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| Touring Trinity College's campus |
Oh my what a fun 8 days we had in Ireland! We spent time with my
4th cousins & Lulu's 5th cousins, drove to the Atlantic coast & on some
of the Ring of Kerry, visited my ancestral hometown in County Carlow, and also
got a stomach bug - which was the only unfun part of our vacation! Despite the
fact that Ireland is approximately the same size as the state of
Indiana.......we feel like we barely scratched the surface in our week there.
We saw a lot of the country - but we both feel like there is so much more to
see. Obviously, it is always such a treat to spend time with our extended
family - the people we visit are descendants of my great great grandfather's
brother.
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| Got to pick up sweet Luci from school! We brought the whole crew ;) |
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| Why wouldn't all 3 girls be in Lulu's pack n play?!? |
My great great
grandfather emigrated from Ireland & settled in, wait for it, Evanston. No
joke. Fresh off the boat - Evanston was his choice of a home. So I have that in
common with him! He shares his first name with my Dad & my great
grandfather! George A. Kearney, born 1829, died 1896. His son, also George A.
Kearney (my great grandfather born 1868, died 1938) happened to install the
original plumbing in the home Chris & I live in. His signature was on the
original building permit as the plumbing and sewer contractor when our house
was new construction in the early 1900s! Makes the world feel delightfully
small.
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| Loved taking the fast train into Dublin's city center with our fam |
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| Solid self timer effort here!! |
We had a great time kicking off our trip in Dublin – my 4th
cousin (who I simply call my cousin) Orla & her husband Richard hosted us
in their beautiful, recently renovated home. It was such a luxury to arrive to
a comfortable home full of our family rather than a hotel or an Airbnb. Orla
& Richard’s daughters (Luci, 5 & Grace, 3) were thrilled to have their
American cousin visiting and staying with them. We relished the chance to see
their neighborhood & participate in their daily lives. We only got touristy
for half a day & enjoyed time in downtown Dublin. Orla’s little sister
Geraldine was kind enough to fly to Dublin with her younger son Theo in order
to spend the weekend with us! We are so lucky to have such thoughtful family.
Ger was our tour guide around Trinity’s campus since she’s an alum 😊
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| Family walk down Grafton St. |
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| View from the front of our Kenmare Airbnb! |
From Dublin we traveled southwest to Kenmare, which is on the
Ring of Kerry. We arrived at night, it was already dark, so we didn’t do
anything except order a pizza, eat dinner & go to bed. Lulu had fallen asleep in the car.......so we tried to put her straight down at the house. Fail. So we fed her some Apache (such a ridiculous pizza box/chain name) pizza and she went down the 2nd try!
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| Tired & mostly naked.....eating subpar pizza #vacation |
Unfortunately, Chris
woke up the next day, which just happened to be our 8th wedding
anniversary feeling just awful. He had some sort of stomach bug and couldn’t
really get out of bed. Lulu & I walked the 15 minutes into town from our
Airbnb and had breakfast at the delightful bakery/restaurant called Jam. So
many delicious things and felt almost unreasonably affordable! On to the pharmacy
to get some stomach meds for Chris & then the grocery store to get crackers
& ginger ale ☹ Chris felt a bit better after Lulu’s nap so
joined us on another walk into town & sat with us for lunch.
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| Cromwell's bridge - pre puke |
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| Lulu wanted to dip her toes in the water! |
Unfortunately,
he didn’t feel well on the walk back to our Airbnb & puked his guts out by
historic Cromwell’s Bridge. It was a very scenic area – Chris said it was the
prettiest place he’d ever puked! Needless to say, Chris went back to bed as
soon as we got back to our Airbnb, which I should probably mention was
ridiculously large. 4 bedrooms & a whopping 5 bathrooms! Silly big,
honestly. But -it had a washer & a dryer – which was a godsend given what
the next 12 hours held. Lulu & I went for a walk to try to get to the
coast- we could see the water from the house – but it was down a hill &
wasn’t clear if we could walk to it. Comically when I called our host to ask, he
said that the 6 cows they keep as pets would bother us so much that he didn’t recommend
us walking through his farmland! But his brother’s estate was right up the road
& we could let ourselves through his gate in order to walk to the water.
Sometimes our trip felt straight out of an Irish clich̩ Рthis was one of those
times! We had a beautiful walk & met a nice woman on our walk back who was
an American expat living full time in Kenmare – right near our Airbnb. Unfortunately
(for the 3rd time), I woke up in the middle of the night to puke. And
then again, an hour later. I took these opportunities to do laundry – because all
of the sudden………everything felt contaminated ☹
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| Did my absolute best to rally for some photos after my car nap |
We checked out the next morning & I felt like garbage.
Orla & Ger both recommended a restaurant called Avoca Café on the drive
from Kenmare to Dingle through Moll’s Gap. I slept in the rental car in the
(very scenic) parking lot. Just needed more & more sleep! Oh well. Stomach
bugs happen & at least Lulu did not get it. AND at least our cousins didn’t
get it either! Those were my 2 biggest worries when Chris started to feel sick.
Alls well that ends well, right?!?
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| My loves |
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| Lulu found the gravel far more engaging than the beautiful view of the valley. |
Once I felt better we all really enjoyed Dingle. It was the
start of their slow/off season so the one bummer was a bunch of stuff was
closed. Other than that though – there were delicious cafes & bakeries, fun
pubs, and solid takeaway cheeseburger places – which is what Chris & I both
wanted once our stomachs were back to some semblance of normal.
Murphy’s Ice
Cream came highly recommended – it was out of this world delectable. I could’ve
eaten far more of it than I did!! I (stupidly) opted to share mine with Lulu
rather than pay for her to have her own that would’ve cost 4.50 euro. Bad
choice! It was creamy in a way I typically associate only with high end butter –
interesting flavors, cute shop to eat it in. All in all a wonderful ice cream experience!!
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| Lulu made herself right at home at the pub ;) |
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| The hardware store aspect was just hilarious. |
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| There was some kind of rat bait or poison or trap on the bar for sale right in front of my stool. Thankfully I didn't have any need for the product- but what a comfort to know I could get that & a pint! |
We also shared a Guinness in Foxy John’s
pub. We felt like we couldn’t just hang out in this place that we’d read about
& heard about – seemed like we needed to buy a beer. But neither of us
really had the taste for beer of any kind post stomach bug & so we just
went with something we would never otherwise choose 😊Foxy John’s
is well known because its not just a pub – it is also a hardware store & a
bicycle repair shop! There was live traditional music being played, Lulu did
some dancing, it was an experience quite difficult to replicate anywhere else I’d
imagine!
We headed to my ancestral hometown of Bagenalstown, in County
Carlow from Dingle. We stopped in Adare for an hour or two to stretch our legs,
get a bite to eat & break up the 4 hour drive for the Lulu bean. We had brunch
at the ridiculously delectable restaurant oddly (in my opinion) named The Good
Room. I only wished I had an excuse to buy one of everything from the bakery
they had there!
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| We didn't spend much time here- but the town of Adare was beautiful |
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| Heading to the Tourist Office. Kidding. |
Visiting Aunt Teresa & Uncle Louie was another real treat.
It didn’t feel like 20+ years had gone by since I’d last seen them! They opened
their home to us & welcomed us warmly. I think we spent approximately 30
waking minutes away from the kitchen table!
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| High fives |
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| Louie's sister Patricia (our family historian/genealogist) - came to visit both days |
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| Thank you for stopping by Brian! |
We spent our time there simply
relaxing, drinking tea (& eating sweets) & catching up. Teresa had a
tin of all of the Christmas cards our family has sent to her over the past 25
or so years. It was delightful & hilarious to go through them & relive
our awkward phases! Our cousin Brian stopped by his parents' house Friday night on his way home from work - so kind of him - given he'd been away from home 2 nights & had his wife & 3 kiddos waiting for him to return. Orla, Richard & the girls drove down to Louie & Teresa's house Friday evening too!! Lulu was so happy to see her cousins again before we needed to head for home.
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| So many helpers to feed Maude, the cat! |
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| Homemade cupcakes shared amongst cousins! |
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| As much of the crew as we could shove into our self timer photo |
Saturday brought us back to Dublin - the trip was winding down - but not our family tour! We had one more cousin to see :) Enda & his wife Jo invited us to their beautiful home for an afternoon visit. Unfortunately Jo wasn't feeling well, so we missed out on giving her hugs & catching up. Enda was a great host & Jo had baked an amazing cake that we enjoyed with coffee while we caught up. Lulu loved running around in the back garden....until it started to hail! It went from sunny blue skies to hailing sort of hard in only a few minutes time. Super strange.
Despite a lot of puking – Chris & I are ready to go back
to Ireland already! What a beautiful & friendly country. So many places we
didn’t have a chance to explore - & so much more hiking to do!!
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