This morning dawned sunny and warmer,
if a tad windy, still. My companion Kathy Doyle, was up to the
challenge, the horrible little rental car had lots of gas, and I was
anxious to get out of the cottage after three miserable days of bad
weather. By Canadian standards the weather was not worth a whimper or
even the tiniest little whine. After all they are having snow storms
of crippling proportions in the eastern part of the country. I was
just housebound because I didn't bring warm enough coat and mitts. My
bad.
About 10:30 I arrived at Kathy's door
and once we figured out how to adjust the passenger seat so that she
wasn't pretty much totally reclining, off we went. Who would put the
seatback adjustment between the two seats? I've never seen this
anywhere but on the side of the seat by the door. Ah well, it got
sorted out and we were underway.
Our destination was Crutt – not crud.
This was the homeplace of my ggg grandmother Eleanor/Ellen Walsh. She
married John Brennan in the village of Clogh, which as far as I could
figure out, was from there. The parish church for the area is in
Clogh. St Patrick's church has obviously undergone a facelift in
recent years because it looks quite modern. A sign says otherwise. It
was built in 1826. Ellen and John married there about 1830. Their
four children were baptised there – but on dates that scream “that
can't be right”.
Anyway, I could not get the GPS to
accept just the village as a destination and had no street address to
enter. There is no “Main Street”, my usual default entry.
However, the roads between here and there are relatively good and
well-marked. After all in 2008, Dad and I had successfully arrived in
Clogh without using a GPS. Well, hurray for me. We did it again.
We did pass the townland of Moneenroe
which figures somewhere in their history, drove in, near, and through
Clogh a couple of times. I stopped and took a couple of photos of an
old thatched cottage that was built in 1890 and belonged to Phil
Barron. Now I'll have to find out who he was – and why was his name
not Brennan, everyone else's is.
After a couple of unsuccessful attempts
to return to the village, having driven up a promising looking side
road, I finally stopped and asked a postman. This would be the primo
source of information and as it turns out, great directions, to
Crutt. We were to go back up the road where the postman had in fact
spotted us driving a few minutes earlier. If you are not local you
can bet you're noticed in rural Ireland. He told us to drive back up
the same road, past where I had turned around, and when I get to the
garage on the right (you'll know it when you see it because there are
lots of ??? in front), then take the next left. After you have passed
the first four cottages you will be in the townland of Crutt. Well,
blow me down – perfect directions. I think, in retrospect, that we
were to know the garage by lots of “wrecks” parked around it.
So, when I found a gate in the hedge, I
got out and took a few photos of Crutt. It does not appear to be as
good farmland as here in Wicklow-Wexford-Carlow region, there were
lots of trees, and no sheep or cattle were seen in the fields. It's
high ground but didn't seem as scenic as hereabouts. Anyway, mission
accomplished.
There is no place open for lunch on
Monday in Clogh. We passed Ryan's where Dad and I had stopped over 8
years ago – also closed. Back we went to Castlecomer. It seems to
be a lovely town and we had no idea where to look. Driving along the
main street, Kathy noticed Cafe 1, so when I found a suitable spot, I
executed a U-turn (well the tiny little s&*t box of a car is good
for something), drove back up the main street and made another U-y
right into a parking spot. Right beside a cross-walk to safely take
us back to the cafe. Ta-da.
It was a great choice. We each ordered
a bowl of soup, which always comes with two small slices of brown
bread), and a sandwich to split. The soup and bread were all we
needed so we ordered the sandwich to be wrapped up for travelling and
later it became supper for both of us. We did order dessert – I had
a slice of fruit bread and Kathy had chocolate cake – half of which
also accompanied her home for supper. It was all very tasty and for
such a random choice, was perfect. This stop also gave us the chance
to get out of the car and move around a bit. I had hopped out –
well, extricated myself from the tin box on wheels – to take the
pictures a couple of times. For Kathy, the lunch stop was a welcome
chance to stretch her legs.
From there, well nourished, we headed
to Borris House. It's in Co Carlow and sort of in the direction of
home. It is the venue for Kathy's niece's wedding reception this
coming May. This time I used my smart phone for directions. As it
happens, this is a very smart phone. It didn't need a street address,
actually suggested Borris House, and gave us perfect directions. The
roads were all in great shape and despite initially missing the gate
into Borris House, it only took a little extra tour around a very
long “block” to get back. The grounds are fabulous and the house
looks like the perfect site for the event. Great choice. Kathy now
has an idea of where it will be and how long it will take between the
church in Tullow and Borris House for the reception.
Having seen a sign for Leighlinbridge –
whence I had passed about 7 years ago – I suggested we go home via
that historic village. So we did – but not directly. The smart
phone was chatting happily at me when I noticed a lovely viaduct and
turned left for a picture. The easy way back was a quick U-turn (do
you see a pattern here) back a few hundred yards to the main road we
had left. Hah! That's too easy. As a result we drove a few kilometres
on the historic Mount Leinster scenic drive. It was lovely, the road
was suitably narrow and I'm sure not many tourists venture there. Too
bad for them.
Eventually we got back on the right
road and drove through Gowran where I was distracted by a beautiful
Church, which actually is a ruin. It's quite magnificent so there was
another photo op that I took advantage of.
From there the drive was pretty and to
Kathy's relief, more or less on good roads. We headed back home and
made it safely and happily by about 4:30. All in all a great day.
No genealogy done today but Kathy did
recount a few stories. I plan to spend some time with her and her
brother Jim some day soon, filling in some blanks in their part of
the family tree.
I stopped at Aldi and bought a couple
of needed items and forgot the milk. However, the veggie supply has
been replenished and I have a new Irish-themed sweatshirt to add to
my wardrobe. Cosy items are highly valued at the moment. Aldi has all
kinds of distracting items – kind of like visiting Costco but with
much more limited selection. I also got a nice top for Maureen –
Irish themed of course. They had limited sizes or I'd have one of
those too.
The internet connection has come and
gone about six times since I got home a couple of hours ago. This was
written offline and when the signal comes back I'll try to copy and
paste into the blog. Can't download the pictures because signal keeps dropping off. Will try tomorrow.
Nothing too exciting planned for
tomorrow but if it's not too wet I might go for a little drive
somewhere just because I can.
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