Sunday, May 29 -

I’ve been unable to add to the blog since everything went haywire a few days ago. Still don’t understand why, but tonight I found a back door way in so that I can add a new post. I’m not going to add any more pictures because I have so many but haven’t had time to sort or edit. I will do so in the future and will try to put an album or book together. 

In the meantime, we left  Waterford without taking the crystal factory tour. We could find absolutely no place to park and truthfully I was in no mood to spend more than 15 or 20 minutes looking for one. My anxious mood was caused completely by the issues accessing the blog and also being blocked from sharing the link on Facebook. 

So we headed for Dublin via a town called New Ross, where we visited the Famine Ship. The tour was interesting and heartbreaking because these ships were filled with poor people who were dying by the thousands from starvation. Frequently it was the landlords who paid for their passage to America, but the conditions on the ship were unimaginable. Confined below decks 23 hrs a day, with 220 other unwashed, sick, and starving famine victims, surprisingly most lived long enough to reach America. Just seeing living conditions on the ship as well as having visited the famine village  in Donegal, made me cry. At the same time, however, you remember that the slave ships were even worse and that there are millions of people who right now live with and die from starvation 

It only took a couple of hours to drive on to the Dublin airport and turn in the car. A taxi brought us to our hotel which was perfectly located on the Liffey River next to the O’Connell Bridge. During our two days here we learned that we needed to get tickets in advance to visit the Kilmainham jail, the Guinness facility, and the Book Of Kells in the Long Library at Trinity College. We were able to get the Library tickets, and that was definitely the most important to me. 

We have also learned a lot about the struggle this country went through gaining independence and becoming a Republic, as well as the conditions the Irish lived in under British occupation. We stumbled on the site of Michael Collins’ assassination, and on the mural and memorial celebrating Hugh O’Flaherty. Both led to us researching these men, which in turn led us to watch the movies Michael Collins with Liam Neeson, and The Scarlet and Black with Gregory Peck  These movies, as well as a mini series we recently watched on the Easter Uprising of 1916, and the novel Trinity by Leon Uris, gave us a greater appreciation of seeing the actual places where the battles of the 1916 uprising and the 1922 Civil War occurred.

Both of us are absolutely ready to come home tomorrow, although this trip has been incredible. Everywhere we went we saw beautiful scenery and visited interesting places, but the best part was the awesome friendliness of the Irish people. 

This trip is a 41 year continuation of our first trip here. That trip was on May 4 - 6 1981 and ended abruptly the second day we were in Ireland by the death of the hunger striking prisoner Bobby Sands. When the tanks filled the streets of Dublin and convoys were on all the highways, we decided that leaving Ireland was the smart thing to do. We have wanted to return ever since.

 Thursday May 26-

We had to travel down some very twisty and narrow lanes to get to the town of Clonakilty today, but we were delighted that we did. To say that the Model Village there is worth seeing doesn’t begin to capture the elaborate set up or the time, effort, money, and imagination that went into its creation. First, it’s much larger and more elaborate than we expected. There are a multitude of miniature villages, castles, forts, and people and a lot of trains running through and around the villages.

Next we headed for Cobh, the former Queenstown. This is where the survivors of the Lusitania were brought, and it was the final stop for the Titanic to board passengers. We toured the Titanic Experience, an interactive exhibition located in the original White Star Office. Upon entering you get a card assigning you to one of the passengers who boarded in Queenstown and at the end you learn whether you survived or not. Mine did, Brian’s didn’t. I was concerned when we arrived because the only place we found to park was very high up on a hill. The stairs and walkway down was long and very steep. All the way down I was wondering just how I would get back up. Perhaps the real highlight of my day was my actually making the climb without loosing my breath and only stopping for very brief rests just a few times. What helped the most, I think, was at the start of the return Brian reminded me of how you eat an elephant - one bite at a time. 

We are now in Waterford and it seems appropriate that since we started this trip in a castle hotel, we spend our last night before returning to Dublin for the weekend in another castle hotel. This one is on an island and you have to take a ferry to it. It’s just a few minutes ride across a river, and this one is an actual castle. For some lucky reason we got upgraded and are in a three room suite filled with antiques. In fact we are in our sitting room feeling very posh as I write this.   Tomorrow we are heading to the Waterford Crystal Factory, touring a famine ship, then heading to Dublin.