Thurles to Enniskerry

 After a long day, we had a nice dinner at the hotel … at last, fish and chips that Larry liked … and relaxed and chatted. The next morning was our big genealogy day, to visit our great-great-grandparents’ home.

First we headed to Emly, the largest church near Ballyvistea where me might see Maher or Murphy gravestones … might because they were probably too poor to afford them. En route, we saw a Catholic church by the road in the village of Lattin with an open door, so we quickly pulled over. Out front was the pastor and he welcomed us warmly. We went inside the empty church and at last had a chance to light some candles … for Cathy, for Jim, for Mom and Dad, and for all our ancestors but for whom we would not be here at all. The priest was very friendly and we chatted a while, he was there on a Monday to prepare for a funeral. He left to go outside for a few moments and I took the opportunity to sing Ave Generosa (Hildegard von Bingen) as I had at Timoleague … the church had very nice acoustics.

We continued on our drive to Emly, and explored a graveyard a bit, and spent some time in a lovely 2000 millennial garden filled with arches of ivy, special trees, and sculptures.

On to Ballyvistea! As expected this took us to the tiniest of roads, gravel with some vegetation in the middle. We stopped to get some grass from the “old sod” and continued on until I saw the houses I recognized from GoogleMaps. The one I had written to seemed uninhabited, with a chain around the entrance gate and broken windows in the barns near the road. One house nearby had a car out front but that was it as far as sounds of habitation … nothing else, it was extremely quiet except for the birds. To think that in the 1830s and 1840s our ancestors were tenant farmers in tiny crowded houses on some small part of this beautiful green area was humbling. They must have lived as best they could, probably in a sod or stone house, until they had to leave, the house now returned to nature.

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We returned to the car and drove to Enniskerry, our next to last stop. I drove, mostly on the M roads which got busier as we approached Dublin. As we turned south things immediately became more rural, and we finally reached the huge and imposing Powerscourt Hotel. Truly 5 star and luxurious we could hardly believe it … so many staff to help and gorgeously appointed. We found our room which was indeed about twice the size of my little apartment long ago in Chicago, with an enormous bathroom and view onto the gardens. We unpacked a bit -  three huge beds! - and headed out for a walk, ending up at the distillery near the historic gardens we would see the next day. After our walk we explored the enormous grounds further - there were climbing structures for kids and picnic tables and a huge outdoor chess set - and then enjoyed a lovely dinner downstairs. Very relaxed, Larry and Claudia swanned around in the plush hotel robes while I had a GoogleMeet Executive Committee for Fairyland for a couple hours upstairs. Done at last, we all fell into the luxurious beds for a good night’s sleep.