Welcome---you are "one click" away from our 2009 Ireland "Travel Blog"

Just click on this URL address:

http://leftbehindinamericaagain.blogspot.com/


---then hold on to your hat and you will be whisked away to the NEW, 2009 Ireland "travel blog."



(The 2008 Ireland "travel blog" can be found below.)

A BELATED WELCOME TO THOSE WE "LEFT BEHIND IN AMERICA" TWICE

Our apologies if we not only "left you behind in America" when we went on holiday in Ireland, but also "left you behind" by not getting an email through to you that invited you to follow our travels on this "travel blog."

When several people asked about our holiday we reminded them of the "travel blog" web site, but they said they had NOT received our invitation email.

Oops! We figured that because we sent out the invitation in a single email to over 40 people that a "spam filter" on certain individual computers and/or by some people's ISP (internet service provider) stopped the invitation email because "multiple addressees" looked like "spam" material.

So now in late October, we resent the invitation to people we might have missed with the first email invitation.

As a reminder, the last travel "posts" are at the top and the earlier "posts" are at the end, so if you want to follow our 2008 holiday in Ireland "in chronological order," you need to go to the bottom of the green- typed introduction along the right column.

Start with the two posts from "August" and then click on "September and work your way UP the list of posts you see along the right side.

Our holiday went from August 28th to September 28th and there are about 25 "posts."

Hail & Farewell To Ireland

We head off for Shannon Airport tomorrow morning. One night at a Shannon hotel and then we fly out on Sunday for America.


THANK YOU for joining us on our 2008 holiday in Ireland. It was a great way for us to organize our photos and unwind from each day's journey.


Just in case we don't show up back in the USA, it will because we have the "Euro Millions" winning ticket that will be drawn tonight and is worth 130 million Euro. (The odds are only 17 million to 1.)



Ireland is a beautiful country, and we hope you could see that in our photos. The people we met were beautiful too, and we hope that came through as well.


And we close with one of the first photos that Sue took of Ireland. The photo below always reminds us of the enjoyment of the journey---going down that road to see what's ahead.


We hope you will have pleasant journeys too. Thanks again for joining us on ours.

Wrapping Things Up In County Cork

We're on our last full day in Kinsale, County Cork.

We headed back to the town of Douglas to see if we could find out any information on our "Kiley" family history. When we got back to the St. Columba Parish office the secretary was there and looked for information on their church history database. 

No luck finding a Mathew Kiley, nor any of his children on the records there. The secretary suggested other small communities in the area, but we ran out of energy and will plan on writing letters in the future.

On the way back to Kinsale, we stopped at Ballyspittle where the "Diva Bakery" is located. They had the tasty brownies and lemon scones at last Tuesday's Famer's Market and so, we picked up a couple of scones and brownies for dessert later on, then headed back to Kinsale.

Back in Kinsale, we had our last meal at "Jim Edwards" and walked off our meal by taking a walk through another part of the town.

We stopped at the Church of Ireland church, St. Multose, which has only been there in Kinsale since 1160.

The interior was well preserved for a church that old. Looks like it's a never-ending restoration process, since they were asking for donations for a recent 50,000 Euro renovation of the electrical/lighting system.

Further up the hills of Kinsale was a Carmelite Friary that was in great shape. We meant to ask if any of the Carmelites had gotten to our Carmelite Holy Hill Church in Wisconsin, but there was no one around.

The interior of the church was as lovely as the exterior you see below, but the photos didn't come out bright enough to show it off.

Looking for a Carmelite priest did remind us of this story we heard about a group of boys in the area that had befriended a homeless, vagrant dog that was always wandering around town.

They decided that the only decent thing to do was for one of them to take the dog home and care for it. But they all wanted it, so as they argued louder and louder in the streets outside the church, it was finally decided that they should have a lying contest and whoever told the best lie should get the dog.

Well, Father Mahoney, standing nearby, heard them talking about this lying contest and came right over and told them a thing or two about lying.

He started with the "Don't you know it's a sin to tell a lie?" And he continued on for a good 10 minutes, ending with "When I was your age I would never dream of telling a lie!"

The boys all had their heads down by the end of that sermon. They mumbled together for a bit and Father Mahoney felt that he had reached them with his message.

After a little while, one of the boys said, "Okay, okay, I guess Father Mahoney wins the dog." [;-)

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.