I have acquired some new skills in recent days. And no, I don't mean shifting gears. That is an old skill that I've brought back into service. It may still need a bit of dusting off. I am fine with shifting up and down but I have a tendency to use only the brake when I want to stop. And stop I do indeed! At least I'm down in 1st gear by then.
Another skill is timing. The weather here is quite changeable - every few minutes sometimes. Part of that change has included sunshine, which is lovely. It's lovely when you are not driving straight into it. I have learned to time my outings so that in the morning I am heading east and in the evening I'm heading west. I will probably figure out the best hours for my sorties, just in time to Spring forward at the end of March. Not everyone manages to find a way to be heading into the sun – every day. Couple that with winding roads, unforgiving hedges, narrow shoulders (the road, not me) and often the lack of a centre line because there isn't room to paint one. Ta-da you have your challenge du jour. The little extra challenge comes when driving into the sun as a behemoth of a tractor is coming at you. I yield to everyone, and especially to tractors, with or without trailers.
This morning I arrived at Gorey train station in plenty of time. When it came to the pay and display for parking I approached a machine that insists on having you use an app. I installed the app but the commands the pay machine told me to use were not on my screen in the app. The station master couldn't figure it out either. Luckily we found one of the pay stations still accepts coins so I managed to get my ticket, display it on the windshield, and still make the train.
I had eaten breakfast but had not had a coffee so when the "tea wagon" came around, I asked for coffee. Then the question came back to me: Do you want instant or filtered coffee? Is that an actual choice? Of course, I wanted filtered. So I got this regular looking paper cup but the lid was rather extraordinary. I opened the lid to add the milk and found the ground coffee floating on top. What??? This isn't a French Press. I added the milk from those tiny little capsules anyway, replaced the lid and then I saw the filter. There was a sort of swoop to the lid, around the filter. Maybe I'm the last to have discovered this but it took me by surprise. As I had to let it sit to cool off a bit, by the time it sorted itself out it wasn't half bad.
The weather was pretty decent to start the day. The views along the Wicklow coast were quite lovely. And, as I got off the train at Pearse Station, it was raining. I had remembered the route and arrived at the door to the manuscript room to find it locked. It was about 10:20, the papers were to be ready for me by 9:30. And then I saw the sign: staff development meetings until 11 am. So, I went to the cafe and had a cappuccino while I waited. Tastier than filtered.
Eventually, I returned to the Manuscript building, around the corner, and this time it was open. Proceeding first to put my jacket and bag in a locker, I then asked the info desk guy where the reading room was located. He was new, but after a bit of a puzzled look and short delay, he showed me where to get the elevator. At least I didn't have to install an app this time.
Waiting for me was a small mountain of reading matter pertaining to the Wandesforde Estate which was the homeplace of my Brennan and McGrath ancestors. Nice to get two for one. I did find little bits of material that were helpful although I had most of the information already.
It is rather breathtaking to handle papers that are 200 years old, and older. Some of the items dated back to the mid 18th century. Some were almost shredded. Books, no matter how small, must be placed on a cushion. There are special cushions in various sizes to accommodate various size books. The books I had were small, the cushion I got was big. There is also a string-like device with 'beads' which are weighty and covered with some sort of fabric. This string of beads is used to hold down the pages so you don't have to handle more than just the corners when you turn the page. Another new device. I wish I'd thought to take a photo.
It is interesting to get lost reading old letters. It would be nicer if I could have read the handwriting. Like today, not all cursive writing is easy to read. This looked lovely and I think they were all in English but most of it escaped me. Alas, none were by or about any of my ancestors.
I did not find their names among those requesting blankets, cloaks, or pumps. Charity could be asked of the landlord. Sometimes small loans were granted and other times foodstuffs or warm clothes. Some names appeared often on those lists. I guess that my folks did a little better, or else were too proud to ask.
Then came the emigration lists and lo and behold there they were. All on the same list. Did they travel to Canada together in 1847? That has yet to be confirmed. The list of families and the number of travellers in each, went on for pages. There were about 1200+ who came to Canada from that one estate. In 1847. And people left over the course of a few years. In the case of my Brennans and McGraths, they received assistance from the landlord and were not simply evicted from the land. None of the ships carrying famine emigrants to Canada, could hold 1200 passengers so many ships would have been needed.
I do have the name of the shipping agent and it seems likely that they left from Dublin. Was it direct or via Liverpool, Bristol, or someplace else? To be determined. Maybe the information I now have will let me find that out.
Around 2 pm I was too hungry to last much longer so went out for a bite to eat. The sun was shining and it was a lovely day. I ate in a cafe across the street from Trinity College. At present it is off-limits to tourists, and students it seems. No visits are permitted to the Long Room or the Book of Kells because of the coronavirus Covid-19. All classes are now presented online, not in classrooms at Trinity.
My return to the library and completion of the document review – at least of the files I chose to review, took another couple of hours. And I decided to take the 5:30 pm train. The walk to the station was uneventful other than the fact that it was raining again. What is it about having to walk for 20 minutes, in the rain, both ways on both days?
Now I'm back in the snug cottage and about to call it a day. No photos worth posting today - they are all pretty much of documents and of value only to me.
And so good night.
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