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Post by oregonwinebaby on Feb 22, 2009 19:29:15 GMT -5
I also hope that one or two members of MH can take an Irish holiday this year - I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you. I'm not planning one - my spouse, to be frank, says we've been there way too often as it is. We're looking at a SW USA trip this year. From where I sit, you are lucky to be able to say you have traveled there way too often lol. If I were a really wealthy person, I'd arrange for a MH trip to Ireland!
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Post by ardens on Jul 26, 2009 9:08:05 GMT -5
I'm going to go to Ireland again in September. It will be a trip with people from university like last year and it will also be the same destination. When I went to the first meeting for the trip, I met a woman with whom I had travelled to Ireland years before. She went to the same university like me and decided to learn Irish, too. So I at least know someone! At this first meeting, I didn't see a single man apart from one of the teachers. Irish seems to be more popular among women this year.
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Post by riene on Jul 26, 2009 9:20:57 GMT -5
I'm envious, Ardens! Hope you have a great time! Please do write and let us know what Ireland is like in September.
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Post by ardens on Jul 26, 2009 9:31:48 GMT -5
I will! I also hope that I can buy a new camera before so that I can take some pictures.
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Post by Moe on Jul 26, 2009 9:59:31 GMT -5
I'm going to go to Ireland again in September. It will be a trip with people from university like last year and it will also be the same destination. When I went to the first meeting for the trip, I met a woman with whom I had travelled to Ireland years before. She went to the same university like me and decided to learn Irish, too. So I at least know someone! At this first meeting, I didn't see a single man apart from one of the teachers. Irish seems to be more popular among women this year. Great news - have a wonderful time!
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Post by gavern on Jun 3, 2010 1:40:50 GMT -5
I lived in Ireland from 1998 to 2001. Most of the time I spent in Dublin, I had some very interesting experiences. I also lived in Gweedore for a few months. It was wonderful.
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Post by Moe on Jun 3, 2010 12:40:27 GMT -5
I lived in Ireland from 1998 to 2001. Most of the time I spent in Dublin, I had some very interesting experiences. I also lived in Gweedore for a few months. It was wonderful. Lucky you! I'd love to live in Ireland for a while, but have only managed a few visits. Though I have been able to do quite a bit of touring during those visits. I have an Ireland album at my flickr site if anyone is interested.
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Post by riene on Jun 3, 2010 12:57:27 GMT -5
I lived in Ireland from 1998 to 2001. Most of the time I spent in Dublin, I had some very interesting experiences. I also lived in Gweedore for a few months. It was wonderful. Why were you in Ireland, if I can ask? What was it like to live there?
I've only been there once and would love to go back, but alas, I can't find anyone else who would like to visit and travel with me.
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Post by gavern on Jun 3, 2010 21:57:26 GMT -5
I lived in Ireland from 1998 to 2001. Most of the time I spent in Dublin, I had some very interesting experiences. I also lived in Gweedore for a few months. It was wonderful. Why were you in Ireland, if I can ask? What was it like to live there?
I've only been there once and would love to go back, but alas, I can't find anyone else who would like to visit and travel with me. Well I had just returned from attending school in Canada and I was on a journey of self discovery. I was very interested to see the place where Enya's music had originated and I was very interested to learn about the Celts and the Gaelic language. I worked mostly in Pubs and saved money and then backpacked around different areas. I was well received in the communities. I also stayed in Arklow and I painted there and sold some of my paintings in a local art store. I was lucky enough to take the train to Kiliney and see the outside of Enya's castle while they were still renovating it. And for a short while I worked at Breed Duggan's B&B. As much as I was having a good time it was also a difficult time for me as I was trying to come to terms with being gay, in Dublin this was not a problem but in the more rural areas I had to hide it because it wasn't so well received. I had a couple very pretty girls ask me out on dates but I had to turn them down Most of them ended up being my good friends but some never talked to me again after they found out. Ireland is incredibly historic and beautiful, it's like a land filled with lore and spirits. There is so much to see and the people are great, although they drink way too much! I had my first boyfriend in Ireland, he worked as a manager at the Brown Tomas store in Dublin. It's funny but on a Sunday morning after church you see the local priests in the little tavern's having a beer, and not just one, many! The pub is a place for the whole family to congregate and have fun. I went to Leo's tavern often with Breed and helped her in the back. Watching Leo perform was wonderful, he fills the pub with charisma. When you do go make sure you go for at least 2 weeks. It's very easy to travel from one side to the other. I also recommend visiting Derry (Londonderry), it's a very cute little village! I'll try and find some pictures and post them here for you folks.
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Post by riene on Jun 3, 2010 23:17:55 GMT -5
I am seriously envious! I was only able to stay a couple weeks and didn't see nearly as much as I wished. Living in villages sounds as if it would be a good way to experience another country.
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Post by Moe on Nov 1, 2010 18:59:21 GMT -5
My Trip to Ireland, Part I -- Don't Mess With the Fairies One of the benefits of robbing the cradle (finding a partner who is 14 years younger than me) is that I got a second chance to be a grandchild. Her grandmother was a Wicklow Mountain woman, who along with Grandpa, had raised four kids in a cottage surrounded by fruit trees. The window in her tea kitchen overlooked a beautiful valley and a "river" (really a stream). On Sundays when the kids were growing up, the family had sold rhubarb for pies. Grandpa had built a greenhouse and a toolshed but both structures missed his maintenance. Grandma missed him, too. Grandpa had died the previous year but Grandma was adamantly self-sufficient. She gathered wood for her kitchen fireplace and chopped it herself every day. The fireplace provided heat and hot water for cleaning and bathing. She was an "old school" woman. She went to church every Sunday but she was also superstitious. She wouldn't hang images of birds in her home because it brought bad luck. She had heard banshees and, although she had never seen a fairy, she believed they existed and that they were malevolent. The three of us -- my mother-in-law, my partner and I -- had an uneventful flight to Dublin, aided, perhaps, by the holy water my m-i-l had sprinkled on the plane before she took her seat. Grandma's kitchen was bursting with people when we arrived. She had arranged four or five types of cookies on the table and was busy pouring tea. My partner's uncle and aunts were there along with a couple of cousins. After a warm round of greetings, the relatives resumed their conversation, which was about fairies. It seems that four local young men had been clearing a field. Lazily, they uprooted part of a fairy rahim. (Sp? It's a mound of stones where fairies live.) Their disrespect was followed by a series of unfortunate premature deaths. One, I seem to recall, died in a motorcycle or car accident. Another passed away of a heart attack in his early 30s. A third also had an unfortunate demise. The fourth had been hiding in his parents' house for the past few weeks. Everybody knew the names of the men and they had other anecdotes to tell about them, as well. Being an American -- a sensitive American but American nonetheless -- I didn't quite know what to make of the story. Was it real, or were they entertaining us? Or were they trying to warn family members from overseas to be respectful of the culture and the land? The fairy talk went on for another half hour or so. It seemed that Uncle Paddy had been kidnapped by the fairies at least twice at 4 a.m. on Sunday. In NY, the bars close at 4. Being Irish American on both sides, having your uncle tell you he was kidnapped by fairies at closing time meant one thing. I laughed at the story. Wrong move... My mother-in-law, who usually loves me dearly, gave me a warning glance. It wouldn't be the last one during that trip. To be continued on another day, with Part 2, "Grandpa Returns for a Chat." I look forward to the next entry. My own experiences in Ireland have been rather ordinary overall, though, like you, I did find that the Irish are very hospitable to those from away. Most of our hosts were relatives though, which may play a big role. Anyway, your visit sounds fascinating.
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Post by Moe on Nov 3, 2010 19:29:54 GMT -5
My Trip to Ireland, Part 2: Grandpa Returns for a Chat My partner refused to sleep in that room again. She and I were put in Grandma and Grandpa’s bed. She fell asleep quickly and soon was breathing rhythmically. As usual, I had a problem going to sleep in the dark , the quiet and the chill of the Irish country night. So I remained awake and weary. An hour or two passed. My partner was deep in slumber. Then, unmistakably, I heard an older man’s voice: “Come here, woman!” But there was nobody there. My partner, in the midst of her dreams, began talking . “Hi Grandpa!” she exclaimed. She then held a one-sided conversation with Grandpa, complete with relevantly timed pauses for listening, hearty laughs and a smooth flow from one topic to another. She was updating him on what had happened in her life. So, tell me, what is the etiquette when your mate, who never has talked in her sleep before or since, starts gabbing in the middle of the night with her dead grandfather? Good question! It's never happened to me, so I have no idea how I would react at all. This is quite fascinating, dormouse.
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Post by riene on Nov 4, 2010 20:51:23 GMT -5
Neat stories, Dormouse.
I wish I had friends or relatives there. I'd like so much to return, but I'm not crazy about being out-of-country by myself.
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Post by Moe on Mar 27, 2011 14:26:40 GMT -5
What a Strange Coincidence! "I want to go to Sligo when we're in Ireland," I said. My partner and mother-in-law looked at each other and rolled their eyes. "Sligo is on the other side of the island! Irish roads are narrow! And you're going to want to stop every 10 minutes to see some sight!" my partner said. Sligo was where my grandmother had grown up after her birth in New York. It was where her mother had been raised. Like most Irish-American families, my father's and mother's forebears had been hard to trace. They had usually moved to this country during a crisis. Their names had been misspelled. Brothers and sisters came over in groups of six to 10 and took different paths in the US. Communications and family relationships were lost forever. I wanted to visit a place with trees and shores that had actually been seen by genetic relatives. Once we got to Ireland, though, I got wrapped up in my partner's family. Once in a while, I thought about Sligo. But I never got there. I regretted that I didn't visit any ancestral places. However, five family genealogists have been very busy during the past decade. Slogging through mounds of data, meticulously piecing together clues that have led to breakthroughs, they have gradually unveiled a large part of our family's history. The strangest, and most moving revelation, came last summer. The blood of several Celtic and Norman Irish families feeds into our veins. The line that has most influenced my family as individuals, however, was my maternal grandfather's. We didn't know the name of the Irish town they had come from. Internet sites stated that there were concentrations of the family in Derry, Cork and Donegal, so we always figured they had emigrated from one of those areas. Last year, however, a genealogist definitively established that this branch of the family had been tenants of Lord Fitzwilliam in Wicklow. In the 1840s he had evicted 6,000 of his tenants, giving them one-way passage to Canada. The family was packed on a ship with other Fitzwilliam refugees, suffering filthy conditions, starvation and illness. When they arrived in Canada they were quarantined in Grosse Isle near Quebec, where typhus ravaged both the new immigrants and anybody who tried to minister to them. Two of my relatives were thought to have been lost on the journey. Once in the new land, it took about 70 years of struggle before my grandfather graduated from law school and began to direct his family towards prosperity. The strange coincidence of my family's past in Wicklow fascinated me. I told my mother-in-law the name of the town where Mom's family had lived. "That's where you were," she said. "It's very close to my mother's place." So, while dreaming of Sligo, I had actually been at the home of my ancestors. And, yes, I had seen the very trees and waterfalls that must have lifted their hearts. My forebears had been close to my partner's family. Why, we could even be distantly related! Rest in peace, Grandma. Thank you for introducing me to a part of Ireland that I never would have seen if we hadn't met. Please accept my gratitude for your kind act when you placed our photo on your bedstand. You truly were one of a dying breed, and I miss you. A fascinating tale, thank you for posting it
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2015 17:50:28 GMT -5
I hope I can visit Dublin for about 5 days in June - from 15th - 20th June. Actually I'm saving some money and I hope I'll get enough for the journey. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!
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