the paths and moments had come about slightly different in any ounce of the way, you wouldn’t exist, or exist where you do and as who you are.  Steve understood when I tried to explain, but I don’t know if I can adequately put it into words.  It chokes me up to think about it…especially as I never knew my own Grandma, my Mom’s Mom, and it made me suddenly feel close to her and closer to my own Mom and closer to everyone who came together and everything they went through all as families all down the line.  And here was this beautiful 84 years young woman, living alone, never married, whose bedroom was up some stairs that I would have been afraid to climb (we were never invited upstairs), who had 2 dogs, 2 donkeys, and three ponies that she cared for.  She never learned to drive – she always would bicycle down to Kenmare or get a ride for groceries or mass.  Her sister lived with her until she died, Aggie lived with her for a while before she died, and yet she was still busy and active and happy and full of life.  Her house was also filled with lots of Catholic icons and Holy Water dispensers in every room, and so we talked about the future of the church as the Conclave had been announced to happen tomorrow (Tuesday). 

Hours passed – time didn’t seem to matter.  All of a sudden we looked out the window and it looked like a full-blown blizzard was hitting – out of the blue!  Then, after more time had passed, we looked out the window and it was sunny again and we looked at the time.  So then what was really entertaining is that when we looked at the clock and realized that we still had to get all the way to Tralee to the Ballyseede Castle for our special stay there, she instantly began looking for some “port to warm up”.  Thankfully for us and our empty bellies and our need to drive, she couldn’t locate some port, but she did locate a bottle of Bailey’s and pulled out 3 beautiful little crystal glasses and filled them up for us all to imbibe.  We enjoyed our Bailey’s and more conversation and her niece called, Eileen Finnegan (at least I think that’s her married name), and Eileen (forgive me Eileen if you read this and your name is spelled Aileen!) was a homecare nurse and with a very old, ill patient and couldn’t leave. 

We insisted we had to go but she refilled our glasses again, saying there was very little left in the bottle, although it was enough for 3 more full glasses, and then another little top-off before it was out! 

Then we put our coats on and prepared to leave and suddenly Theresa was putting her coat and a scarf on over her head and said that she wanted to show us the ponies and so we decided to help her as she needed to carry some hay to them.  We went out and suddenly it was blowing like mad and then the snow was coming down and we climbed up the hill (Steve and I huffing and puffing, Theresa having no problems at all) and found the fence, but even though we called the ponies, they didn’t come.  We figured they had hunkered down some place warm. 

We started to walk back to make sure she made it to the house all right when she suddenly turned up the driveway just north of her house, to show us a house that had been built a couple of years ago and still hadn’t sold.  The snow had stopped again and it was sunny again, which seemed to be the weather theme of the day – snow, sun, snow, sun, all day.  Anyway, the contractor was looking for €390,000 for the house.  It was beautifully done – with slate rock wall behind it and slate outdoors, and Theresa made sure we were looking in every window.  It also had a beautiful view of the sea and Kenmare from the front of the house.  After a few windows, I realized that Theresa was trying to sell us the house!  If the price were about €300,000 less, we probably would do it, but she said that the man believes that someone will pay that much for it.  And that without having ever finished the kitchen – no cabinets, no appliances, nothing in the kitchen! Ridiculous!  We took some photos of all of us as best as we could (taking turns with Theresa and each other – she had a disposable camera with her too).  Her dogs also came with us – I can’t seem to remember their names but I’m sure Steve will – one was a terrier who was very annoying and harassing the poor other one constantly, a Bernese Mountain dog again (we think). 

When we started walking down the driveway there was a car parked at the bottom that hadn’t been there before – it was Eileen!  We couldn’t leave then even though she kept saying she was going to be “sacked” or “fired” or “shot” for leaving her patient napping and coming to meet us, but she was so talkative and energetic that she was fantastic company!  In fact, she gave us information on the last of the Healy relatives that she knew – she asked about Buddy and gave me contact information for a man who would want to be in touch with us because  his mother was the last of the Healys in Ireland who were related to my family (my Great Grandmother, Brigid (although she’s listed in the 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses as Bridget) married a Healy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and they had my Grandmother, Margaret (or Peggy), so my Grandma was a Healy and a Brennan. 

Then Eileen and Theresa embarked on a debate about different relations and it got to the point where Theresa was saying just one word “’Twas”, and Eileen’s responses were of two words, “’Twas not”, and Steve and I were almost laughing out loud watching the exchange.  Eileen said she’d been looking all over for us and was worried when she found the empty bottle of Bailey’s and the 3 glasses but not us, but then said that when the Brennan girls had visited, my Mom’s cousins Mary and Kathleen, Theresa had tried to get them to buy the house as well.  It was riotously fun with them.

Sadly, though, we did need to get on the road, and we needed to eat as now it was nearly 3 p.m.  We had to say goodbye after many exchanges of contact information for different relations.  We didn’t want to leave but we had a castle awaiting us.  And lunch.  We stopped briefly at the graveyard at the end of the road and found Agnes’ grave and a very old plot of Brennan names, but none of them were my Great Great Grandparents.  By that time though, we weren’t looking too hard as the snow was fiercely blowing into us.  It’s possible some of the older headstones where the names were worn off, could have belonged to them, though.  We had also learned that a Dr. Daniel O’Connell, a dentist that my Mom had stayed with in 1979, had died of cancer, but we weren’t sure where he was buried. 

We briefly spoke to my parents about meeting Theresa and having such a hard time finding her house, and my Mom reminded me that even if the house was orange, which it was, no one was going to call it orange, as orange was the color of the Protestants and attributed to Northern Ireland and the “Troubles” that plagued Ireland for decades.  If someone had just given us a better description of the color (i.e. that the house was orange, or the color that results when yellow is added to red) we may not have lost so much time trying to find her home!

We made it into Kenmare, the snow stopped, and we picked a café (Café Mocha) to eat immediately.  It was so-so, and we went across the street to a store called Quills and did some souvenir and gift shopping and I got a beautiful Aran weave cape which Steve actually picked out over a traditional Aran sweater.  He got himself a traditional Aran sweater, though in the color green.  Oh – we also went to an electronic store hoping to find something that would let us play my iPod in the car because the music on the radio left a LOT to be desired.  Then we were ready to go and find our castle!

I was tired from 2 ½ days of driving, especially on the road to Coomnakilla, so I turned the wheel over to Steve for his first chance driving on the left-hand side of the road.  We were off to Tralee, still in County Kerry!  I finally realized how scary it was to be a passenger because the car’s visibility was such that it really and truly looks as though the car is about to hit the hedge, the stone fences, posts, go into ditches, all kinds of things.  I had to sing instead of swearing just to get through it, so I finally understood why Steve had been so anxious when I was driving. 

To get to Tralee from Kenmare, we ended up driving some more through the Ring of Kerry, and then we found ourselves driving through Killarney, with beautiful lakes and magical scenes laid out all around us.  I took lots of photos while riding and I don’t know how they turned out, but once in a while I made Steve stop so I could get really good shots of the scenery.  There’s just no adequate way to describe the beauty we experienced in Ireland. 

When we finally arrived at Ballyseede Castle (you say it “Ballyseedy”), we discovered that my email the week before (I emailed and mentioned we were staying there on our honeymoon) had secured us the Bridal Suite!!!!  Our room had an enormous entryway with a gigantic nearly floor-to-ceiling mirror in it (for the brides), a beautiful bathroom with lace curtains and a toilet with a pull chain and a giant shower, and then the bedroom itself had a 4 poster bed with towels shaped like swans tied together and fake rose petals all over the bed.  There was a little loveseat and two other chairs and a TV that we barely paid attention to, a giant wardrobe, and a huge platform where a beautiful clawfoot bathtub that is higher on one side than the other was the center attraction. 

Immediately, I declared that I needed to take a bath, and we had complimentary fluffy bathrobes and slippers to wear.  Steve took a shower and I lounged in the tub, wondering where the servants were who should be pouring milk and special oils into the bath while I soaked, until we had to prepare for our fancy 8 p.m. dinner reservation.  I could live in this suite for the rest of my life happily ever after as a Princess…..

We went down to the fancy restaurant (they also had a less fancy bar-foodesque restaurant), and were seated at a table with crystal goblets, one for water, one for wine, and a million place settings of silverware and I was wearing my new cape and I felt like a Princess in that as well!  We had a delicious and super fancy dinner, I ordered us wine for dinner, and Steve decided we should have a selection of cheeses that were offered for dessert.  They were tasty, though we were a bit surprised the next morning to find them offered as part of breakfast! 

Our host in the restaurant was a man named Tim, and on their website they had advertised that he led the best tours and told the best stories about the castle, and so we asked him to take us on a tour.  Once we asked, the other staff spread the word that Tim would be doing a tour of the downstairs and telling stories about the castle, and so he took us through the dining room into the “Stone Room”, which is pre-set up for weddings.  It was beautiful, and was part of an addition to the original castle, so the inner wall of the room was actually the old outer wall.  At the weddings, the cake is inside the tower, and is cut using a sword!  We got ahold of the sword and took photos with it. 

The castle was originally the home of a woman named Hilda, and it is said that in photographs, sometimes people develop them and find a skeleton hand in the photos.  You can also see her pass by with a red rose in her hands, if you’re lucky.  The reason for this is that the lease on the Castle was paid to the Queen of England every year on the Summer Solstice to the yearly price of a single red rose.  Very romantic.  We then saw some photos where you clearly see a shadow figure on the top floor, where Hilda used to await the post, and shadowy letters on the castle wall underneath her shadowy figure that spell “RIP”. 

The castle is also the home to a couple of dogs, although tonight we only met one, Einstein.  Einstein doesn’t like treats or toys – he likes stones.  He always has a mouthful of stones, and when he wants someone to play with him, he spits the stones out at your feet and you’re expected to throw them, and he won’t stop looking until he’s found every one and brought them back.  The other dogs that have lived at the castle are Irish wolfhounds, and the current one was at the owners’ home that night, and named Higgins.  We hoped to see him in the morning.  There’s a very old pet cemetery along the main drive to the ivy-covered castle, and the previous year one of the wolfhounds had died and the owners had buried him there.  They joke that Einstein is carrying stones around from the wolfhound’s grave. 

Though we intended to retire early to our suite, we found ourselves in the bar talking with Tim the tour guide and another bartender named Paul, who alternated working in the bar and bullshitting with the best of them.  The two of them are so dry with their humor and work so well on timing and sarcasm and you never quite tell if they’re serious (they usually aren’t) and we had so much fun talking to them.  I drank Bailey’s all evening after dinner.  There were a lot of Americans there, which sometimes is disappointing, so I was glad to be sitting at the bar to talk BS with Paul and Tim but we also were visiting with the other Americans in the bar, as it was unavoidable and we were the honeymooners so everyone wanted to talk about that.  Our general story was to tell people that we had been married this past August – not in 2011 - and it seemed to work out better that way. 

Finally, after much fun and a few Baileys and pints of Guinness for Steve, we retreated to our Bridal Suite, and knew we could roll out of bed later than at a Bed & Breakfast and still make breakfast, and we didn’t have to be checked out of our room until noon, and that they wouldn’t kick us out of the Castle grounds so we had plenty of time to take photos, tomorrow….