Tuesday 20 October 2009

Second Visit to Ireland

And now to my second visit to Ireland. I very soon realised (even before I landed in Dublin), that this would not  be my last visit. There was too much to see to be able to do everything in one week. The intial plan (in my mind) was to use this visit to find out everything there was to find about my maternal grandfather's family history. Just by visiting  a small village in Co Clare called Mountshannon. This was not feasible in one week. For one thing, I had overlooked the Irish approach to life.Don't do anything today that can easily be left until tomorrow (or even the day  - or week thereafter). Life is too short for those sorts of decisions to be made today.
So we travelled to Clare. First we got the ferry from Holyhead (a 90 minute drive from Chester) to Dublin. Good job I had the sat-nav (Tom-Tom). It was programmed to take us from the ferry port to Ennis where we decided to spend the first three nights. This turned out to be a more sensible decision than staying in Mountshannon. Unfortunately, Tom-Tom got itself confused by the Irish attitude to road construction - the road has to be built so lets just do it and hope that everyone can find their way around the closures (but do NOT tell the satellite navigation companies - that would not be cricket - a game that the Irish do not really participate in). So somewhere just close to Nenagh in Tipperary, my satnav got itself totally screwed up, and I had to take an executive decision to override the wicked witch in the device.


Having eventually arrived in Ennis, where we were to stay for three nights, we checked in to our hotel, The Old Ground Hotel just opposite the cathedral. Our room (a suite) faced directly onto the cathedral, and I immediately thought of the church bells next to a hotel I stayed at in Winterthur - very noisy, at all hours during the day (and night!). We checked with the reception staff, who assured us (correctly, as it turned out) that these bells only chimed between the hours of 8am and about 9:30pm.


Ennis is a picturesque old town, the centre of which is built both sides of the River Fergus. There are loads of bars and restaurents, some very good indeed, and others more basic. Naturally, we chose the better ones.


The next day we visited Whitegate (on the left here) and Mountshannon, where my grandmother was brought up and where my great grandfather was brought up, respectively. My grandfather was actually born in Limerick, and I think only met my grandmother because his grandfather and aunts still lived in Mountshannon. My grandfather was (according to the 1901 census) a farmer, auctioneer and publican. To the best of my knowledge, their house is the last one on the right hand side in this view before you get to the crimson painted building, which nowadays is a half-decent public house.


Our next port of call was Mountshannon (see right), where we spent more time, because I wanted to visit St Caimins Church which is still the Church of Ireland church for Mountshannon and the surrounding area. Here we took photographs of gravestones that related to my grandfather's families. He was a Hutchinson, and his father married a Clarke who were a dominant family in Mountshannon in the 1800's, together with the Hollands, to whom he was also related. Here I purchased a book called "For God or King" which is the history of Mountshannon from 1742 to 1992. It is edited by Gerard Madden who runs the local history society (East Clare Heritage) which can be found on the web here.

Day two of our stay was spent mostly in Ennis, first of all visiting the library where all of the family history records are kept. Needless to say, there was nothing that was really of any use to us, other than one document that was the minutes of vestry meetings from 1817 to 1871. These minutes identify some of my grandfathers antecedants on his mother's side of the family during that period.


Day three involved our relocation from Ennis to Doolin where we stayed for another three nights at a very quiet hotel just to the north of the village (see left), which also happens to be the ferry terminal for trips to the Aran Isles.

The first day here we visited Lisdoonvarna where we discovered they were holding the annual matchmaking festival. It was also damp on this visit, but it dried up later on when we went north to Ballyvaughn for lunch before returning via the coast road to Doolin, where we discovered our hotel.


Our hotel, the Ballinalacken Castle Hotel, is a couple of miles north of Doolin, nestling at the foot of the Burren (see picture at right). The restaurent is excellent and the bar was quiet mostly, except the night when two retired judges decided to have a ballad singing competition - unaccompanied. Their singing was on the whole excellent. I could not even begin to compete - I was told many years ago that I sing flat, by someone who knew what she was talking about.

After the Doolin stay, we moved on back towards Dublin, where we stayed at Cassidys Hotel in upper O,Connell Street. It was a good thing we only stayed one night as there was no car parking available on the grounds they decided to put a marquee up in the hotel car park to accomodate the partying for the Gaelic football final being held on that weekend. Grrh! We will not be returning to Cassidy's. Next time (which there will be) we will stay elsewhere in Dublin.

Next time we will probably go to look at Limerick where my great grandfather lived and also Doolin.

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