"Ireland's flying" Paddy Neville told us in Dublin, and everyone else seems to agree. The grinding poverty we were afraid to find that broke the hearts of visitors as late as 10 years ago seems to be gone. The gray, broken cottages we expected to see in the country are brightly--wildly--painted villages with prosperous shopping areas and full pubs.

Kathleen and I have investigated all the castles around the Emerald Isle. We thought this might be the home of the Cosgroves:
 
 
 

Or perhaps this:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

We know we ARE "to the manor born":

After extensive research, however, we discovered THIS is the one!!

Seriously, we saw some fabulous scenery, toured more castles and gardens than Kathleen had ever dreamed we would, met a lot of interesting people, endured more "Irish breakfasts" than anyone should have to face,  learned more history than we wanted to and drove like maniacs.

Observations:

• It got light at 4 a.m. and dark at 10:30 p.m.--Ireland is as far north as Denmark and Nova Scotia!

• There are palm trees from the middle of the island south--the Gulf Stream makes Ireland warm, and creates the almost constant rains and mists.

• Wild rhododendrons are choking the forests. They are huge, and far more of them than you find in the woods of North Carolina.

Favorite places:

• We liked the Beara Peninsula. Unlike the Ring of Kerry, the Ring of Beara doesn't get tourists buses. As the designated driver, Kathleen discovered, there is a reason for this. What passes for a two-lane road over there is one lane by our standards, and the hedges obscure any view of what might be coming at you! Here is a scene of Ardgroom, on the Beara Peninsula-- another tiny village vying for the "Tidy Towns" award, with gallons of fresh paint.

 

• A girls-just-wanna-have-fun view of Kenmare, one of our favorite towns, in a pub we visited: 

 

We wearied of B & B breakfasts and had great difficulty finding a place--any place--near Dublin. As luck would have it, we stumbled into the Killiney Coast Hotel at Killiney Bay south of Dublin. They took a voucher, and therefore it was affordable. As we later discovered, Ireland is full of beautiful old hotels, all over the country in the most unexpected of places.
 

The oldest place we stayed was the Grand Inn at Nine Mile House a village on the way to Killkenny. If you can't see the date, it's 1690. Ninemilehouse is 9 miles from Kells. Not the famous Kells, but another Kells--ruins from the eighth through the twelfth centuries. It was beautiful, and empty, like so many ruins throughout the whole island. . .
 

An unfamiliar name throughout Ireland, but familiar to us was here, somewhere between Kingscourt and Galway:

Speaking of pubs, our favorite in the home village of Burnses, Cassidys, Caseys and Brennans--
CARRICKMACROSS-- is the pub of Linus McDonnell.
Linus was our history source for the unrecorded
handmedown stories of Monaghan & the notorious Shirleys.
Raconteur extraordinaire:

 Paddy Neville showed us Dublin. We saw Trinity College, St. Pat's and Paddy's favorite pubs and restaurants. The insider's tour was definitely more fun than wandering on our own that day. None of the continual Irish "soft rain" in Dublin! It came down in buckets, just like at home.
 

 
  Powerscourt Gardens, no more beautiful than Mucross, were nonetheless impressive: Ennis., as you can see, was charming (on right):
 

Below are street scenes of Carrickmacross

 
 
 

The beautiful parish of Magheracloone, consisting now only of a few signs, a couple scattered churches surrounded by their cemetaries like chicks around a hen. Here is the countryside our greatgreatgreats gazed upon daily:

St. Molua's, Church of Ireland is the oldest church in the parish, and has the graves of both RC and C of I in it. Many tombstones, now unreadable, are stacked against the low stone walls of the churchyard. Those that are left date back to the late 1600s.
You see the church from a distance and Kathleen recording the cemetery inscription for the Burnses buried in St. Molua's:

This is the sign in Gaelic, or Irish as they usually say, identifying a park in what we call Magheracloone (Ma-her-a -kloon). Most of this parish was part of the Shirley Estate and our ancestors their tenants. Without a doubt, their struggling and unhappy tenants, for the Shirleys were legendary for their meanness and brutality.
 
 

No one's Irish journey is complete without a view of the sea. This was taken near the Aran Islands, to the west of Ireland. (Note that this is just about the clearest sky in our 16 days)

This is by no means all of our pictures, not even a capsule of what we saw. Our fondest wish is that you too can someday see Ireland for yourself.

A place of friendly people that feels like home, turbulent history, magnificent vistas and ubiquitous pubs. We "blew in" from America, and liked what we saw!