The Ladies of Ballincollig

Here they are:  "Sadie," "Nancy," and "Maire" (mar-rah).

We had contacted "Maire O'Keane" by phone on our 2006 trip to Ireland and she said we had better stop at her place in the town of Ballincollig, just west of Cork City, on any future visits.

Maire didn't have any "Mathew O'Keane's" in her family line and her family came from County Limerick originally, so we consider ourselves "almost" cousins.

We had stopped last year and had an all-afternoon visit and lunch---then we "came knocking" again this year. Even though Maire had just returned from her trip to Lourdes for the 150th anniversary, she insisted that we come over for lunch with her friends Sadie and Nancy. 

At age 84, Maire is "going strong." She has an extensive side garden of flowers and travels extensively, throughout Ireland and on the continent.

She also put out another wonderful lunch that she called "a small salad."

But the salad was a meal in itself, since the plate was loaded with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, potato salad, crab salad, cooked eggs, and cole slaw---then that was covered with slabs of turkey and ham.

We solved all the world's problems and dined until we kicked ourselves out after five hours of talking and eating.

The hospitality was amazing and outstanding once again. When we initially called this year we tried to take Maire and her friends out to lunch, but Maire wouldn't consider it. We came loaded with flowers and a bag of gifts to try to make up for another grand meal.