CLAN CARSON’S EPIC IRELAND ADVENTURE

This is the story of Clan Carson’s trip to Ireland from March 13-20, 2022. The purpose of writing my thoughts down is due to the fact that our trip was so incredibly amazing and life changing, I don’t want to forget anything that happened. I am a professional genealogist and going to the land of our ancestors is something quite spiritual. The pace was fierce and we were constantly on the go. Memories from early in the trip that were only a week ago are already fading and I wanted to put them to paper before they are lost. I am writing this report on March 22-26, 2022, and I began to write when we had been home from our epic adventure for less than 48 hours.  

INTRODUCTION:

The story really begins about 4 or 5 years ago and one needs to understand the backstory to really grasp how big of a deal it was for my family. My wife Stephanie had secretly put down a deposit a few years in advance of our 25th wedding anniversary that was 12 March 2021. She made payments for a few years and by the time of our 24th anniversary, in 2020, she had it paid off. She bought me waterproof boots, a set of luggage, which was green of course, and inside the luggage was all sorts of Irish and St. Patrick’s Day trinkets, and a paper that said that on our next anniversary, we would be in Ireland to celebrate our 25th Anniversary. On St. Patrick’s Day week, no less. I wasn’t able to give her the reaction that she was looking for because a gift such as this was unfathomable. 

Right about this exact same time, almost to the day, was the beginning of COVID-19. The world turned upside down and all was a mess. As the time got closer to our trip, we feared the worst and to be honest, I tried to not even think about it so that I wouldn’t be disappointed when it didn’t happen. Well, the worst did happen and the trip was canceled until the following year, which was a major disappointment. 

Shortly after the trip was called off, Stephanie began to make a case for taking the kids to Ireland with us. Our little clan has been all over the place and we have tried very hard to give them experiences that most folks never have. They have been to several countries and the very memorable adventures have molded their outlooks on the world. I was in favor of bringing the kids on the trip and to be honest, actually felt guilty that we weren’t taking them on our original trip. Stephanie and I discussed it several times but never really decided to take them or not. My biggest worry was the cost. The COVID economy has been crazy. Would the market fall out and I have no income? It has been unprecedented, unknown times and it still hasn’t leveled out. Stephanie started paying on the trips for the kids anyway knowing that if the worst happened we could pull the money back out. We decided to tell the kids at Christmas that they would be going with us. I’m not joking when I say that it was about a week out from Christmas before I was sure that we could financially handle it. 

The reason that we wanted so bad to make a family trip out of it is because very soon our family dynamic will be forever changing. Our oldest Rebekah will be graduating college soon and starting her career. Our middle child Sarah will be getting married in May. Our youngest Brayden (whom we all call Fuzz) will be graduating high school and attending college away at the University of Louisville. The little clan that has traveled all over and been so tight, is sadly about to change forever. We wanted to do one last thing all together, and something epic like a trip to the land of many of our ancestors was just the thing!

The kids were given luggage sets that inside included the itinerary of the trip. Like when I was presented with the gift, they were very shocked and somewhat in disbelief. Stephanie had them different shirts made, Rebekah’s was green with the letters “IRE” on it, Fuzz’s was white with the letters “LA”, and Sarah’s was orange with the letters “ND”. It was time to let the excitement begin! Well, almost, COVID was still an unknown and we all hoped that it wouldn’t cause our trip to be delayed again because it would be much harder to find a time that all five of us could make it. 

It was required for us all to be fully vaccinated. Two of us had already been vaccinated, two of us were unsure about if we should or not due to all the controversy, and one of us was adamantly against it, especially with the stories of it causing health issues. We all made the decision that a trip to Ireland was worth it and we all got our shots. It was also required for us to be COVID tested a couple days before leaving and then again in Ireland a day before we would come back to the United States. This added more stress because what if one of us tested positive and couldn’t go? What if one of us tested positive there and had to stay alone in Ireland for quarantine? As it turned out, we all tested negative both times we tested but I must say this… Upon arriving in Ireland, we did have to show our negative results to get in but they didn’t ask to see our vaccination cards. Ireland had just one week earlier lifted all restrictions for travel and masks in public. On the way back into the United States we had to show our negative test results but once again our vaccination cards were not asked for. We literally could have made the trip without our vaccinations, but that was due to recent lifting of restrictions that we didn’t know would be happening. Enough of all that and on to the fun stuff!

Aside from being a genealogist, I am also a videographer of history videos so I spent the days leading up to the trip preparing my notes for all the historic places that we would be visiting. I made an 11-page, bullet point list of facts and interesting things that we needed to see, and the order that we should see them in, so that we could maximize our time with distance between them. I also produced a video to announce highlights of our coming week and to be on the lookout for LIVE videos on our Family Tree Nuts Facebook page. We were very prepared. 

PART 1: THE JOURNEY TO IRELAND

DAY 1

The morning we left was a bit weird because it was day light savings time and we moved our clocks ahead making us even more tired because we didn’t sleep that great in the first place due to the excitement. Everyone met at our house where we left about 9am. My mother-in-law Martha Ousley, came to stay at our house to sit with our two shelties, Kami and Loki. She also took a good picture of us all with our luggage. Sarah’s fiancé Jared rode with us and drove Stephanie’s Armada back home after dropping us off at the airport. We were on our way! The first thing we did before we even checked our luggage in was to form what we call a “Carson Cuddle”, which is a group hug with foreheads touching. 

After we checked our luggage and went through security we headed straight to Dunkin Donuts in the airport. In all of our excitement, we had forgotten to eat any breakfast! As fate would have it, their oven was broken and they only had donuts, so we all bought some cold sandwiches from the corner store and relaxed before taking off from Lexington, Kentucky about noon. This was not any of our first flights, but it was the first flight with all five of us together. Stephanie had been able to check in online less that 24 hours before our flights and choose all of our seats, setting us all together during the journey. The flight to New Jersey was a couple hours and we had a few hours layover there before boarding our flight to Dublin. Our flight was delayed before we boarded and even more delayed after we sat on the run way for a bit before taking off. We were supposed to arrive in Dublin about 7am, but didn’t until 8:30. None of us slept very well at all, only being able to doze in spurts. I had taken a couple gummy melatonin about an hour before the flight and a few more towards the beginning and yet one more in the middle of it, but still didn’t manage to get much sleep. Rebekah said that she didn’t sleep but maybe 20 minutes total. They fed us a meal on that flight, but by the time they had gotten to us, all they had was vegan curry with rice. It was awful, ha-ha! 

PART 2: DUBLIN AREA

DAY 2

We landed later than expected but we weren’t going to let that ruin our time at all. As soon as we got off the airplane ramp, we huddled up and took our first group selfie on Irish soil. The first thing that we noticed is how everything is written not only in English, but also Irish, which is the official language of Ireland. We made it through security quite easily and were relieved to see that all of our luggage had made it to us. We looked for our tour company rep to be there to give us a ride to the hotel but he was making a trip at that moment, so Fuzz and I hit the store and bought a few snacks including a bit of meat and cheese. 

Soon the tour company representative named Brian Grainger showed up and directed us to a cab. We enjoyed our short time with him and told him that we had hoped that he would be our tour guide because he was exactly as we expected him to be. We rode in a van and saw our first sites of Ireland. We all chuckled when we saw that our driver was named John Clark, which is the same name as Fuzz’s football coach that had just resigned. The driver talked the whole way to the hotel about how he had been an awesome soccer player and had been part of the pro teams Arsenal and United. We had the feeling that the story was a bit off. When we arrived at the Maldron Hotel in Dublin, our tour guide for the week, Ann Ellard greeted us and directed us to the desk to get our room keys while she settled with the driver. Once we were checked in, Ann made sure that we were all set and told us about the meet and greet dinner that evening. We went up to our rooms, showered and prepared to head out for the rest of the day. We had some really neat views from our room of an old part of the city. We could see about 6 large churches towering up and the scene looked like one from one of the Assassins Creed video games. 

We met with the kids about 11am and I checked the tour schedules for both Jameson and Guinness. Jameson was a bit out of the way from all the historical things that we had planned to see, so I decided that it would be best if we went there first and then made our way to Guinness which was closer to the things that we wanted to see. We walked for about a mile through some rough areas that had a lot of graffiti, making it an interesting start to our trip. Everyone was hungry and we found one of the only places that was open to eat, a place called “Yolks” which had various sandwiches, all of them with eggs. We had to look up what “rockets” were on a sandwich and learned that they are a type of lettuce greens. At this time, I got online to make our reservation for Jameson. To my surprise everything was now booked until 4:30 and only 4:30 and 5:30 were open. We had a dilemma because we were already out of the way but now we had to adjust our schedule and go to Guinness first. I made the reservation for Jameson at 5:30 and Guinness for 1:30. By the time I finished the reservations, everyone was finished eating. It was at this time that I took my first bite, and squished yellow yolk all over my pants… 

We were all a bit on edge, tired, confused, and readjusting schedules already. It was also this meal where we first noticed that it was really hard to get some water to drink. Everywhere we went we had tiny glasses and had all the coffee or tea (or Guinness) that we could want but we were always wanting water. Many other Americans that we met this week mentioned the same thing. We found this interesting because our clan drinks a ton of water. I poked by Jameson to ask that since we had a 5:30 reservation, would it be possible that we could get in early if we finished Guinness early. The man at the gate said that we could go in right then, which aggravated me because had I known that, I wouldn’t have bought tickets for later and since I had already got the Guinness tickets, I had to go there now and make the backtrack out of the way to come back to Jameson. However, it was good to know that we could possibly make it earlier.

We walked about a mile to Guinness, making our first pass over the River Liffey, which we heard later that the locals sometimes call it the “Sniffy Liffey” due to the fact that it sometimes smells bad. The river has a rich history and is a major reason for Dublin’s location. We made our way to Guinness and found the historic, door that is well known and took a few pictures. We were immediately excited when we went inside because there was so much energy there. 

As soon as we came in, a tour guide gave us all a quick run-down of the place and we took a look at the lease that is displayed behind glass in the floor that Arthur Guinness signed with the city of Dublin for 9,000 years. We started our tour of the exhibits about how Guinness is made, its ingredients, advertising campaigns and the history of the brand. It is several floors tall and similar to the tours given at the bourbon distilleries here in Kentucky. At the check in, we were each given tickets for two free Guinness’ at two different locations. We knew one was at the end of the tour but didn’t really understand what the other one was for. We asked one of the folks that were working there and he spoke quite sarcastic to me that the ticket said a specific room, and that room over there had the same name as the ticket. He was trying to be funny but I was a bit aggravated at his delivery, although my family thought it was hilarious. 

We entered the room which had a small bar and folks lounging about enjoying a pint. They promptly took our picture, one with all three kids and one of my wife and I. We then got in line, where a pint was poured with our pictures on the top of the foam. It was amazing! We had great fun watching how our faces stretched out as we drink the glass. The girls weren’t fans of the taste but at least tried it, so there was a bit extra for me. My son who is 18-years-old and legally allowed to be served in Ireland, had his first pint here. 

We then ventured to the top floor which has two circular rooms and windows all around with spectacular views of the city. Here we were each given another pint and we had to give some of them away to a group of young ladies. We took pictures and were amazed at the views. From here, we ventured down to the gift shop where I may have gone slightly overboard with my purchases but, I mean, when else am I going to be at Guinness itself? Outside there were several horse-drawn carriages lined up and I suggested that we take a ride to Jameson instead of walking. The kids were petting the horses and didn’t want to take the carriage ride, but I convinced them. I didn’t have any Euros but the man arranged for us to pop by an ATM machine. It was a pretty neat carriage ride and I mentioned to my kids how cool it was for us to be transported in Dublin this way because I am pretty sure that our ancestors would not have had this luxury when they were here. I mentioned that we have come quite a ways since leaving the green shores of Ireland. 

We arrived back at Jameson about an hour early and once again, took a couple family pictures before heading in. As luck would have it, we were able to join a tour immediately. We were able to see some of the history of Jameson in a small museum before going on an awesome presentation made by Gavin Owens. At first, we were taken into a circular room where Gavin asked each of us our favorite drink and where we were all from. The answers were quite amusing and it was neat to see that there were folks from all over the United States and several European countries. Next, we watched a presentation with a light up table to illustrate the story of Jameson that Gavin told. After that he led us into a room that explained the process of making the whiskey and how it is connected to the distilleries all over, including Kentucky bourbon. The final part of the tour was a tasting of four different products that Jameson offers. Gavin explained about how each was different and the stories behind each one. Once again, the family wasn’t as enthused with the whiskey, so there was a bit extra for me to make sure wasn’t wasted.

We then were led to the gift shop where we purchased a few new items and we chatted with Gavin. I asked him if he’d be willing to join me on one of my live shows that we do for Family Tree Nuts and he told me that he would love to, but needed to check with his bosses to clear it. We then took the 20-minute walk through a rough part of town again back to the hotel where we had a few minutes to relax before the welcome dinner for our tour group. 

We had a little introduction meeting led by our tour guide Ann and this was the first time that we saw the folks in our tour group. The ranged from all ages and were from all over the country. Ann stressed to us the importance of being prompt and organized. We had a dinner choice of an Irish stew or another choice which I can’t recall right now, followed by some cheese cake. As soon as dinner was over, we were exhausted and headed to our rooms. 

I attempted to set up our European plug-in adapters and my extension cord with multiple plugins. When I plugged the extension cord in, sparks flew and all the outlets in the room ceased to work, as well as the television. We called the desk and they sent someone but he wasn’t able to figure out what was wrong. Luckily one plug still worked in the bathroom and we were able to plug in our noise maker and charge our phones. This was the end of the first day in Ireland, sort of. I slept for about four hours but woke up around 2am and was awake until about 4:30. I tried to use the app on my phone to help me sleep but my mind was racing. It had been an eventful start to our adventure.

  DAY 3

The next day, Tuesday, breakfast was at 8 am and we were to depart with the tour group at 9am sharp. We had a very nice breakfast with ham instead of our usual bacon, tons of fruit, hash browns, tons of bread, pastries, and cheese. This meal was the first time that I tried what the Irish call “blood pudding”, which is like a black colored sausage looking food. Only I tried it and was not a fan of it at all. In fact, I found it quite nasty, which is interesting because we saw it on the menu all over, even in gas stations, for the rest of our trip. At about 8:50, I decided to run up to the room to use the bathroom really quick before we headed out. I came down at 9:01 and everyone was gone except my family standing just outside the front doors of the hotel. Stress was on their faces. 

My wife said that everyone was eating but they headed out there about 8:58 but no one was to be found. It appeared that our tour had left us behind. We thought this was quite odd because someone should have done a sweep of the breakfast room to see if anyone was still there before taking off. We waited for about 10 minutes before determining that they must have left us, so we would head to the first place there were going to see if we could meet up with them. It was at that time that we saw a bus and walked across the street to see if we could hop on. The driver didn’t even look at us, I assume because we weren’t at a bus stop. Once the bus moved our tour guide Ann appeared and said that she was looking for us. We told her where we had been and we figured that we had been left. Ann had taken the group, around the back side of the hotel which was about 200 meters away and then realized that we were not there, so she came back to look for us. She stated that she would have never left us, which at the time I doubted, but as the week went on, we got to know the professional that Ann was, and I know now that she wouldn’t have left us behind. We were all quite aggravated at that time and a bit stressed out, which made it a rocky start but those feelings quickly diminished as the morning progressed. We got on the bus and had to take the seats furthest to the back, but we were glad to because it allowed us all to sit together. 

Soon, we picked up a lady to be our tour guide for the bus ride around Dublin, named Theresa. We drove past most of the historic things in Dublin and Theresa told the story. We went past the Oscar Wilde statue in Merrion Square, the government buildings, Trinity College, Dublin Castle etc. We went into Phoenix Park, past the Wellington Monument, the cricket fields, to the cross where the Pope spoke to over a million souls. Here we stopped for a few minutes for bathroom breaks and to walk to the large white cross monument. It was surreal to imagine all the people out on the wide-open fields. We were able to see a few dogs playing in mud holes and then run up to us so happy. On the way out of the park we passed the U.S. Embassy, The Presidents House and the Dublin Zoo, all of which are within the grounds of Phoenix Park. We were glad that we got to visit this park on the bus because we didn’t realize how big it was and we would not have been able to walk it. Theresa said that it is twice the size as New York City’s, Central Park.

Our tour made a stop at St. Patrick’s Cathedral which was one of the highlights of our trip. The church was built in the early 1200s but it is documented that there has been a church on-site since at least the 800s. It is also on the site where it is said that in the year 443 AD, St. Patrick baptized Irish Chieftains in the spring that still exists here but is covered up. Theresa used a device called “VOX” which came with an earphone which allowed us to walk about the cathedral and still here her presentation. Inside were many artifacts such as the door with the hole in it used in a war, where they reached through to find peace, and it also had many tombs and chapels. She even took us into the alter area that is usually sealed off. Each of us took a bit of time to pray and reflect as well as take a few pictures before buying a couple mementos inside the gift shop. My daughter Rebekah had a friend call while we were in the church and asked her to say a prayer for a family member. It was one of the most holy feeling places that we have ever been.

We headed back to Trinity College where we were dropped off for free time in the city while others took the excursion to Glendalough. Our family headed straight into Trinity College and we bought tour tickets to go inside the Book of Kells exhibit and the Long Room. We passed into the open court yard with students all around. The college was founded in the 1590’s by Queen Elizabeth I of England for the education of protestants in Dublin. We were lucky to get in immediately and spent some time checking out the wonderful exhibit of the Book of Kells which is a book of the biblical gospels written by monks around the year 800 AD. In the rear of the exhibit is the book itself, in a dark room with the book being displayed in a glass case in the middle of the room. A guard stands watch on the room to ensure that no photography is used. I have heard a rumor of a group of people huddled up sneaking a picture, but the guard is on top of things and stays moving about to make sure that it doesn’t happen. We marveled at how pristine the book was and how bold the colors were considering that it is around 1,200-years-old. The Book of Kells was one of the most amazing things that we have ever laid eyes on.

We headed out the back and up to stairs to the amazing Long Room Library. The library is double leveled and each level has ladders to get to the books on the top shelves. It has a curved roof and all things are wooden. It is said that the library holds around 200,000 books and had access to 7 million copies of printed materials. Marble busts of learned scholars line the sides of the room at each section of shelves. Also, inside the library is an actual copy of the 1916 Easter Rising declaration that started the Irish rebellion, that eventually lead to their independence. A little further down is an Irish harp made in the 1400s that is the model for the national insignia. The library has been used as inspiration for movies such as “Harry Potter” and was breath taking to us. We headed out of the library and into the gift shop where we found several neat treasures. 

At this point we split up for a bit. My family went to a sandwich shop while I shot my first Facebook live video for Family Tree Nuts. I shot it in the main courtyard of Trinity College and told the story of the Book of Kells, the college itself and the Long Room. After my video was finished, I met back up with my family and had a sandwich. What was really neat is a few shops down from the restaurant, which was across the street from Trinity College, was the business, “House of Names”. I have used this company’s website many times over the years in order to check the country of origin for surnames, and it was neat to see the actual business. From here we began our journey to explore Dublin and most of its historical places. 

Our first stop was on Grafton Street which is a World Top 10 most expensive real estate for retail stores and where we came to the “Molly Malone Statue”. The statue is of a late 1600s Irish woman with her cart. Molly Malone was a “fishmonger” meaning she sold fish and mussels on the streets. She is a dark bronze statue that is quite busty, with brightly polished breasts, because it’s said that it is good luck to rub her right breast, or is it her left one? I think most just grab them both to be safe. When we arrived, there were two men playing some sort of rock music which was kind of distracting and we also saw a man making a live video there. Once the man making the video was done, we got our pictures and I shot a live video there myself. An older lady walking by said on the video that she was the model for the statue. Molly Malone has become a symbol of Dublin due to the song and many say that she was based off of a real woman. Each year on the date of her death, is declared Molly Malone Day, in Dublin. 

Our next stop was Dublin Castle, which was built in the 1200s under the orders of Prince John, the same character from the fictional book, “Robin Hood”, and the brother of King Richard the Lionhearted. Only one large turret remains of the original castle and it was under construction with scaffolding when we were there. The area also served as the government buildings for Ireland for hundreds of years. I made another live video here and my kids found a window where we could see a bit of the wall that was built here in Dublin by the Vikings. Very near this castle was the original “Black Pool” or “Dark Pool”, where Dublin got its name from. We didn’t have enough time to tour the museum inside and continued our journey. 

Our next stop was the Dublin City Hall where we saw the bullet holes that cut into the large pillars in front that are a result of heavy fighting in the Irish Rebellion. We took a few minutes to reflect and take a few pictures before heading back to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Once we arrived at St. Patrick’s Square, just outside of the church, my family rested in the park and at the small café in the corner of the park. I spent the next 30 minutes or so taking pictures and videos of the outside and went all around the church. Also, in the back of the park is an area that celebrates Dublin’s 1,000th anniversary in 1988. The entire back wall is sections dedicated to Irish literally geniuses. I shot another live video to talk about the cathedral and the park. We took a family picture and then headed down the road.

We stopped at a Polish church named St. Audoen’s, where in the court yard is an arch that was built by Vikings and is said to be the only thing left standing in Dublin that was built by them. We took lots of photos and were really excited to see something that was built by people that our family really likes. The area also has remnants of the city wall that was built in the 1100s that we briefly explored. We then stopped into “The Brazen Head” which is Ireland’s oldest pub, said to have been there since 1198. My clan went inside the oldest part to have a drink and I once again made a live video. A good friend of mine, Keith Murphy sent me a picture of him and his wife Kendra, inside the pub a few years ago and the dollar bill that he had put on the wall, but sadly the dollar bill was no longer there. I was able to slide one of my Family Tree Nuts business cards inside the plastic wall coverings. I wonder how long it will last? The family really enjoyed hanging out a few minutes in this pub and Fuzz and I bought t-shirts from there. An 824-year-old pub!

From here we headed to the famous Temple Bar District which is famous for all of its legendary pubs. It being St. Patrick’s week, the pubs were jammed packed and it was hard for us to get all five of us, and our two backpacks inside of them. Everyone was hungry so we looked for a place to eat. We decided to eat at “The Shack” which was just across the street from the iconic Temple Bar. We were seated in the rear and all but Rebekah got the fish & chips. Rebekah got chicken and vegetables. The food was awesome and piping hot! The fish was so fluffy and melted in your mouth. Here, as with other places they gave us not only tartar sauce, but some sort of green pasty stuff. The kitchen and the bathrooms were both down stairs. The restaurant wasn’t overly busy and the staff was very friendly. The final bill was a bit higher than we had expected for fish and chips but it was definitely worth it. 

We then began to look again for a pub that we could get into. We tried to get in the 

Temple Bar and did for a few songs, including a guy singing Elvis’ “Fools Rush In”. We made our way to the wall and the corner to get out of the way. Rebekah really wanted to stay but we were super crammed and it was hot in there. This place would be very cool to hang out at though. We found Quay’s Pub and were able to get all the way to the edge of the bar. Inside a man with a guitar and another with a banjo sang traditional Irish songs. A spot opened up at the bar and we staged our bags on the floor and stayed here for around an hour. A few people got up and did some Irish dancing and it was a fun time. Since we were by the door, folks kept pouring in, as was expected for the season. At around 8pm we headed back to the hotel. We noticed how everything, everywhere was closed and how early places shut down. This was a theme the entire week. We got back to the rooms and immediately went to bed. This day had been one for the ages. 

PART 3: CORK AREA

DAY 4

The next morning, we departed Dublin to spend the next couple days in the Cork area. We had breakfast at 7:30 and we were to depart at 8:30. We were supposed to leave our main bag outside our door at 7:30 which Ann had referred to the day before as our “portage”. We were tickled at how that sounded in her Irish accent and we all, me more than others, kept saying that word all of the day before. Portage came to the kids room a few minutes before 7:30 and they had to scramble to get their bags to them. This caused Rebekah to have to miss a key part of her wardrobe for that day. 

We set off at 8:30am, with us making sure that we were a bit early this time. I of course was one of the last ones on the bus because it was at this time that I discussed with Ann and our bus driver Tommy Sheehan, my goals for reaching Glantane, the home of my ancestors. They were both very helpful and for the next couple days they worked hard to make it happen for us. The family had worried that I had missed the bus, but soon knew that I was there when they heard me laughing outside. We set off for Blarney Castle! 

In route, Ann spoke over the loud speaker giving us numerous history lessons and facts about the area. It was here that we first saw the sights outside of Dublin and the rolling hills filled with ancient stone ruins and fluffy sheep. The kids dozed a bit on this 2.5-hour journey. We stopped at a gas station to us the bathroom and get some snacks. Here we saw the price of gas and after we did the conversion we saw that it was $7.80 a gallon, in our money. We saw it later in the week around $8. It should be mentioned that this was the time that Russia was invading Ukraine, and gas at home had soared to around $4 a gallon. At this gas station we got some chips, various local candy bars and some caffeine which we were all needing. We passed through part of Cork and saw our first sights of the area and made our first crossing of the River Lee. The town like Dublin, had some very old houses built in the 1700s. 

We arrived at the site of Blarney at about 12:15 and Ann turned us loose until 1pm, to get some food there at the Old Woolen Market, which was founded in 1822. It was packed and a bit confusing of how to order and pay, and I wasn’t able to eat all of my fish and chips before it was time to report back to Ann. Once we all got back together at 1pm, Ann lead us all to the gate of Blarney Castle and gave us our admission ticket which was also an informative map. She turned us loose and told us to be back to the bus at 3pm, giving us two hours to see the castle and the grounds. 

Our clan made a straight line to go and kiss the Blarney Stone first, to at least get that out of the way so we could enjoy the rest of our time there. We were delighted to walk past the signs that said that we were 90, 60 and 30 minutes away. We didn’t stop to look at much on our way in and up the circular staircase. The stairs in medieval castles always go clockwise because most people are right handed and it is easier to use your sword if you are at the top, if the stairs go clockwise. On the way up, which took about 20-30 minutes we paused to take a few pictures.

It should be mentioned that Blarney Castle was built by those from Clan McCarthy, which we are a Sept of. The castle was first built in the 1400s by a McCarthy that is a brother of our deep female ancestor, making him somewhere around our 15th Great-Uncle. I need to work on tracing that so we can all know for sure. Stephanie and Sarah got separated from Rebekah, Fuzz and myself about halfway up, and we didn’t regroup until we got to the top. Fuzz scared me once when he leaped up on a ledge and got a bit too close to the edge for my comfort. Once we got to the top we all looked around a bit and just took the scenery in. What an amazing thing we were doing!

The line wasn’t long and it isn’t very big up there to begin with. There are plaques with the different legends as to what the Blarney Stone is said to be. I won’t go into those legends here but it has been said for centuries, that those who kiss the Blarney Stone are granted the “Gift of Eloquence”, or “The Gift of Gab”. Stephanie had told me that I talk too much and that I wasn’t allowed to kiss it, but since Fuzz was so quiet, he was required to “make-out” with the stone! I have heard about folks chickening out and not kissing the stone, so I made sure that I wouldn’t be a victim of that and volunteered to go first. It was much harder than I had anticipated. You have to actually give an effort to bend back, stretch and lean into the bottom of the stone. Getting back up is also slightly challenging because you are bent over backwards, in a tight spot, and have to pull your weight up, while bending your body so you don’t smash your head. There is a fellow there to help guide you and hold your sides but I think he is there just to give you a bit of comfort. There is another fellow there take the picture of you kissing the stone. 

I had Rebekah take photos of me and then she gave me the camera to get photos of the other four. One by one we all kissed the stone, each of us saying that it was a bit harder than expected. We had done it! We were super excited for the experience and since it wasn’t very crowded, we were able to take our time looking around and taking pictures. We of course got another family picture on top of the castle. We then started our exploration going down and Rebekah and Fuzz went into a couple places off the tour a bit by climbing along the wall and popping out in different places. It was at this time that I wished that I had much more time here to really “play” in this real-life castle! We explored everywhere that we could, even the “murder hole” above the front entrance. I really don’t think that we wanted to leave. Once we got to the bottom my clan hit the small gift shop and I was off to shoot my live video from here. Due to folks standing around, I had to walk a bit on the wall to get around them, and then leap down from higher than I wanted to. What was neat was, you can’t even tell this on the live video. I didn’t know it at the time, but Stephanie and Sarah were watching some of my shooting the video from high on the wall behind me. I took a picture far away and one zoomed in on them, which was really cool because you can’t even see them in the zoomed-out version. I then got a ton of shots to be used on our edited video that we will make from here and the family explored all around the castle. Rebekah and Fuzz were able to walk up to the famous manor house there and at least see it, and they along with Stephanie and Sarah were able to explore the gardens. 

We regrouped and took a couple really neat pictures at the base of the castle including Rebekah pointing a couple ravens and Fuzz standing there in a picture that he tagged a guy from the show, “Peaky Blinders”. Unfortunately, our time was up, and we had to beat feet to make it back on the bus on time. Sarah was able to get a wonderful picture on the little bridge, going over the creek, with the castle behind her. We made some big-time memories here. 

Fuzz and I were eventually behind the girls and soon, after stopping in to use the restroom really quick, I was all alone. I had just enough time to get back to the bus on time. I got to the gate and saw Sarah was coming out of the gift shop. She said that Fuzz was still in there, and we knew he would be late, so I went in after him where I found him trying on flat caps. He decided on a nice green one that was modeled after John Wayne’s in the movie “The Quiet Man”. We hustled out of there and linked up with Sarah who had stayed off the bus to help direct us, and we got on the bus about 2 or 3 minutes late. This was a theme of our family on this trip! Ann gave us all Cadbury candy bars and told us that taste would be a reminder of something awesome we had done, which I thought was a spectacular idea. As we drove away we all couldn’t believe how amazing it was what we had just done. 

Our next event was a short stop into downtown Cork, where we were given one hour and fifteen minutes to walk around. We knew that we wanted to check out the famous “English Market”, so we headed straight for it. There has been a market here since 1788, and the area got its name in the mid 1800s because it was used for the Protestant citizens of the city. The Catholics used a different market, called St. Peter’s Market. The market was alive with activity and excitement! Vendors were selling all sorts of food stuffs and on the back-right, was the seafood area, where they sold sea life that we hadn’t seen before. Fuzz and I had fun taking pictures of the odd-looking fish. One of the vendors asked Fuzz if he needed help but the lady who was spraying the fish with water said something to him in Irish, that I assumed was “can’t you see they are just annoying tourists?”, ha-ha. We found the cheese vendor called “On the Pigs Back” and purchased a couple different cheeses and crackers. As soon as we paid for it, they closed. We were their last customer before St. Patrick’s Day which we thought was a bit neat. 

The market closed and we went outside and saw across the street was an amazingly named fast food restaurant. We went straight over there and of course took a family photo and other pictures. The name of the restaurant was “Hillbilly’s” and it was on “Tucky Street”. We thought, “are you kidding me? Ha-ha!” The restaurant resembled a KFC and they even sold a bucket of chicken. We went inside to asked the lady at the counter how the restaurant got its name, but the Asian lady working had no idea, and we really don’t think she was understanding what we were saying. I asked a few customers if they knew what a hillbilly was but no one did, so we told them that we were real life hillbillies. They were extremely confused and somewhat annoyed, so we left with all of us laughing so hard.

We had about 30 minutes left, so we took in a few more sites, especially the main monument in the middle of downtown and the WWI remembrance monument. We had just enough time to hit a local pub, so Rebekah did a quick search. She found one called “Sober Lane”, which had a theme of chimpanzees all over the place. I stayed out to take a few more photos and the family went ahead in. The pub had large statues of chimps doing, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, which I loved. When I came in, the family was ordering appetizers. I told them that we didn’t have time for that and had to hurry, which made them quite annoyed. Rebekah said that she wanted to come back tomorrow because the food looked so good, and I told her that we sure would try. We had a quick drink and headed out, but not before we did what we did the entire trip, take a few photos. The bar had lots of funny pictures on the wall with the chimp theme and local things. They also had paper coasters with the chimps attacking the city, which we made sure to acquire for our home bar. We made it to the bus right on time and we headed to the hotel.

We arrived at our hotel called “Vienna Woods Hotel” just a bit outside of Cork. We had to take the long way there, because the bus was not able to take the hairpin curve up the hill to the mansion. The hotel was once home of a wealthy merchant that built the house around 1900, and is a popular spot for events, weddings and honeymooners. The front of the house overlooks the river. We had about 45 minutes to rest before our dinner and we relaxed in our rooms. Stephanie and Fuzz’s “portage (ha-ha) were swapped and we knew we would swap them back after dinner. One of the kids had thought they had broken the toilet, which perplexed them because they had only done “number one”. They were too embarrassed to tell the desk and asked me to try to fix it. I discovered that there were two settings of water, one was just a light bit of water and the other was a total flush. It was little things like this the really separate us from those abroad. 

Due to our large group, we were given a large table, in between two other larger rooms of the house. This night we dined with our tour guide Ann and driver Tommy. Throughout dinner we discussed many things to do with Irish history, culture, politics and how the immigrants from Ireland had shaped the culture of Appalachia. Tommy was very helpful and insightful on ideas about our adventure that was set for the next evening to Glantane. Our meal was fish cakes or cesar salad for appetizers and one of the dinner options was cod and the other was turkey and ham. We were all very satisfied with what we ate and they even gave us a large bowl of scalloped potatoes to pass around. We had thought the night was over but they came out and brought us desert which was a meringue cookie, with whip crème that was wonderful. Tommy had to flag down a server for some coffee. We laughed so much during this dinner. Ann took me to the desk to discuss our adventure to Glantane the next evening and we figured we would make the final arrangements the next day.

When we got to the room, I proceeded to plug in my extension cord again but this time sparks flew and I felt a jolt. Once again, all the plugs didn’t work or the television. I had a little pain in my chest and the tip of my tongue was tingly. I was slightly worried and had to sit down for a minute. I half-jokingly told Stephanie that I loved her in case I had a heart attack and died. I called the desk and they sent a man up that showed me the breaker in the room, which we flipped and all was well again. We watched a nature show in the Irish language as we drifted to sleep to end another wonderful day.  

DAY 5

The next morning was St. Patrick’s Day! Breakfast was at either 7:30 or 8:30 and departure was an hour later. I had a very nice egg and ham omelet and the others at eggs benedict. We headed off to Cobh, to the Irish Immigration Heritage Museum. We drove around Cobh Harbor and passed the Irish Navy Yard, which Ann told us that the Irish Navy only has about eight ships. We parked on the side of the building and Ann gave us our tickets to get in. At the entrance the group was greeted by a tour guide that gave us about a fifteen-minute run down of the museum and Irish immigration in general. I used this time to get some great pictures and videos of the interesting things at the beginning of the building. Ann came to find me to introduce me to Christy Keating, the resident genealogist there at the museum. We chatted a few minutes and he explained to me that lots of the old Irish records are kept in England, because the English Lords kept the records there, of everyone who lived on their land. It was neat to make the contact and I’m quite certain that we will communicate again. 

Before we started our self-guided tour of the museum, we were each given a card that had the name of a real immigrant that came through there, and it listed a few facts about them. Once you entered the museum, you found things about your person and what happened in their lives after they left Ireland. This was probably the biggest hit of all those that attended and I heard folks chatting about their person, not only in the museum, but also on the bus after. We split up once we were inside the museum and went on our own ways. I was able to get many pictures and shots of the exhibit. I was glad to be alone because some of the displays were emotionally moving, and telling of the experiences that our ancestors went through. Although the people in them were not real, it you listened hard, you could imagine their sorrows, pains, excitement, fears and joys. Many of the Irish that left, especially early in history, didn’t leave on their own accord. They were often forced to leave for small crimes and debts. They were often indentured, sold and treated no different than any other slave. The exhibit of the living quarters at the bottom of the ship was the one that spoke to me the most. Each of us in the United States had scores of ancestors that made this journey. Their sacrifice brought us to where we are today. 

The museum has an exhibit about the potato famine which is very well done. You can walk inside what looks like a run-down, thatch roof hamlet, and see the statistics and facts that caused Ireland to lose more than half of its population. To this day, Ireland has never rebounded to its population numbers before the famine. Moving deeper into the museum we found first class exhibits on the Titanic, which left from this very port before heading into open sea and its demise. We also saw the exhibit for the RMS Lusitania which was sank off the nearby coast. Many fishing boats from the harbor rushed out to attempt to save the sailors. This event was one of the main triggers of WWI. Other exhibits were stories of many Irish immigrants that found tremendous success in their new countries. 

I understood why, but was a bit frustrated to have to hurry but I paced myself ahead of the group in order to document the entire museum and have time to do a live video outside the museum. I shot the video outside with the harbor in the background, where 3 million Irish immigrated from. I paused for a quick reflection and was emotionally moved to imagine that the sights that I was seeing, were the last that so many seen, of Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore. 

Also, right between the museum and the harbor, is the statue of Annie Moore, and her two younger brothers. Annie was a teenager and led her two brothers in immigrating to New York, to meet their parents, who had already immigrated ahead of them. Her legacy is that she was the first person to be processed through the new immigration center at Ellis Island. I shared a little about her in the live video and even brought Ann on the video for a bit. After the video was shot, Ann mentioned to me for the first time, about us coordinating more trips to Ireland together, through Family Tree Nuts. We had several more conversations about this endeavor over the next few days and there is much more to be discussed as I write these notes. At that time, I had to head to the bus as, like almost always, everyone was already on and waiting for me. I knew it would be, but this stop was one of my absolute favorites. I told my family about what Ann and I had discussed and we were all excited. I enjoyed hearing Rebekah and Sarah discuss the lives of their person in the museum. Just before we started on our way, Ann gave us all a piece of Irish Porter Cake, that her neighbor is famous for. It was quite tasty and we thought of it as a spicy fruit cake. Once again, another taste with a memory. 

Our next stop was back to Cork, where they dropped some of us off for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the others headed onto their excursion to Kinsale. Ann told us that she would call me at 3pm to ensure that all was well with a cab to take us to Glantane and we would discuss it then. We knew about where we wanted to be for the parade so we headed to that area. It was still about 45-minutes or so before the parade started so the family popped in a small sandwich shop to kill some time. I went about 100 meters down the road and staked out a spot for us to watch the parade. I chose what I assumed was be a great spot, near the beginning of the parade, and also across the road from McCarthy’s Insurance Agency. I figured it would be appropriate for us to see the name of our Irish Clan while we observed the parade. A couple about my age were there with a teenage son. I asked them where they were from and he referred to her, and she said Galway. I said that we were going there the next day, and we chatted a bit about the area. A bit later the husband spoke up to say that he was from California and like myself, had been in the United States Marines. He had met and married his wife in Galway and had lived there for years. He was currently teaching at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas because, as he said, jobs were a bit hard to find at the moment. 

Folks were starting to fill in the spots and I was having trouble holding a good open spot for my clan. I buzzed them a couple times to hurry up, but before they made it, a lady about age 60, whom I will from now on refer to as “Pushy”, another lady probably 40ish, and a man in his 60s showed up, and were starting to crowd in. The family arrived and Rebekah and Sarah took the last little gap by the front fence, with Stephanie and I behind them and Fuzz behind us. We thought the parade started three different times, with the motorcycle organ escorts group heading out, then a few minutes later a group of police headed out. Then a few minutes after that, a group of military folks headed out. I had started live videos each time thinking the parade had started, but there was a good five-minute gap between each group that passed and I had to cancel each live video and start again. Once the parade finally started I was able to shoot the whole thing live. 

Throughout the whole parade, Pushy kept getting closer and closer. So much so, she was completely in between my daughters and I, and I was so packed in, I couldn’t even shift my weight. My hands were holding my selfie stick for my camera and were all up in Pushy’s hair, with my fingers up against her neck. I wasn’t about to give up one more centimeter. Twice I shifted which pushed her forward and she didn’t even flinch, staying so tight to us. I’ve been all over the world and understand that many cultures don’t have the same idea of space as us Americans do, but this was ridiculous. We made several comments that would have been impossible for her not to hear, but it didn’t matter. I will never forget Pushy. 

The parade was quite unique to say the least. We had always heard that the Irish didn’t celebrate as much as we Americans do for St. Patrick’s Day. Well, those in the crowd were exactly what we expected to see. They wore tons of green and silly hats, waved flags and it was very much like what we would see back home. What was different was the parade itself. The word that we used after it was over was “disappointing”, and interestingly, that is the same word that others used to us when we asked them what they thought of the parade. Shockingly to us, we didn’t see anything Irish, or even St. Patrick, in the parade. There wasn’t one shamrock, leprechaun, bagpipe, kilt, St. Patrick, or anything. It could have been just a random parade for any community event. There were several youth sports teams, karate, judo, and other various teams, and a few groups that looked like they must be from a children’s television show, which were quite creepy to say the least. 

What the parade did have was about 25-30 different ethnic groups parading together waving their flags of their own countries, that they either came from themselves, or their ancestors came from. They celebrated their cultures, dress, and music. We didn’t have a problem with that, because assuming they are now citizens of Ireland, they are Irish themselves, but we kept looking to see the traditional Irish things that we are used to seeing in the United States. The only Irish thing that we saw was a group dressed in western-ware, with a Mexican banner and waving Mexican flags, that did some traditional Irish dancing. That is the only thing Irish that we saw in the entire parade. I kept looking at my watch for time stamps, so I could go to my video to find the Irish things that we were all waiting to see. Once the parade ended, the crowd dispersed, and we frantically looked down the road in shock that it was over. Perhaps this is normal for Ireland, and we are the weird ones but I have to admit that many of us excited to see the big event, on the big day, in the motherland, were quite disappointed. 

We had been very lucky every day since we arrived, with nice, sunny but cool weather. As if it were scheduled, within a minute of the parade ending, it started to pour rain. Sarah said that “it was St. Patrick’s own tears from his disappointment in the parade” and we all had to laugh! We headed down an alley behind us and went into a doorway to wait out the rain. Rebekah had an umbrella and stood in the rain, but the rest of us were lucky to stay dry. We quickly realized that this was a popular spot for people to pee, and the smell was one that we wouldn’t have been able to handle long. The shower only lasted a few minutes and we headed to main center of town near Hillbilly’s, and the English Market, where Ann said that we should be able to find a cab. We walked about 20 minutes, and passed by many pubs, and buskers, or folks singing on the street. We paused to watch two fellows that were singing a traditional Irish song, and we all laughed because we were finally hearing some Irish songs for the day. Fuzz went to their Instagram page and watched them play live on there, and in person, which was pretty neat. 

We made it to where we were going but didn’t see any cabs, so we went up to a group of Guarda, which are Irish police and asked for directions. They were very helpful and sent us to a street where a couple of cabs companies are based. This was something else that was different than we were used to. In the United States we see cabs all over the place, in big cities. In Ireland, we saw taxi stations, or offices that one would go to get a cab, much like we would go to a bus station. We headed to our destination which was about another 20-minute walk and I’m quite sure was near where we started. On the way, I wasn’t sure if we were there, or one street from our destination, so we walked a bit down the road to a row of buses that were parked beside the river. Here it looked like they were giving rides, or renting large multi-person kayaks on the River Lee. After a few minutes, we thought that we would go try the next street over where we quickly saw a cab company. Stephanie went inside and the lady told her that it would be 20 minutes. I knew it would be longer, because I had already noticed that things move slower in Ireland than in the United States, even slower than the south. We noticed that no one is in much of a hurry to do things which while somewhat annoying to us, is likely healthier and more enjoyable to the local Irish. They weren’t slow per se, just not in a rush. 

We crouched on the little wood ledge outside the office because the inside was filled with cigarette smoke. There was a little fast food restaurant next door, where we saw a man rolling many of his own cigarettes on the table. That is another thing that we saw often while in Ireland, folks rolling and smoking their own cigarettes, which sometimes looked like they were smoking marijuana to us. Fuzz and I saw a little store across the street, so we played Frogger to get to the other side. We bought a few cokes and waters from an Arab restaurant, and brought them back to the girls. I ate my sandwich that the clan had gotten me from the sandwich shop, before the parade. 

When we first got to the cab station, Ann called me, which is why Stephanie was the one to schedule the cab. She told me that our cab would arrive at the hotel at 4:15 and that the drivers name was, “Patrick”, how fitting. Our cab arrived a bit late, after 30 minutes, and we were on our way back to the hotel. It was only a few minutes ride back since we didn’t have to take the long way due to the hairpin turn into the hotel. The family was mostly quiet and later made a joke of how hard I laughed about something that the cab driver said. We made it back to the hotel a few minutes before 4pm, so we decided to just relax in the lobby until our next cab driver Patrick showed up to take us to Glantane. Here we ran into a few others from our group that had also been to the parade, and we all kept saying how shocking, and disappointing it was to us. 

I saw a van sitting outside about 4:10 and went out to see if it was our ride. It was Patrick Moynihan that we were waiting for, and I made sure that he understood what we were doing, that we were not in a hurry, and this would be a few hours. Patrick said that he understood and all was well. I fetched my family and we were on our way, well, sort of, we had to help Patrick figure out how to get there first, as it was not a place that he had ever heard of before. 

At this time, I guess I should explain what we were doing. My direct male-line, ancestor left Ireland as an indentured servant in 1677. His residence when he left was the tiny village of Glantane, which still exists, and is about 30-40 minutes a bit northwest of Cork City. The way out there was on skinny roads, up and down hills over an amazing landscape. The area reminded me of the south side of Cumberland Gap, in western Virginia, where there are large hills and ridges, but wide-open valleys. Stone fences, small farm houses and lots of sheep filled our eyes as we made our way out. We got a bit off course in the little village of Bweeng, and we all chuckled at its unique name. 

As we came into the village of Glantane, the first place we came to was St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, which we knew had a small cemetery. We pulled in the parking lot, got out, and then walked about the old cemetery with large Celtic cross grave markers. We noticed that the graves were those of priests, who were likely those that had served this church over the years. We took a few photos of the cemetery and the church and then walked out to the road, where a stone with the town name was inscribed. The sign was a flat rock with the name “Glantane” etched in it, and painted a shiny gold. We took more pictures of the rock together. We were officially in the exact map dot town of our ancestors, over 350 years ago! The town has around 30 or so houses, two churches and a pub, a mere crossroads really. 

We next headed to the other church and its cemetery. We found the cemetery to be a bit large and spent some time walking around it. This cemetery also had large markers, many with Celtic crosses on them. They were very aligned and gridded off, which would make it easy to find a specific grave if you were looking for it. In the middle was a marble statue of Jesus on a cross, with three others weeping for him. Rebekah was the first to find a grave with the name of our surname, and over the next few minutes, we found several more. I was ecstatic and taken aback to be in the map dot town that my own, direct male ancestors left from 350 years ago, and STILL find our surname in the area! How long has our DNA been here? How many centuries? The thought was overwhelming and emotional. I stopped in my tracks to see the grave of a fellow that died in 1989. His name is the same name as my 9th-great-grandfather, the father of my immigrant ancestor… Is this a local family name? Is it just a coincidence? The sight of the headstone brought more questions to my mind, several of which I often ponder. I said a little prayer and had a small little talk to the spirits, that many believe linger to guide us.

We took several photos and spent some time looking at the vast valley in front of us. I tried to breath in the air, feel the breeze, and let my imagination wander to see my ancestors living right where I was looking. My direct, male, Irish ancestors. I can’t express how much this experience means to me.

We loaded back up and headed to our next stop, the pub of course. I had found this pub on Google maps a few years ago and made the declaration that one day, I would surely have a pint there, and it was now time to fulfill that statement. The pub had an unusual name, simply called, “The Local”. When we arrived, we took a few photos before we went inside. It was a bit dark and very old. I’m not sure how old it is and when I asked the owner he said, “over a hundred years old”. I’d have to guess that is was much older than that, and while I’m no Irish historic building expert, it seemed to me that it was closer to early 1800s. There were three men sitting on one end of the bar, so they could see the rugby match on the television. They were likely in their mid-fifty’s, and it was obvious that they had been sitting there for quite a while, as they were a bit sauced. The only others there, was the owner and his wife, who were attending the bar. Everyone was quite suspicious as to who we were, and what we were doing. Perhaps it was that they saw us taking pictures before we came in, or perhaps it was the unusual site of the family demographic that came in the pub. I honestly think that this was a great example of the clannish behavior of the Celtic people, the same behavior that has carried over to Appalachian culture. The whole “you ain’t from around here, are you boy?” type of thing. 

We ordered a round, including one for our taxi driver Patrick, who requested a Murphy’s, which is more popular in the Cork region, than Guinness. I browsed around the pub and took a few pictures of the inside, which had several very small rooms, that were likely built on over time. The pub even had a pool table and very tight bathrooms. The old double-sided fireplace and mantle was a telling point of the age of the pub to me. I mentioned to the owner and the men what we were doing here, but they didn’t seem to enthused. One of them pointed to his friend, so I asked if we shared that surname, but he simply replied that he was a criminal, and not our surname, which made the three men laugh hysterically. It was a bit of an uncomfortable environment for my clan, but they weren’t in a big rush to leave. Patrick then bought me a Jameson and I figured, I’d might as well accept since I was where we were. 

After I finished my Jameson, I went outside to grab a few more photos of the small town, especially the small monument at the “T” in the road, which I would consider the middle of town. The monument was a large Celtic cross with Irish on the front, and English on the back, with an inscription and the names of local men who were killed between 1920 and 1921, in the Irish Rebellion. Across the road was a large, very old crank well, which likely was a community water source, and probably the reason why the town was there in the first place. It was here that I began my live video of the area, which told the story of why we were there, a bit of the history of the place, the views and I even walked back down the road to the pub where my family and Patrick had come out. I was able to put them all in the video and they gave their reflections, especially Rebekah. 

After the video we loaded up and headed back to our hotel. At this time, I finally had a moment to really reflect where I was and what we had just experienced. I held the hands of my family as we left the tiny little town, and wondered what my immigrant ancestor thought as he left that same town, just like we were doing. What an opportunity this was! How many people get to visit the exact spot that their people come from, in the Old Country, let alone their direct male line? This experience has grown me. 

Patrick played an old Wolfe Tones CD on the way back, which we all really enjoyed. We made it back to the hotel just before dark, and said our goodbyes to Patrick and exchanged contact information. We even invited him to come and stay with us for a bit and replied that he may actually take us up on that. At least I think that’s what he was saying, ha-ha. His strong Cork accent was heavy, and if you have never heard a Cork accent, it’s sort of high and somewhat like they are singing. Patrick had two sons and said that maybe he’d bring them along. We’d be glad to have them.

We went back into the lobby and got the phone number for the local pizza place. We were a bit shocked with the name of the place which was, “Apache Pizza”, and the different types of pizza had Native American names, such as the regular pepperoni and cheese pizza was called, “The Wiggiwamer”. We didn’t think the whole theme would go over well in the modern United States. We ordered three large pizzas and a few liters of pop. When the pizza arrived about 30 minutes later, we went up the kids’ room and had our feast. This was a fun meal and we enjoyed the laughs and the pizza very much. I think we left one whole pizza almost intact. The kids’ room was quite large and Fuzz was able to sleep away from the girls near two windows. It had a couch, a table and a few chairs which made it very nice to eat there. The bathrooms had neat blue LED lights around the mirror and the ceiling. After we finished our meals, we all went to bed and ended our time in County Cork. 

PART 4: GALWAY AREA

DAY 6

The next morning was a Friday, and we had breakfast at 7:30, with departure at 8:30. I again had the egg and ham omelet and others had the eggs benedict. We loaded the bus but this time a large family group of nine people, including a couple of kids, had moved back to the back of the bus and into the area that we had been sitting. Stephanie and Sarah sat in one seat, and in the long very back row was Rebekah and Fuzz, with me in the middle. We think that the reason the family group had moved back, was because the others in the group had intentionally spread out, forcing them to move to the back away from everyone. Ann was once again our narrator as we traveled but so many times the family talked to each other very loud, and about things that were back home, not even what was going on. This was like watching a movie in a movie theater and people talking out loud around you. It wasn’t excessive yet, so I held my cool.

We went close to the areas that we had went the night before, and through the old parts of the towns such as Mallow, Buttevant, Charleville, Croom, Patrickswell, Limerick, etc. Ann told us as we passed Mt. Mary’s Church in Mallow, that this is where the first steeplechase race took place in 1752, between this church, and St. John’s Church, in Buttevant, over the countryside, steeple to steeple. We entered into County Limerick, the home county of our driver, Tommy, and Ann explained how the story of the Irish Limericks came to be. At one point on the road, Ann told us about fairy trees and their mythical history that lasts even today. She pointed out that one particular fairy tree had held up the construction of the road for a decade. We passed by the tree, which was a poofy rounded one, in-between the lanes of the highway, we grabbed a couple pictures as we passed it. 

As we left the city limits of Limerick, we passed underneath the River Shannon. I strained to look behind us to catch a glimpse of this famous river. We made our pit stop at Bunratty Castle, in County Clare, between Limerick and Ennis. The castle was built around 1425, and the stopping place has places to eat, shop, and use the bathroom. Our family ventured out to the castle first and got a few photos. Then they headed into the shops to grab some food, while I stayed out to get more photos. Ann came out and told me a bit more about the castle, and explained that there is a medieval reenactment village here, and they hold dinners at the castle, liken to our Medieval Times dinners back home in the United States. We talked about how this would be another great stop for a future tour group that we may take. I headed back in telling Ann that I had to hurry because we had a slave driver for a tour guide. She stated that she was a Colonel in another life. 

I met Fuzz on the way, and we headed to the bathrooms upstairs. We figured that we should grab some waters and a sandwich. There were only 3 people in line ahead of us, and we had 12 minutes to be to the bus. Well, like other times before, the line was very slow, and we hustled to the bus to make it exactly on time. We passed very beautiful scenery on our way to the Cliffs of Moher. We arrived at the famous cliffs at 12:10, or maybe it was 1:10, and we were given two hours to take them in. We hustled and headed down the path of the south side, from the visitor’s center. It was breathtaking and not something that can be captured in a picture. The weather was very windy and sunny, which that made the cliffs look a bit hazy. We took a million photos here, and at some point, Rebekah and I became separated from the group. Rebekah wanted to go over the wall, to the path that was close to the edge of the cliffs, even though there were several signs that said not to climb over the walls. Ann had even warned to not go over the walls, because many folks had fallen from the cliffs. She said it would be just as easy to photoshop ourselves in the picture later. Well, several people were walking on the other side, so I of course said, what the hey, and we crossed over. We were blown away! After taking a couple pictures, not five minutes after we hopped over the wall, a young man came up to Rebekah, and handed her his phone while whispering, “take a video”. I had no idea what was going on, but he grabbed his girlfriend, told her how much he loved her, and took a knee! He proposed right there at the Cliff of Moher! How can that be topped!? Rebekah got it on video, and I got a couple shots, but I was late to the party, ha-ha. What a moment and an experience that we got to witness. I gave him my card, and he texted me later for my video and pictures that I had gotten. They were from Florida and we sure hope that they are blessed in their lives together, because it sure did start right.

Rebekah and I headed down a bit further were we happened upon Stephanie, who was also over the wall and sitting down, just staring out at the cliffs and the sea. I didn’t even mention that we were there, and started taking pictures of her there. It was an amazing sight and she made one of the pictures her Facebook wallpaper. Sarah and Fuzz showed up soon, also over the wall. Sarah, who has always been a stickler for rules said, “leave it to our family, to be the ones to not follow the rules!”, which gave us all a huge laugh. We told them all what we had just witnessed in the proposal. The spot was just too good to waste, so we took turns getting some amazing shots of all of us there at the cliffs, just looking out. It was at this moment that we realized that about half of our time was up and that we had better head back up the other direction a bit. We went back over the wall, but this side was very narrow and difficult to pass on-coming folks. The path comes right up against the barb wired fences of farmers that have sheep, and some amazing views of the area, riddled with a maze of stone fences and little houses. The area looks other worldly and unlike anywhere we have ever seen. 

We made it back to where we started from, and headed up the steps that lead to the north side of the cliffs, and are close to the observation tower. We didn’t go the entire way to the tower, because we found an amazing spot to take some family photos, which didn’t have others crawling all over us. Once we took the pictures, we knew that we needed to be getting back to use the bathrooms and hit the gift shop. I stayed behind and found a spot away from people to shoot my live video. Unfortunately, the wind was brutal and you had to strain to hear what I was saying most of the time. 

I headed back to meet the family and went into the side door where the bathrooms were. The women’s line was wrapped all down the hall but the men’s line was clear. I went inside, where there is a little museum, that explains the history, geology, and the biology of the cliffs. It would have been awesome to take it all in, including some sort of show that they have there, but there just wasn’t time. I found the gift shop, where I found my family and we grabbed a few items to remember our time here, including beautiful stained-glass coasters for our dining table. I walked to the bus where oddly, I wasn’t the last one on. The kids followed very shortly and they had found a small piece of flat rock in the grass, that they took to remember the cliffs. I know it’s usually not a good thing to take things like this from sites, but if you could understand the enormity of the cliffs, you would realize that these little rocks will never be missed. The girls all said that The Cliffs of Moher was the highlight of the trip for them. It truly is a mystical, and spiritual place, and is definitely the main place that we would like to return to. I’d like to come for about three days to just sit, meditate and take it all in. I’d love to spend sometime in the visitor’s center too. We just can’t believe what we saw here and the word the family was using was “life-changing”. 

We now began our journey through The Burren, and into Galway. The Burren is an area that has large exposed rocks all around, and is a geological anomaly. It is also a very historical area, where they have found dozens of cairns, which are prehistorical burial tombs, with stacked rocks. The scenery is very unique and I’m not sure there are many places in the world like it. This is a stretch of our adventure that I had a very rough time, but I held it together. Our clan will be laughing about the next event for the rest of our lives, I’m quite certain, but it could have been a very bad experience for us all if I wouldn’t have been a bit wiser in my years, and learned to control my “Irish temper”.

The road was extremely curvy, which on the back of the bus was amplified. The sun was beating down through the back window like a magnifying glass, making us miserable. Fuzz later said that he was about the freak out, because the sun was so hot. The angle of the sun made it only shine on the back row, so others were not affected by it. We could have closed the curtain, but then we would not have been able to see the incredible scenery nearly as well. The family that I mentioned earlier in the story, began to chat again and it was making it hard to understand Ann. The rear row of seats was not like the other seats on the bus, they were thin and narrower. I was in the middle and the seat I was on began to start to fold in the middle. This exposed the metal side support rails, which were narrower than my hips, and were digging into them. Due to the movement of the bus, things such as my portable phone charger, water, etc. kept falling all over the floor, and the movement also caused the seat to start to slide forward, away from the metal supports. I got up several times to try to reattach the thin plastic to the metal bars and shove it back into the back of the seat. On one of these attempts, when I pulled it toward me, the whole seat snapped off and separated from the row of seats completely. I knew the kids were dying laughing inside, and even had told Fuzz to stop laughing before I, well “creatively encouraged him to stop laughing”. 

I was about to explode. Stephanie who was sitting next to Sarah asked if I’d like to change seats, and I said loudly something to the effect that I absolutely would. Once I sat next to Sarah, the guy in the family that talked the most, and was two rows ahead of me, kept turning around talking to the guy in front of me, very, very loud, making it almost impossible to hear Ann. Yes, I could have asked him to please be quiet, but why should I have to? What kind of redneck doesn’t have enough class to shut up so all those around him can hear? Instead I stared stone faced into his soul for a minute or two, until he caught my gaze and finally realized that I wasn’t to be messed with. I prayed for him not to smart off, because I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have been able to suppress my “Irishness”. He finally shut up and turned around and my blood slowly went back to normal. Any of these things by themselves, were not a big deal, but the heat, movement, dropping, busted seat, non-stop loud chatter, all together, almost did me in, ha-ha. 

We soon stopped at a small pull off and Tommy allowed us to get off and snap a few pictures. It was a spot where the road snaked left, and right up the hill, and the view of The Burren was too unique to explain into words. The things these eyes have seen! I was the only one from my Clan, to get off the bus and some older ladies chuckled a bit watching me take a few selfies. I realized that they could tell how excited and happy that I was, so I chuckled as well. We drove near the sea the rest of the way, passing small harbors and tiny houses, that wake up every morning to the incredible views. It is amazing how many small castle ruins that we saw dotting the country side the entire trip. Early on, we strained to get a picture, that was always poor since it was taken from a moving bus, and get the others attention so that they wouldn’t miss it. However, by this stage in the trip, we had seen so many, we rarely even pointed them out to each other. They are everywhere!

As we made it into the outskirts of Galway, we stopped first to check into our hotel, which was a Maldron, the same chain as we stayed in, in Dublin. Ann had said it was best, because we could use the restroom here, instead of having to pay a few coins to use them in the city. Speaking of that, bathrooms are rarely free in Europe. I have experienced this before, even at a rest area off the Autobahn, in Germany. “Paying to Pee” is a foreign concept to us Americans. Ann gave us about 45 minutes to get checked in and meet back on the bus, I think it was 4:30, to head into the city. At this hotel, the kids were next door to us. The first hotel they were a floor up, the second hotel, they were a floor up and all the way on the opposite end of the hall, but now they were next door. The stop gave us a few minutes to take off our shoes and get everything set up. I knew not to attempt to try to plug my extension cord in this time! Oh, by the way, once we got home, I tried to see if my extension cord worked at my house, and fried the GFI in the kitchen, and had to call an electrician, ha-ha.

We got back on the bus for the very short, one mile or so, ride into town. We passed another large cemetery that was full of tall Celtic cross head stones. The bus parked right at Eyre Square, and Ann had us put on our VOX boxes and earphones. This park is also called JFK Park, because he visited here, and gave a speech, very soon before his assassination. Where we got off the bus, was right by the memorial for JFK, and we got a few pictures. Ann led us through the park up to the front. Galway is nicknamed, “The City of Tribes”, because it was ruled for several centuries by 14 merchant families, that they called tribes. Each one of the tribes had a banner flying from poles in the front of Eyre Square. Also, in the front of square, is the Browne Door, which is a section of the front of a house, that the Browne family, one of the 14 tribes, lived in. The purpose of the doorway being here, was to show the ornate medieval architecture that once filled the city. 

Ann led us down the street and pointed out how the city is preserving much of the old décor and buildings all around. There were often sections of exposed artwork, crests or writing still showing on a modern wall. We stopped for a bit in front of Lynch’s Castle, which is a tower fortress, that was lived in by the Lynch family, another of the 14 tribes. By the way, there is a story of one of the Lynch’s who was serving as major of Galway. His son was convicted of murdering a Spanish merchant, and Mayor Lynch ordered his son to be hung from a window in the city, hence the word, “lynched”. Lynch’s Castle is now a bank but is a really neat thing to see next to modern buildings. 

We passed a ton of shops and pubs, including a famous pub called “The King’s Head”. The story is that the building is over 800 years old and once the home of Colonel Peter Stubbers. In 1649, King Charles I of England was sentenced to beheading, but no one wanted to do the job. Stubbers finally volunteered and for his deed, he was given this building, which now fittingly houses, The King’s Head Pub. Ann took us even further down the street and to Kirwan’s Lane, which is a narrow road between large buildings and looks just like it did in medieval times. We passed a few Claddagh shops, the Spanish Arch, and the Christopher Columbus Memorial. The Spanish Arch is an arch right on the harbor that is one of the last remaining sections of the of the medieval wall that once surrounded the entire city. The Christopher Columbus Memorial is a small monument that was a gift from Columbus’ home city of Genoa, Italy to commemorate the visit by Columbus to the city, in 1477. 

Ann led us onto the bridge that crossed the River Corrib and empties into the harbor. She pointed out the tower that was built to stop fishing poachers and also pointed out the small village of Claddagh, which is the origin of the popular rings that so many of us with Irish roots wear. Here she turned us loose and told us that the bus would be at Eyre Square, at 8pm to take us all back to the hotel. This was also the last time that we used the VOX boxes, which we all thought were super handy. We were able to hear what she was saying and move about an area on our own to get pictures, or see whatever we wanted to see. Ann said a few more things to our Clan about what there is to see in the town, telling us about the new cathedral, and the museums. From here we were on our own for the next few hours. 

Once we split off from Ann, we went inside the first little shop that sold claddaghs called, Seodoireacht Cheilteach an Chladagh, and looked around at the cool things they had. After this store we went into the huge Aran Sweater Market, that is two stories, and has about anything you can imagine as far as wool sweaters, blankets, hats, etc. Inside this store at the cash register is an enclosed trench with a glass floor. Under the floor is a section of the wall that was part of the original castle built in Galway, in 1232. We spent quite some time in this store looking around at everything in it and our Clan bought a few things. Fuzz had ventured a bit down an alley called Druid Lane, and then brought us to show us what he had found. Across form the famous Druid Theater, was the Hall of the Red Earl Ruins, and you can see them from the alley through a wall of glass. This is ruins of a castle and walls built in the 1200s, and part of what we saw in the Aran Sweater Market.

At this point we were hungry and knew that if we didn’t find a place to eat, it would be too packed to find somewhere. Everywhere was already busting at the seams, and Stephanie did find a restaurant that was just a normal, modern restaurant. I wanted to find something that was more nostalgic and headed on our way. It was at this time that Rebekah was getting upset, and wanted to just eat somewhere. I went into The Kings Head, and headed to the back until I found and empty table. I text the family to come inside, which they did, but no one ever came to wait on us. We looked it up online and it said that the restaurant was actually next door, so we headed out of there and went next door. Rebekah was ahead of us and found that it was closed. We headed down the road some more but everywhere was packed and it was difficult for us to find some place that can handle five people. 

We made the decision to just go to McDonalds. We had heard that it was a bit different and wanted to try it anyway. I stayed to secure us a table, while the Clan went up to order. You needed to order on a screen and then wait for your order to be filled. What they didn’t realize was that they didn’t have combo meals, and both Rebekah and Fuzz were without drinks and fries. We split up what we had and made do. I ordered a quarter pounder without onions and literally got a piece of meat and a bun, ha-ha. We learned later that you have to select everything that you what you want on the screen. Rebekah got some sort of chicken sandwich that we don’t have in the United States. The fries didn’t have near the salt that we are used to either. The bathrooms were here and upstairs. The good news was that you didn’t have to pay to use them. On our way out, we noticed that this McDonalds had two security guards working near the door.

We went to look for something to get into, like finding a pub that was playing some Irish music. Our original tour had an excursion added to it that was supposed to be an Irish meal with music, but due to it being St. Patrick’s weekend, it had gotten cancelled. This was a bummer for us because it was definitely something that we wanted to do. Ann had assured us that we would be able to find this in the city, but we didn’t have any luck. Rebekah really didn’t want to go hang at the pubs like she originally had wanted to, and we were all getting a bit tired too. We made our way back to Eyre Square, where we heard music coming from a large tent. We made our way to it and a band was playing their second to last song, which was some sort of rock music. There weren’t any refreshments, chairs, or anything, so we were looking for something to do again soon. I found a schedule outside showing that there would be music from about 4pm to 7pm every night, but it was about to be over this night. We saw the art piece “Galway Hooker”, which is cut metal, meant to resemble the fishing ships that have always been a huge part of the city. The art was all lit up in green. We saw what looked like might be a convivence store, and headed there, because Rebekah was looking for a razor, but as we got closer, it was actually a restaurant. We went inside the Imperial Hotel lobby to the bar that was quite empty, to warm up and have a pint. Here we waited until it was time to get on the bus which would be parked just outside. We enjoyed about 45 minutes of down time and relaxation talking about all we had seen that day.

When it was time to catch the bus, we went out and loaded on it. I saw Ann there and we chatted about the parade and how so many Americans had told us that they were disappointed about it. As a side note, on the way home at the airport I met folks that had seen the parades in Galway, and in Dublin, and they said the same things. Ann said that it likely wasn’t unusual what we saw, and that recent parades have went away from the traditional Irish things of the past. I find this very sad. Tommy asked if we were waiting on someone and it turned out that everyone was of course, already waiting on us to return to the hotel. I got on the bus and we headed back to our rooms where we went straight to bed. This was the end of another amazing, jam packed day.

DAY 7

The next morning, we had breakfast at 7:30, and COVID testing at 8:30. We dragged a bit and didn’t make it to breakfast until around 8am. It should be mentioned that all three breakfasts that we had a Maldrons were the same, with lots of cheese, fruit eggs, etc. The also had the small glasses for us to get something to drink, which by now we were all used to. We were told that the COVID testing was on the first floor, which in this hotel was the 2nd floor, because the ground floor was called, the ground floor. We headed up to that floor, but it looked exactly like a floor with hotel rooms so we asked an employee, who told us to ask the desk. We went to the ground floor, where I headed do the hall, and found the group all lined up in chairs on either side of the hall way. We took our turn, moving closer to the doors to get tested, each time moving into chairs that were already warm. The wait was full of laughs and jokes. We chatted with a couple who were from Michigan, and we discussed our mutual dislike for UM, because they were MSU fans. We also saw a girl with an IU shirt, and we chatted for a few about how both IU and UK had already been knocked out of the NCAA tournament in the last few days. UK was a #2 seed and had been knocked out by #15 St. Peters Peacocks, who no one had even heard of. We had all been almost totally out of the loop for the tournament. 

When it was our turn, we all five went in to get tested. There were two ladies in there doing the testing and they mentioned that they would have to “get in there a bit more than usual”. I volunteered to go first to get it over with. It wasn’t that bad. Fuzz told Rebekah to video his, and he kept his eyes open and was straight faced the whole time. We were all cracking up. Rebekah was last and she was a bit nervous but it wasn’t a big deal. They told us that we would hear something within a few hours. Later on, Ann texted Stephanie to say that all had tested negative, and that evening we all got our results emails that we needed to get back into the United States. 

The group left at 9:30 to go on an excursion to Kylemore Abby and Connemara National Park. We didn’t care much for that, but hitched a ride into the city to spend our last day in Ireland as we pleased in Galway. The bus dropped us off at Eyre Square again and we went immediately to look for the girls new Claddagh rings. When they went into the first store, Fuzz and I looked around a bit and while Sarah was looking for Jared a suitable ring, we stepped out. Right behind here was St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, which definitely was one of the places that I wanted to see. I went to get a few shots in the good sun light that was shining on it. St. Nicholas was named for the patron saint of seafarers and children. Many of us know him at St. Nick, or as he is even more known as, Santa Claus. The church was founded in 1320 and in some ways resembles a fortress. Also, in 1477, while visiting the city, Christopher Columbus is said to have worshipped here. 

Wrapped all around the church was what we learned was called the St. Nicholas Market. It was sort of like a flea market, or festival in the United States and they not only sold arts and crafts, but also all kinds of food stuffs. The church was closed and I figured that it would open later. We decided to head to the little village of Claddagh, but on the way, we stopped into T. Dillon and Son jewelry store, that was founded in 1750. Inside here they have a small Claddagh museum. My 87-year-old Grandmother Violet Carson had asked us to find her a Celtic cross necklace while we were here, and this was one of our missions for the day. We found a nice one that had purple stones around it, which is her favorite color. We realized this was perfect, and even more so, because hanging on the wall near this necklace was a picture of John Wayne that said that he had been a regular at the store. Grandma loves John Wayne, so this was perfect.

Then we went once again into the Aran Sweater Market and I went over to the Claddagh store, that we had visited the evening before. The lady inside was very friendly and since we were from Kentucky, asked if we had seen the results of the Cheltenham horse race that was the day before. We hadn’t, but I said that I did hear that it was an Irish horse that had won it. She said that she didn’t care about that, what she cared about was that it was won by an Irish female jockey, and this was the first time that this had happened. 

I bought a few brass souvenirs for my office and later Fuzz came in to buy a very nice Celtic ring that has claddaghs on it. They didn’t have one large enough for me. We then headed over the bridge that we were on the night before with Ann, to make our way to the famous village of Claddagh. The wind was howling and it was chilly. We went to the cross walk and found a few statues, one was called “Claddagh Icon” and the other was that of a priest. We dodged the traffic a bit to get across and then passed the Claddagh Piscatory School. We then crossed the road and walked right up to the water. It was right in this area, across for the walled city of Galway, that the village of Claddagh stood. Claddagh, is said by some, to be the oldest fishing village in all of Ireland, but what it is now known for worldwide, is the ring that started here in the late 1600s. The ring is worn to symbolize Love, Loyalty and Friendship and was said to have been created by Richard Joyce, who was a week away from his wedding, when he was captured by Moor pirates, and held in captivity. While in captivity he learned goldsmithing and made a ring for his love back home. When he was eventually released, he took his skills back home and made his new style ring for many, many more. The fashion spread and is now an icon for all those that love Celtic traditions. The area of this legendary village is now is a park and a residential area. 

We walked down to the waterfront and took several pictures, to include in front of a destroyed fishing boat. We took pictures of Fuzz skipping rocks in the harbor, and then, the clan headed back to town. I stayed back to get more shots, shoot my live video, and also spend the next little bit, getting shots for the videos that we will be producing with Family Tree Nuts. When the clan got back into Galway, they ate at McDonagh’s, where they said they had the best fish and chips ever. They also popped into a few more shops, as well as listening to the buskers playing music. I used the next hour or so alone and got shots of the Christopher Columbus Memorial, the Spanish Arch and Wall, Kirwans Lane, historic pubs, Lynch’s Castle my second visit to St. Nicholas Church, which was still closed, and to Eyre Square. I was glad to find that I could use the bathroom again at McDonalds. 

One story of note was while getting shots of the Spanish Arch, I was backing up when I bumped into a marker a bit below waist high, that had a plaque on it, that said it was the spot where the “Galway Democratic Republic” was declared. I backed into it so hard, that I flipped over it and landed on my left shoulder, as my feet went over my head. It hurt, but I popped up immediately, and stated, “Well I guess I will never forget this spot!” and about 30 onlookers started laughing. My arm and shoulder were sore for days after this. I sent a text to my family letting them know what happened and that I was ok, and they were obviously amused. Another event of note was that I came upon a busker singing the song “Caledonia” which is a traditional Scottish song, but one that is very important to our clan, and one in which I think about my daughters. I videoed this, and sent to them. I’m glad that I had this moment alone. I continued getting my shots and eventually ran into my clan. 

We knew there were just a few more things that we wanted to do, and one of them was to visit St. Nicholas. We went to the church, which for me was now the third time, but unfortunately it was still closed. My family checked out the shops, and Sarah bought a little wooden spoon and fork, for her new house that she was setting up. We then headed to the Galway Museum which is right by the Spanish Arch. I showed them where I had fallen and they thought it was neat to pass under the arch where so many had done for centuries. The museum is free, and while it isn’t a very big museum, it is a very well-done museum. The museum has relics from ancient prehistoric Ireland, and a very well-done section of Celtic life and settlement. It also has a very large section concerning the Irish rebellion and its leaders, as well as Ireland oceans. Maybe the highlight of the museum was the exhibit of the fishing village Claddagh, where they had so many old photos of the history and its people. Glass walls overlook the area of the village, and Fuzz noticed that the area where we stood to take pictures, and where I had shot my live video, was now under water from high tide. Like most things on this journey, we didn’t have a ton of time, so I took a ton of pictures so that I could read about it later. 

As we left the museum, we heard some praying on a loud speaker, and between the Spanish Arch, and the Columbus Memorial, a group of people had assembled to pray. They were discussing the situation in Ukraine, praying for the Russians to realize their sins, and to turn back. They were kneeling down on the hard concrete and a lady was passing out some papers to folks walking by. They had drawn quite a crowd of on lookers. 

We then headed to the Galway Mall, so we could see its famous walls. Rebekah had spotted a way to the mall, but it was down an alley. I suggested that we reach the mall from Eyre Square where I knew it was the correct place. We did and made our way into the food court to see the walls and relax. The signs said that the tables were for Subway customers only, but there was plenty of room. The reason for our visit was that the mall has an entire section of the old medieval wall that once surrounded the city, and was built in the 1200s. This was incredible to be able to see the wall from both floors with modern day stores all around it. The wall has several plaques that explain the history of the wall all along the food court area. I got my shots from many angles, and had thought about shooting a live video, but I didn’t think it would be ok walking around all the people shopping with me shooting live. How cool is it to have an 800-year-old wall right there where you are buying your Nikes? 

We had rested for a few minutes in the food court, when we all had noticed a young couple sitting bit away from us. The girl appeared to be asleep, or even passed out. It wasn’t long before she sat up and was throwing up all over herself. The boy stood up to try to shield her, but didn’t do a great job of hiding her. She kept throwing up and was smearing her vomit all in her hair. When she had finished, he lifted her to her feet and lead out of the area. Rebekah went to find someone to let them know that the area needed cleaned up. She found a fellow that was responsible to clean the tables, and Rebekah remarked to him how odd that is was for someone to be so drunk in public at such an early hour. The boy replied that it was obvious that she wasn’t from here and this was quite the norm in Ireland. Shortly after he cleaned the area up, we saw a man eating his sandwich at the same table. This should be a lesson to you to never eat your food if it falls on a public table. You never know who was just sitting there. 

We were all pretty worn out, but we decided that it would be ok to walk the 20 minutes back to the hotel. We looked at a couple routes but chose the shortest one that passed another large shopping center. We ended up coming out at a different place in the mall, which is where Rebekah had first noticed as an entrance, before we got there. Rebekah was leading the pack on our journey, and I had to ask her a couple times where the fire was, because we were going so fast. We noticed that like so many places we seen in Ireland, so many of the houses looked the same. We passed a house that the entire side was artistically painted with a scene from, The Legend of Gilgamesh. We were on a main road that likely didn’t often have foot traffic and has lined with large shopping centers. One of the last things that we saw before reaching our hotel was another Apache Pizza, and we all laughed.

We arrived at the hotel with a half an hour to spare before the Farwell Dinner, so we went to our rooms and started to gather up all our souvenirs into the small carry-on luggage that Fuzz and I had originally packed in our main suitcases. At “half seven”, as they call it in Ireland, or 7:30, we went to the Farewell Dinner. There wasn’t a place for the five of us in the rows set aside for our group, so we spilled into the table next to it that Ann and Tommy had their things setting on. We felt bad, but Ann moved saying that she didn’t have time to sit anyway. We had our choice of soup or a caesar salad, and spaghetti or ham, mashed potatoes and cabbage. We also had some rolls. The caesar salad was amazing and had chunks of bacon in it. We had our last Guinness’ of our trip, and of course, had to ask several times for water. I’m sure that the Irish servers were glad to see our Clan leave the country, so they didn’t have to be bothered with water anymore, ha-ha.

Ann brought us all a small sample of a liquor made near her home in County Kerry. Our whole tour group had a toast for farewell. We also had a couple birthdays during this dinner and they were presented with a small Cadbury cake. They passed cards around for us to sign. I think there were five birthdays in all the week of our trip. Tommy went to bed early, and said good-bye, because he had to be us so early to drive us. For desert we had a sampler of dark chocolate cheesecake and some carrot cake. Once we finished, our Clan got up, waved, and went to bed. I’m pretty sure that we were the first to leave, but most were chatting amongst themselves. I made the comment in jest that we didn’t make any friends on the trip, but we knew it was because we spent our time talking to one another, and going on our own independent adventures. 

We went to our rooms and did all the packing that we possibly could do. It took me around 30 minutes to make sure we had all the new things packed well. We had planned well, and filled the carry-on luggage to the gills with things that we bought. Once I had everything set, I set our alarm for 3am and went to sleep fast. This ended our last full day on the Emerald Isle.

PART 5: THE JOURNEY HOME

DAY 8

The alarm went off at the wee hour of 3, and I hit what I thought was the snooze, but I grabbed my phone anyway and checked the scores of the games the evening before, and the news. I’m glad that I did, because I had actually turned the alarm clock off, instead of hitting the snooze and that could have been disastrous. I made sure that the kids were up, and we proceeded to start the “Day from Hell”, and our 25-hour journey home. We had dreaded this day before we even left home, not only because we knew that the trip was over, but also because it was going to be so bloody long. We headed down about 3:50, gave our bags to Tommy and grabbed our sack breakfasts. Here we told Ann goodbye and we said that we would catch up about future trips soon. She had been a true gem and an asset to our group for so many reasons. 

The bus left right on time at 4am. The original schedule was for us to leave out of the airport in Shannon, but with COVID, the United States was making us leave from Dublin. This was about a 2.5 hour drive all the way across the country. Most dozed on the bus and Fuzz and I tried the breakfast in the sack. It had some sort of yogurt in a bowl that was super sour and we wondered if it was spoiled. We knew that most things we ate such as yogurt or parfaits were very sour, and or tart, and without the sugar that we Americans like. We also had an orange juice, juice box with a paper straw and two baguettes. We stopped after a little more than 1.5 hours at a travel center, but after we all unloaded to head inside, we found that it was still closed, and we all loaded back on the bus. I found a nice county map of Ireland and filled in all the counties that we had passed through. We had been in 13 of the 26 counties, including Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Cork, Limerick, Clare, Galway, Roscommon, Westmeath, Meath, and Offlay. Now I want to go back to fill in the map…

We arrived at the airport around 7am and Tommy dropped us all off at Terminal 2. I’m not sure if he had to drop us all off here, or he just didn’t know that some of us were leaving from Terminal 1. We said our goodbyes to Tommy, which the girls all said, “was so cute”. Tommy had been retired for about 20 years as an engineer, and didn’t speak much about his family but gave us of wonderful impression of himself. We went inside the terminal and had to navigate a bit to find out how to get to Terminal 1, which took us about 20 minutes to walk to. Once we arrived at our terminal, we waited in line for about 15 minutes, where we dropped off our main luggage. We then went into another line for just a few minutes, where we dropped all of our waters. We had to go through one by one, scan our boarding passes, to have little door allow us to pass through. Mine wasn’t working which caused a bit of stress, and the fellow asked me to go to the side, but before I did, he asked if my brightness was turned up on my phone. Once I adjusted that, it was smooth sailing. 

We linked the Clan up again thinking we had cleared security, but oh no, this opened up into a huge room with a ton of bodies scanning their carry ons. It was in this long line that Rebekah had remembered that she put her expensive perfume and lotion in her carry on, and not her checked luggage. We had hoped that she would be cleared and that she had used enough to be under the ounces allowed. Of course, her and my bags were caught in the scan and she had to throw out her perfume and lotion. We felt awful for her, but I’m certain this will never happen again as she travels. My bag was searched because I had forgotten about a half empty bottle of coke that was left over in my bag. I had only remembered the water because it was so valuable to us. We then went to find our gate, which just like every other flight we had, was at the very furthest point, and about another 20-minute walk. We were all amused. It was so far out, that we were far from any place to grab something to eat, but we were glad to see there were five open seats for us to sit down. 

Rebekah and Sarah went to look for something to eat, and Fuzz and I went together, while Stephanie watched the bags. Fuzz and I hit a few stores but all we could find were packaged sandwiches. We did buy some more waters and some O’Donnell’s Chips, that we learned to love. I can guarantee we will be ordering these from Amazon, as we have already found them on there. Fuzz and I found the Burger King, but it was about a 10-minute walk from out gate. I ordered and Fuzz headed back to grab some more snacks. While I was waiting I seen a kid with a Centre College backpack. I asked him if he attended there and he said that he had recently graduated and had played football. Centre College is about 40 minutes from our house and we have had a couple local boys go there to play football recently. We chatted about the people that we both knew and were amazed how we had run into each other in the Dublin, Ireland Airport. He had been in country to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and was going back to Germany, where he was working at a ski resort, for a 1.5-year stint. What a gig! He also told me about the Centre College football coach and player that had fallen from the Cliffs of Moher, a few years ago. I thought he was kidding, but later looked it up, and it was true! A fellow went to pick up his order, and his entire bag busted out at the bottom, spilling everything all over. My order was then ready, so I told the kid goodbye and gathered my food, noticing that the bag was very thin. I secured it and hustled the ten-minute walk back to the gate. I had learned my lesson and made sure that I picked up salt for my fries, which later, I was glad that I did. Stephanie and I barely had our food eaten and it was time to board. We ran to the bathroom and then took our last steps in Ireland. 

Our Clan was sitting close but was all spread out. Sarah was in front of me, in the section to the right of Sarah was Rebekah, in front of her was Fuzz and in front of Fuzz was Stephanie. As we sat down, several people were trying to swap seats to get their families all together. Why did the airline mix everyone up? I just can’t understand this. The lady next to Sarah had her husband a few rows up, but didn’t want to trade with me because I was in the middle seat. Rebekah ended up having an empty seat next to her, but she let the girlfriend of the guy that was sitting next to her, fill the empty seat, and then kicked herself realizing that she could have had Sarah sit next to her. I was sitting in-between two early 20s women who were together in some way. I asked if one would like to switch with me so they could sit next to each other and they both declined, and I thought that was weird. I was prepared to be miserable and knew there was nothing I could do about it but sit there, ha-ha. 

Then we sat, and sat, and sat for about 45 minutes at the gate. It’s normal for the plane to not have cool air blowing while the plane sits still, and finally kick in once it starts moving, so I wasn’t annoyed at first, but we just kept sitting there. It was very hot, I was pouring sweat, but occupied myself playing a bubble game on my phone to take my mind off of the situation. The two girls next to me kept making comments, sighing loudly, and fanning themselves. Sarah talked about how hot she was and Rebekah was visibly struggling. She and Sarah had worn a hoodie and didn’t have undershirts. I was so happy that I had water. We finally took off but now, once again, we were behind schedule and the anxiety was setting in for several passengers. Our long layover wasn’t going to be as long. 

The flight wasn’t horrible and I tried to edit the 3,300 photos that I had taken during the week, but my eyes just wouldn’t focus, because they were so tired. Most of the time I played my bubble game. The girl to my left said that they lived in Miami, and like us was perplexed why we had such little water given to us in Ireland, and said that the parade they saw was similar to the one we had seen in Cork. She said that her family was planning a big trip to Italy in a few weeks and how all the kids were grown and paying their part. After several hours the captain announced that if you could, you should look out the windows to see amazing views of Greenland. I took a peek on my way back from the bathroom, but all three kids got up and went in an open area to take a few pictures. They were quite excited to do this. 

We ate some kind of chicken with red sauce on it, greens, a roll and a kit kat. We had some kind of container with greens in it, which of course I dropped on the floor, and the girl next to me had to grab. It was very tight, considering it was an international flight. Later they gave us some sort of warm sandwich that reminded me of a hot pocket. The last bit of the trip I watched some documentary about the ghetto of Compton, California. I know, this is totally odd, but it intrigued me to see that different world. Once we landed in Toronto, Canada we had been on the plane for somewhere close to 9 hours. Several people were freaking out trying to get off and make their connections. With what we went through next, I doubt they made it. 

They were telling folks with connections to get off first, and Stephanie was in a hurry, even though we had time. We finally were able to get off and when we got to the end of the ramp, we had to show our passports. The girls went through, but Fuzz was having trouble finding his. He took a knee and took everything out of his bag, but he didn’t have it. The girls were freaking out, and I told him that first of all, just calm down, it will be ok. I told him that he probably left it on the plane, and that I’d stay with his gear. The man called for me to come on, but I told him that I couldn’t leave because of my son. Luckily, he returned in just a few minutes after finding his passport in his seat. This was another good lesson to always check over your seat before you walk away. We aren’t sure what the situation would have been if he didn’t find his passport. 

We assumed that we would be heading to our gate, because we were told that Ireland had an agreement with the United States customs and we would only have to go through it once. Well that was not true, we had to do it again, and I had to throw out the waters that I had bought. Rebekah, Fuzz and my bags had to be looked at, but were cleared quickly. We had to scan our boarding pass and it told us to go to 1 or 2. If you were told to go to 2, you did not have to get your luggage, but if you had to go to 1 you did. For some reason the girls weren’t sure, and were waiting in 1, watching the board for our names that our luggage was up. I stepped in and checked the machine and figured out where we needed to be. Everyone was stressed, tired and starting to bicker but we solved it and moved on. We then had to go through U.S. Customs and were asked where we were, why, and how long, etc. They looked at our negative COVID tests, but didn’t ask for our vaccination cards. As it stands, we could have avoided taking the vaccinations and only would have had to test before we left home, and in Ireland. We were cleared and free to head to our gate.

As we went through the airport we saw thorough a wall of windows the skyline of Toronto, including the CN Tower. This would have been a big deal to many, but our Clan visited Toronto a few years ago and even went up in the CN Tower. We found our gate which, you guessed it was at the very farthest point from where we were. We had thought that we were going to have a four-hour layover here, but as it went, we only had about 30 minutes before we boarded. We had time to grab a few candies and some cheese from a stand close by. Stephanie bought Rebekah and Sarah t-shirts with Canada on them, so they had something to wear if it was hot again. We saw Ohio State getting beat in the NCAA tournament. There was a group of young men being obnoxious at our gate, one extra obnoxious that had an Irish accent. As fate would have it they sat near us on the plane. I started a conversation after they were talking about the Ohio State game and found out that they were actually students at Ohio State. I told them that we had been court side for the upset of Duke earlier in the season, and that Fuzz had even stormed the court, and that we had been there on Fuzz’s recruiting visit. They calmed down and it was an uneventful flight to Chicago. I don’t think the lady next to me on this flight spoke any English. 

When we got to Chicago, we reversed our journey through the airport to gate that we had arrived the previous week at. We didn’t have but a 15-minute wait at the gate until we boarded our final flight to Lexington. There was a lady wearing a UK hoodie sitting across from us, and we knew we were almost home. The flight to Lexington was uneventful except for when I dozed off for a minute, and my mask slipped down. The flight attendant woke me up and told me to adjust my mask. I wasn’t mad, but come on, we had just been in crowded places all week without any restrictions and now, I was getting hassled at the end of the trip. I fixed my mask for the last time. 

We arrived in Lexington a few minutes early and it was at that time that Rebekah said that her boyfriend Tyler was going to be late getting us. Apparently, he had brought the wrong key to get in our house, to get Stephanie’s Armada, and had to go all the way home to Berea to get it, and would now be a bit late. We made our way down to baggage claim and the stress began as to if our bags would make it. I assured them that it would be ok and if it wasn’t there, it would arrive at our house soon. We saw Coach Greene, the UK Track Head Coach there talking on the phone. We had met him earlier in the year when Fuzz had his visit there. Coach Greene didn’t notice us but we did all still have masks on. Our luggage all came, and this is when Sarah said that Jared was outside waiting for her. We gave one last Carson Cuddle and kissed her goodbye. That was a very sad moment for me, and I wished that she was finishing the journey with us, all the way to our house. We went and sat down a few minutes and waved a final goodbye to Sarah.

About ten minutes later Tyler showed up with our car and we went out and loaded up. We took our masks off hopefully, for the last times in our lives. We’ll see. We had just enough room now with the extra carry ons out. I drove us home and we arrived in our garage at 11:15pm, which was 3:15am in Ireland. The journey had taken us just over 24 hours. Our two shelties, Kami and Loki were freaking out to see us. My mother-in-law Martha Ousley had sat with them all week and we knew that they had plenty of love while we were gone, but we were so happy to see them. We carried the bags inside and Tyler took Rebekah’s to their car. After a short visit with the dogs, it was time to say goodbye to Rebekah. Once again, I was very sad. 

Fuzz took his stuff to his room and went to bed, he had to be up in a few hours to go to school and Stephanie had to go to work the next day. Rebekah, Sarah and myself had managed to work it to where we didn’t have to go anywhere the next morning. I did a few things with our luggage and right about midnight, climbed into bed. I texted the Clan to make sure that the girls had all made it home and they said that they had. I had Stephanie turn out the light and went to sleep. Our epic journey to the land of our ancestors had finally come to an end. 

As I close out this story I’m a bit shocked at how long this is. I’m not certain if anyone besides me will ever read it, at least the entire thing. The length of this story is reflective of why I wanted to write it. The week was so jammed packed with memories that I didn’t want to forget anything that we did. I wanted to write it as fast as I could because each day that went by, we forgot more of the story. It has taken me until about 10pm on Saturday March 26th, one week from our farewell dinner, to complete this. It has taken me every spare minute that I have had in order to complete it, but I’m so glad that I did this. This story will be documented for my Clan and my future descendants. Traveling is not new to our family, if I’m not mistaken this is country 41 for me, 15 for Stephanie, 9 for Sarah and 8 for Rebekah and Fuzz. We have traveled quite a bit, but it will be hard for us to ever match this trip and all that it means. We have all said that a trip to Scotland may beat it, but that would be the only trip possible, and maybe not even then.

We went to the home of so many of our ancestors. We saw all the sights that everyone wants to see. We walked in the exact footsteps, in the very home of our Clan. We all grew mentally and spiritually. We did it together.

Rebekah kept saying that this trip was “life changing”. I’d have to say she is 100% right. This was the last major thing that our Clan will do together. Rebekah is graduating college and moving on to her career. Sarah is getting married at the end of May and Fuzz will be graduating and going to be part of the University of Louisville’s Track team. Stephanie and I will for the first time, in 24 years, be empty nesters. Our Clan is strong, and has always done so much together, and this is the last time we do something major, with just the five of us. What a way to go out. It’s time to venture into unknown territory for us all but like I’ve been saying, it’s just the beginning. I sure do love our Clan. God Save Ireland! Erin Go Bragh! 

– Col. Russ Carson, Jr, Founder, Family Tree Nuts

www.familytreenuts.org