#68 SUMMER VISIT TO IRELAND

                                    VISITING IRELAND WITH 2 GRANDDAUGHTERS

This summer, Steve and I took our two oldest grandchildren, Sophia, 12, and Ellie, 10, to Ireland for 12 days. We drove around the island to Belfast (the Titanic), Giant's Causeway, Derry, Strokestown (the famine museum) Galway (sheepdogs), Cobh (more Titanic), Waterford (the crystal factory, Vikings) and Dublin (Riverdance, Book of Kells, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Emigration Museum).  Sophia and Ellie were great travellers and absorbed in everything we saw and did.

It was not my intention to visit any family sites, but we just happened to drive within a few miles of two ancestral villages and the girls wanted to stop.

In Ballyconnell County Cavan,, we peaked through the front gates at the old Netterfield house. (When I last visited there in 2005, the house was a red stucco and quite visible from the road. The house is now a white stucco, updated and the yard is heavily treed and beautifully landscaped.)  We also visited the church property next door and the girls realized how their distant ancestors were baptised, married and buried there.

                                         TomRegan Church of Ireland, Ballyconnell, Co.Cavan

                                                gates in front of Netterfield house

                                              found the only Netterfield stone in churchyard

A few days later we detoured by Clonegal, Co. Carlow, the Whelan parish.  The church was open so we could go inside, and then we walked through the graveyard looking for any Whelan names. We also walked to the Bridge of Tears so-called because this was the last time family members saw each other as they departed for the new world.

                                                        St.Brigid's R.C.Church, Clonegal

                                                        Bridge of Tears, Clonegal, Co.Carlow

                                       one of just a few Whelan stones--Sophia was able to interpret it

Both the Netterfield and Whelan families left Ireland during the potato famine. This is Sophia's research on the Irish potato famine. 

 

(One of my family historians in training! So proud of her.)

There have been many changes to the Netterfield house in Ballyconnell since I last visited there in 2005.

                    2005

                2024

A crazy postscipt:

On July 30, we visited the church in Ireland where Stephen Whelan (my Steve's great-grandfather) was baptised.  Just nine days later, we were in the church cemetery in Douglas, Renfrew County, Ont where Stephen is buried. What a crazy small world!

                                                            Stephen Whelan 1825-1906

                                

                                           St. Brigid's RC Church, Clonegal, Co.Carlow, Ireland

                                         St. Michael's RC Church, Douglas, Renfew Co., On