To All Those We Left Behind in America---Again

Welcome to the travel blog for our 2009 holiday in Ireland.

We have two other travel blogs for our 2007 and 2013 holidays in Ireland. Those travel blogs are located at the following URL addresses:

leftbehindinamerica.blogspot.com

and

toallthoseweleftbehindinamerica-3.blogspot.com


REMEMBER that if you want to view the travel blogs in chronological order you need to "click" on the bottom-most postings in the "BLOG ARCHIVE" on the left, after you "click" on the little triangle that opens up the year and month entries, then continue to "click" on the next entry up from the one you finished viewing.

Kinsale for the Final Week

We made it to Kinsale in good form in spite of off-and-on rain. Here is our "Trident Hotel" located at "End of the World" Road.

Here's the lovely view of Kinsale Harbour that we get to view from our window.

We even had a grain tanker come in one day to be unloaded by the orange crane, then into the grey hopper, then into the waiting trucks. Very interesting to watch.

The rest of the harbour was filled with a lot of sail boats and a few work boats.

Kinsale Town itself is a pleasant series of short, narrow streets with interesting shops (all ready and waiting for the tourist).

This year, we were able to get "The Ladies from Ballincollig" to come down to Kinsale so that we could buy them lunch at The Blue Haven instead of having them put out a lunch at Maire's home. A good time was had by all. Here are Nancy, Maire and Sadie:

And we even got Sue to get into the picture too:

The Farmer's Market is usually a great display of home-grown food along with food vendors.

This year, things got a little "rained out" with light rain throughout the morning. Hungry customers and prepared vendors made "a good go of it" anyway.

And to end the week, we even got a visit from Dublin from Marie and Claire who hadn't been on a train trip in ages and decided to come to Kinsale for a couple of days. (And Sue was even willing to get into a photo a second time.)

Here are Claire and Marie just before a lovely meal came at Jim Edward's Restaurant. Another good time was had by all. If they looked relieved, it is because their brother, Gerard, who was quite ill, has come back strong and is on the mend (but a few of your prayers would still be "all good").

At the beginning of this 2009 "travel blog," we noted that we would be visiting many of the same places so we could see more of the people in Ireland with not as many photos of scenery to share. To our great enjoyment, that is pretty much what happened.

We head back to Shannon for one night before we fly back to Chicago's O'Hare to wrap up another wonderful holiday in Ireland. Thanks for joining us.

Tralee Town in Kerry the Kingdom

Our four hour drive from County Galway to County Kerry turned into a five hour drive when we were diverted into downtown Limerick due to an accident on the bypass that closed down southbound traffic. One extra hour of bumper-to-bumper traffic made us feel like we were in the thick of work traffic. What a lovely reminder that we are retired and free from those headaches.

Days 10, 11 and 12 of our holiday, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 24, 25, 26 July will be in Tralee, the county town for County Kerry.

Here's our Manor West Hotel. Due to some problems with finding a room for us, they upgraded us to one of the penthouse suites, so we have a lovely room with a lovely balcony.

The Rose of Tralee Festival doesn't take place until next month in Tralee and maybe it's a good thing, since the roses didn't look that great in the rose garden.

Maybe in a month's time they will come back again, but they looked a little "tired" at this time. (Perhaps they just have them shipped in, since it's mainly a huge parade and an extensive beauty pageant.)

Actually the hydrangea are at their peak right now. We have never seen such large plants and such deep colors. Here's a red bush...

And here's a blue bush...

We did a lot of resting up in Tralee, but did manage to take in the national folk theater's 2009 presentation called Tearmann ("tar-mahn"). The story was based on life in the "poor houses" of Ireland during the potato famine. The music was performed by a small orchestra that used typical Irish instruments and the songs and dialogue were all in Gaelic. The organization, Siamsa Tire ("she-EM-sha TEER-rah"), emphasizes Irish history and culture in all their productions. (Sorry, no photographs were allowed and their website doesn't have many photos to show either.)

We also stopped back to St. Stephen and St. Johns Church in Castleisland where we wanted to look for records for Great-grandfather Mathew O'Keane (Keane), but the historian wasn't available. They were very good about taking down our contact information and search information with a promise to get back to us by email later in the week. (Looks like the internet is becoming more and more of a resource.)

And we should confess that along the way, besides great Irish meat, poultry and vegetables, we have also found that "Four Star Pizza" is a very good pizza franchise. Below is the "American Special," comprised of extra cheese and double pepperoni. Bon appetit!
Tomorrow we head for our final stay---Kinsale, County Cork.

More of Salthill and Galway City

Can you see any family resemblance in the photo below???

The man on the left is Peter Cain---my DNA cousin---would you believe? We belong to a "Cain DNA project study" and have matched quite closely in DNA haplogroups. We are also classified as a group of Cain/Kane/Keane/O'Keane families that appear to have come from the same region of northern County Galway in the Connemara region and western County Mayo.

Just by chance, when corresponding by email this past year we had discussed holidays in Ireland and Peter's month-long, Gaelic language course is taking place at the same time and is in the same Galway area as our stay at Salthill. So we arranged to meet at our hotel for a visit.

Peter must be from the brilliant side of the family tree because he is a translator for the EU (European Union) and works out of Luxembourg, while living with his family in Germany. He is originally from England, but his grandparents came from right around the Galway-Mayo border.

Besides knowing over a half dozen languages, he thought he would take on the toughest language he has had to learn thus far---Gaelic (Irish).

You couldn't ask to meet a nicer fellow, even if he hadn't come with lovely gifts from Germany as well. We ended the night by discussing the possibility of a DNA family reunion of Cain/Kane/Keane/O'Keane DNA-related cousins. 

Meeting with Peter was on day 8 of our holiday on Wednesday, 22 July, and then on our final day in the Galway area on day 9, Thursday, 23 July, we got into Galway City itself. We started at our favorite used and new book store---Kennys. They are on the internet too if you need to find a book about Ireland.

Then we built up our courage to drive to the center of Galway City which is called Eyre Square as shown below...

Just off the square are the many shops along a series of streets that are only used by pedestrians (and there were plenty of them) as seen below...

There were the usual "buskers" playing songs as well. Maybe because this is the high tourist season, we also saw a mime, a street magician and a fellow making balloon hats. But the most unusual was a fellow who was doing sand sculptures, having brought in the sand in a canvas tarp and spreading it out to make impressive art work.

We also got to the sculpture studio of Mike Weerakoon who we had met along with his partner, Maggs at the Accony School Reunion.

Mike wasn't there at the time, but Maggs showed us the lovely pieces of art that Mike had for sale in his gallery.

And tomorrow it will be on to Tralee in County Kerry which will be our longest drive of the holiday.

On to Galway

Days 6 and 7, Monday and Tuesday, 20 and 21 July, brought us to Salthill, a suburb of Galway City that is situated along Galway Bay. There is the aptly named Galway Bay Hotel below.

We get a nice view of Galway Bay, even though it has been raining lightly off and on.

We went to see "Trad on the Prom" again. It's a lively, talented group that gives you two hours of music, song and dance. No photography is allowed, but you can read all about them and see more photos at www.tradontheprom.com . They are a very talented group.

We also enjoyed one of our favorite pizza parlors---De Roberta's---that is located right across from Holy Family Church where we continue our tradition of lighting candles for a safe journey.

We will try not to bore you with pictures of food beyond this entry, but the meats and vegetables are very, very tasty over here. And the brown bread and butter are amazingly good. Below is Sue's roast pork dinner...

And I had the chicken that night. This was a nice part of the hotel packages that always include breakfast each morning and several dinners.

Oh, and don't forget about the lovely desserts. Here's my red currant cheesecake with a mango sauce...

And here is Sue's basic chocolate mousse with raspberry sauce and cream...

Bon appetit!

Our Last Day in Westport

We were very slow to rise on day 5, Sunday, 19 July, after our previous day's afternoon and evening at the Accony School Reunion. When we finally got moving we headed for the meal at The Helm that we had won in the raffle. 

On the way we stopped at "Westport House" which is a large complex made up of a large Georgian mansion, farm buildings and recreational facilities. Below are the "Farmyard Buildings."

We never did get a tour of the mansion, since we got distracted in the "Trad Music" program,  a Fleath Ceol (FLAA-coo-ul), held at their restaurant to support and raise funds for the "Haven" organization that goes to underdeveloped countries to help people build homes.

Then it was finally on to the quay ("key") to have our dinner at The Helm. The restaurant even offers fresh fish that they catch in their own boats (and here we are usually having beef, chicken and pork).

From The Helm, we went on to have a visit with Patsy and Joe. Anna May stopped over too and we had a nice chat all around. Then it was back to the hotel to pack up for our drive to Galway.

But we were surprised with a visit from Bridie when we got back to the hotel. She gave us the latest news of Westport. She has, in fact, continued much of her work with the "Tidy Town" committee, as well as her work with their business. Then she will be off for Australia in a week to be with one of her daughters who is expecting a baby. She has also been doing a lot of babysitting for grandchildren in Westport when Bridie and Michael's daughter-in-law who went to Galway for surgery. It was supposed to be a minor hernia surgery, but now the doctors are not sure what is wrong, so they will be doing exploratory surgery.

So please say a prayer for a successful surgery for Bridie and Michael's daughter-in-law.

On to the Accony School Reunion Banquet

We made it back to Louisburgh in good time for the banquet meal at "The Derrylahan" Pub and Banquet Facilities. ("No smoking" in public places has been in effect since 2005, so a few folks were outside for a smoke.)

The banquet food was extensive as seen in the menu below. (The "sweet plate" at the end of the meal was especially good whether you had a "sweet tooth" or not.)

We couldn't get a good photo of the entire room---with the 300 attendees---so, here is just a section in the middle of the four rows of tables, that ran the entire length of the hall with people on both sides of the tables. You couldn't have squeezed in another body we'd guess.

And the organizing committee was surely pleased with the turnout. They weren't sure if anybody would show up when they started planning this a year ago, according to the committee secretary, Maura Kerrigan, shown below with her husband and co-treasurer, John Kerrigan.

We meet up with Patsy again who came with her cousin, Aluine ("ah-LUNA"). Patsy had McHale and O'Toole kin from the area that she was related to.

And right across from us at our table were a part of the O'Malley family. That's Michael O'Malley on the right who came back a while ago to take over the family farm after spending 15 years in Boston. And that's his sister and her daughter who came over from Boston just for the reunion.

Here's another of the long-lost cousins from somewhere in the Prendergast family tree---Maggs Mahon---who with her partner has an art studio in Galway City that we will try to visit later on the trip.

After the meal was finished, they honored some of the committee members for all their work. They also had a raffle of donated items from the area to help cover expenses. Patsy won a photograph of nearby Bertra Beach. Sue and I won a dinner for two at The Helm, a Westport Pub and Restaurant. There were also filled baskets, more photos, more dinners and bottles of whiskey to be won as well.

Besides the dance band, there was also entertainment from the local young people. Below is a group of them performing an old traditional "Straw Boys Dance." There was also a young girl who sang and played her guitar, as well as a brother and sister who sang and played guitars. And two young ladies did some Irish jigs and reels.

There was plenty of room for everyone to dance later on. The young ladies could hardly wait and got to the dance floor first, but there was plenty of room for the adults too as the night went on.

One little girl was determined to have many a turn on the dance floor with her mother.

It's probably a good thing a lot of the photos didn't turn out in the lowly lit hall, but it should be clear from the above 11 photos that a good time was had by all.