Ireland Road Journeys and a Marriage, the Second Time Around

We were at a crossroads.

A literal crossroads, halted on a bramble-hedged rural lane, Gaelic signposts pointed in five bewildering directions. We’d learned the hard way that sometimes a wrong choice might send us veering off down red-dirt cowpaths, into private farmyards, or to the edge of towering cliffs. 

Which way do I go? he asked, and I raised my finger from the map to point: “Go that way!” 

My new groom had been white-knuckling the Irish driving for the last two weeks. We first met at the facility where my grandparents lived and where, as chaplain, he befriended my cantankerous granddad, Charlie, famous for his daring nursing home escapes. I admired how Padre brought a calming presence to families in crisis, to elderly residents, to me. (I’m a bit more tightly wired. Just a bit.)

But those three little words set something off. He snapped back at me, “Don’t tell me THAT way! Tell me right or left!”

And there they were. The first harsh words of our new married life. So I began to cry, of course (“you yelled at me!”) and then we worked it out. 

We always work it out. 

Maybe that’s why we’re still here thirty years later, and next week we’re returning to Ireland to try again. We’ve revisited our younger selves during trip-prep (what were we thinking, silly young newlyweds?), and dug up tantalizing dirt on our Irish ancestors. That’s literal dirt, by the way, because if you want to find your Irish ancestors you must read plenty of land records, especially Griffith’s Valuation. Dirt was big in 18^th/19^thcentury Ireland, and most of our ancestors tried to grow stuff in it. 

And oh, what we’ve learned about life since 1989, as the years have piled relentlessly on!

We’ve learned that some things change massively over time, and others? Well, they never change at all.

Take world events, for instance. In my tattered 1989 travel journal, I noted that everyone was riveted by the Lebanon hostage crisis. Remember that? I didn’t either, but memory jog: Bad actors in Lebanon had captured, brutalized, and sometimes murdered several journalists, even a hostage negotiator.

U.S. plans for rescue devolved into the arms-for-hostages, Iran-Contra Affair. And if you know how that all played out, congratulations! You’re a history nerd, just like us. And we nerds know that history tends to repeat itself.

Is the world still in crisis mode? Well, sure. We start our travels in London, where we’ll pound the sidewalks outside Parliament as leaders debate the Brexit mess inside. I plan to purchase a ‘Bollix to Brexit’ souvenir (maybe a ‘Leave Means Leave’ magnet too, to capture both sides of the debate) and catch a protest or two, if we’re lucky.

Next we sail across the Irish Sea to the Emerald Isle, where the Brexit imbroglio has passions afire, due to the ‘backstop’ issue. If Great Britain leaves the European Union, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland’s border – where abandoned guard stations still sit – will need to be reactivated unless there’s a ‘backstop’ in the Brexit agreement to prevent it. No one wants that, including us.

In 1989 we crept across that border, past those guard stations, as machine gun-toting guards with frowns on their faces peered into our little car. We listened to “Birthdays and Bombings” on the radio, as announcers read out birthdays, anniversaries, and attacks due to the Troubles, all lumped together in one lengthy list. 

Every day. Lots of attacks. And no one wants to go back to that.

So is the world still in crisis? Check. And I’m already planning what I’ll say when the first Irish pub person asks, ‘Hey, what’s up with the United States?” as inquisitive locals asked us in Japan, Lithuania, Italy, and Australia. I mean, where do I start?

And we’re still stuck in coach for the overnight flight, although I remember that in 1989 due to our honeymoon we were upgraded on our Aer Lingus Dublin flight. That was the only time we’ve been upgraded to first class on a flight ever. (Come on, airline gods….. We’ve behaved, sardined in steerage all these years, happily eating our peanuts – we deserve it, we really do. Preferably next Monday, on the overnight flight?)

One thing that has changed dramatically since 1989: Trip preparation. Back then, I wrote hand-written letters to lodging owners (on actual paper, remember?) and they wrote lovely letters back. Iris displayed the Irish graciousness we came to expect when she wrote back that “a deposit is not necessary because I hardly think you’re likely to cancel your honeymoon.” And most places upgraded our room to Best of House because we were newlyweds. 

Today I do most trip prep over email, Expedia, and Airbnb. Sites like Tripadvisor prove useful, even though they provide a new platform for the cranky people of the world. I figured out that their Lisnamandra B and B stopped operation after Iris’s death in 2016, but the Tripadvisor comments live on (probably for eternity if Tripadvisor has anything to say about it). Most of the reviews describe their Cavan farm the way we remember it: 

“This B&B is something! The house is four to five hundred years old with very interesting architecture, never seen anything like this before. The rooms – excellent, spacious, light, clean and it looked like the entrance to our bathroom is in the cupboard. The owners – charming old people eager to talk and to help.”

But then one of the cranky ones chimes in:

“I went down the next morning to have breakfast. I stopped. Stared in utter disbelief. In the breakfast room was a massive…the mother of all… portraits of the British Queen Victoria, known in Ireland as the Famine Queen, hanging over the table where people were eating. Everything about this place was very dated. The people running it seemed very old and were verbally polite. I could not stay in that room. I thought the most honorable course for me to adopt was to leave that room, settle my bill politely and leave this establishment. That is what I did.”

Sigh. Here’s why I avoid reading comment sections.  Another traveller does leap in to protest:

“I understand the objection to the Queen Victoria portrait, but in the 21st century the Protestants of Cavan need to be let off the hook and not feel they have to hide their ethnic heritage in their own homes. They know what happened; they are now a small minority in Cavan trying to get along; and if we are to indict heads of state (in Hamlet’s words), “who would escape whipping?”

Whipping indeed. We don’t remember the Queen Victoria portrait, and we understand the emotional resonance the Great Famine carries for the Irish. And, I might add, for ourselves, since we live where we do today because our ancestors fled, rather than starve. But I’ll always cherish that thoughtful letter as a poignant reminder of something else that never changes: We always, and I do mean always, find kind, helpful folks everywhere we’ve traveled on this great big beautiful planet. 

So we keep some healthy skepticism in mind when we consult online travel resources, and use what we find for our own purposes, such as locating haunted houses. I finally found the Granville Hotel, for instance, after hours of online sleuthing, This isolated lodging sat on the storm-battered tip of the Dingle Peninsula, and I remember gazing out our room window to the abandoned Blasket Islands off in the distance. Had a spooky haunted vibe to it back then, all peeling paint and creaking stairs. I fell in love with it instantly, but wondered if it had crumbled into the sea by now.

But yay, I finally found it! I would have found it sooner if I hadn’t been googling ‘Ostan’ – the name on my photograph, which I assumed was the name of the hotel.  Duh. “Ostan” means ‘hotel’ in Gaelic. 

Ok then. Once I figured that out, I learned that the owner rents out four units as vacation rentals. And we have a reservation. The Wild Atlantic Way airbnb reincarnation caters to cyclists, walkers, Star Wars fans, and archeology/history buffs like us. The owner wrote back ‘Wow!’ when I explained we had stayed there 30 years prior, and we plan to ask her all about changes in the area, once we arrive.

We’re eager for that conversation, since we’ve discovered that Padre’s Irish ancestors, the Fitzgeralds, farmed land as tenants very close to the land on which the old Slea Head Hotel/Airbnb sits, toiling away under the economic thumb of Lord Ventry. Had not a clue the first time around, when we arrived woefully ill-equipped for genealogical detective work. 

Do you know how many Edward/Edmund Fitzgeralds were born in Ireland in the year 1829? A raft of them, all over the Isle, and it’s a miracle we actually found the right one this time around, thanks to Padre’s great-great-great grandmother, a descendant of the fierce O’Rourke clan, who provided the missing link. Yay for the ladies!

And once we discovered the O’Rourke connection, we realized that in 1989 we had by coincidence stayed in Dromahair, the village where the O’Rourke Castle ruins sit. Who knew? Not us, back then. We’re much better prepared this time to ask the right questions, visit the right libraries. Internet research has made travel prep and genealogical research possible in a way we couldn’t have envisioned back in 1989, but I do miss the handwritten letters sometimes.

Our Internet masters still haven’t answered all the questions about John Braden, my rebellious Irish ancestor who supposedly ran away from his County Cavan home, but had a beef with the Catholic Church and knew the catechism. In 1989 I took photos of Brady storefronts, mistakenly believing the Braden name was a form of Brady – the Catholic part, I figured. But now I know that his family reported themselves as Church of England on the Canadian census, but there actually were a few County Cavan Catholic Bradens around back then. So the mystery deepens. Probably not a Brady, but who knows? Much more work to do on that guy.

 Now I know where to look, and Canada, I’m talking about you! I hear Ontario is lovely in the fall. We’ve learned that it’s best to thoroughly research your Irish ancestors’ point of arrival first, before ever setting foot in Ireland to go look for them, like we did when we were young silly newlyweds without any useful genealogy clues.

One of the only correct things we knew about the Fitzgeralds back in 1989 was that they had a castle. We both love castles! So in 1989 we spent our ‘splurge’ night at the elegant Waterford Castle, an imposing stone bastion on its own private island. Better than a castle moat for protection, that river, and the Fitz clan ruled vast lands from their island castle for centuries. I found it very easy to imagine the feasts, the wars, the family feuds, the wild behavior, when we stayed there. Today the castle serves as a popular wedding venue, so I imagine the Fitzgerald marauders would still feel right at home here.

I’ve emailed the Castle to figure out what room we stayed in back then (an upgraded ‘best’ suite, of course), and the manager sent me a map, I sent her old photographs, and voila! I think we pinpointed it. We booked a different room since THE room was already reserved, but at least we’ll be able to peek in. 

Nothing happened in that fancy room on our ‘splurge’ night, by the way, unless you count uncomfortable behaviors related to Leprechaun’s Revenge* (*gastrointestinal distress). Quite the waste of a Disney-castle four-poster bed and all those ceramic hand-painted bathroom fixtures, I’d say. Sick as I was, I still downed expensive wine sent up from room service. The alcohol made me feel worse, of course, even though I’m smiling gamely in this photo. 

Still, we vowed to return someday and in a few short days, we will. This time, we won’t eat fresh-off-the-farm unpeeled fruit at breakfast. We have learned the hard way that this is a very bad idea. So we make mistakes, on trips, and in life. So what? Failures happen.  I love what Samuel Becket said: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”  

And when we look back over our thirty years of life and travel mistakes, it’s obvious that our failures sometimes lead to the most wonderful discoveries. I remember, for instance, that on one of our Irish wrong turns we pulled into a farm scene straight out of a Van Gogh landscape, gazing out to rugged cliffs in the distance. Never would have been gob-smacked by all that stunning beauty, a memory I’ve cherished, without a wrong turn or two. 

And thank goodness our ancestors didn’t let their failures stop them. When they failed to grow crops or make enough money to feed their families due to high rents from English absentee landlords, they escaped to Canada – no Lord Ventrys there to siphon off all their hard-earned profits.*

*Reminds me of those Hamilton song lyrics: “Immigrants. We get the job done.” 

I had to add that because I finally scored cheap tickets to Hamilton in London – yay! The Brits have a great system to keep ticket resellers from jacking up prices, so if you go to London anytime soon, see a play on the cheap. We’ve also booked seats for The Book of Mormon, another ‘someday I’ll get to see that’ play. And all we had to do was book a flight to London – ha ha!.

So we hope you’ll join us in celebration as we head off to the British Isles, and we’ll do our best to report on our progress, even the wrong turns along the way. Hopefully there won’t be much yelling (I’m talking to you, Padre), and I’ll do my best to say ‘right’ or ‘left’ when I point. 

And if either of us messes up, well – we’ll work it out, won’t we?

Thanks for following along, everyone. Now I better finish packing…. (Can I tramp around London and Ireland with only two pairs of shoes? I can!)