Day 1 - (Part 2) We are here, let the fun begin.

OK, we are out of the airport, we have the car and are ready to leave for our first stop: County Kilkenny.

What's wrong with this picture? No it is not reversed by the camera.  And, the steering wheel is on the right (not correct - right, as in opposite of left) side of the car.

No it is not a car for delivering mail. Yes you have to drive on the left side of the road in Ireland.

 

...and if you forget, the rental car company puts a little sticker in the window to remind you:

Which I find hilarious.

Just a few quick words on driving on the left.  The things I've most difficult to get used to shifting with my left hand (the rental has a manual tranny); having to look up and to the left to look at the rear view mirror; and making sure to look in the proper direction to cross the lane of traffic or pull into traffic from driveway or another street. But I think we got it.  We have another 2 weeks to practice.

WE ARE OFF.  It is about 9 am local time (4 am on the east coast in America) and we are entering our 24th hour with no sleep.

Our plan was to meet up with my cousin Geraldine Ryan.  She was kind enough to agree to show us around the area where our families are from in County Kilkenny.  Geraldine has recently gotten into genealogy, and as such was a wealth of information. 

It is about an 1.5 hour trip down from Dublin, south to County Kilkenny.  We arranged to meet Geraldine in a hotel parking in the small town of Castlecomer.  We got there about 10:30 am and Geraldine got there about 11.  Anita did manage to get a couple minutes of shut eye in between.

After having a very nice brunch with Geraldine, it was off to the tiny village of Clogh (pronounced like clock" Clogh is where my mothers mother (we called her Nana) was born.  And probably a good number of Nana's ancestors came from the immediate area as well. Nana lived with my family most of the time I was growing up.  A lot of you reading this would likely have met Nana.  

Geraldine took us to the house where Nana was born and raised until the time she came to America.  Across the street from Nana's house was Nana's Uncle Toms house.  They were dairy farmers all working the farm together.

I can't tell you what a treat it was seeing these houses.  What was really cool was when I got out to take some pictures, the current owner of the house (no relation) came out and we talked a little, then the next thing you know Anita, Geraldine and I are all invited in to meet the family that lives there, we get a tour of the house and grounds.  It was great.  The people were great and we ended up talking for 45 minutes.  One other cool thing.  The couple that lived there, bought the place from the wife's mother.  The wife had lived there when she was a teenager.  And here's the crazy part, she remembered when my mother and aunt Krissy stopped at the house 35 years ago.  She was teenager then, but remembered them stopping and talking.  My mom did not get to go into the house, she just talked to the teenager girl.

Geraldine then took us to Parish church (St. Patrick's) and cemetery in Clogh.  She had already scouted out all the headstones of the relatives and was explaining how they are all related.  I am related to the Borphy's and Condren's (or Condron) from this area.

 

There is also a small, former school building, in Clogh that is now a community center.  It was built in 1915.  We found a picture hanging in there of the 1911 girls class from the former town school.  Under the picture was the roster of students from that year.  Nana, and her 3 sisters were all listed.  The picture is in the folder linked below.  There are about 40 girls in the picture, so I have no idea which, if any, of the relatives are in the picture.  But I choose to believe they are all there and when I look at the picture I am looking at my grandmother and my 3 great aunts when they were 5 - 10 years old.  I choose to believe it because it is fun to.  What a find. 

There were some others pictures there of children with the family name Brophy & Condren.  Which likely relatives as well.  There was even a teacher Condren pictured from 1910.  If it is who we think it is then we also found his headstone.  Pretty cool.

After Clogh, Geraldine took us over to an area near the village of Coon.  This is where the other branch of my family came from and where we found more headstones of relatives that gave us insight into the how everyone was related.  Including how we figured out that Geraldine and I are 4th cousins. We have common great, great grandparents.

  

We finished our genealogy hunt right about 2:30.  What Geraldine did for us - mainly me, was just unbelievable.  Not only did she take most of a day away from her holiday weekend to show two people who were basically strangers a few weeks ago, all around County Kilkenny.  But she was so very well prepared with a lot of answers.  We made plans to get together on Sunday and put to paper what we had seen and figured out today.

VERY BIG THANK YOU GERALDINE!

The timing of our dead relative hunt coming to an end was perfect because Anita and I were ready to pass out.  We were now going on about 29 ours without sleep.  And the B&B was only 20 minutes away and ready to receive us.

We got into the Carraig Rua B&B in Kilkenny City at 3pm and promptly passed out in bed.

But this was not the end of the Day 1 adventure - Not by a long shot!

But the story of our evening into the night Pub crawl will have to wait for the next entry.  Which will be soon.

The link below will get you to a folder that has all the pictures we take in it.  Rather than subject everybody to all the pictures, we will let you decide if you want to see them, and how many.

If I did it correctly, just click this link to get there: Link to Day 1 Pictures

Please let me know if it does not work.

We will get the evenings event summary shortly.

Thanks

Anita & Jim.