Moving South and East then West

Yesterday we drove from Roscrea to Enniscorthy.  Enniscorthy is where my grandmother grew up. Kathie had found a census form from around 1904 that was for my grandmother's family and they lived at 10 St John's Street.  On our way to the campsite we drove the Enniscorthy and found the street and #10.  It is not far from the Enniscorthy Castle.  The worst traffic we have come across so far was here.  It wasn't that there was that much traffic, it was just the roads are really narrow and traffic can't move that fast.

Here is #10 St John Street.

The street was very narrow and getting the motorhome by all of the cars was tricky.  #10 is the first door on the right.

All of the signs here are in Gaelic and English.

The campground here are all fairly similar.  Grass with gravel pitches were the campers are parked.  If it is a trailer the tow vehicle parks beside the camper on the grass.  The trailers here remind me of the trailers in the 1960's.  The tow vehicles are cars and the trailers are usually about 16 feet long.  Even at that, trying to get down the access roads with someone coming the other way must be interesting.

The weather last night was very wet and windy.  The drive today was OK, mostly dry but a couple of heavy rain squalls and windy.

Today we drove across the south of Ireland to Blarney.  Tomorrow we will tour the castle and Tuesday we will move north to the Cliff of Moher.

Kathie's Family, Paul's Family

I am posting this late Saturday night. We have been having issues with the internet connection here. The campground said it had WiFi but you have to be standing right outside the office to get the best connection and it is pouring rain and very windy.

The last couple of days were spent around County Offaly at Castle Eglish and with a distant cousin of Kathie's.  We had a wonderful evening with Salters and his partner Michael in their home, which is a former church rectory.

Today we drove through Enniscorthy where my grandmother grew up. We stopped by St John's Street and I got some pictures that I will post tomorrow if we can get a decent internet connection.

We are in Ballagheen and tormorrow we are moving to Blarney and after that the Cliffs of Moher.

Ancient Place, Newer Places

Our hearts and prayers go out to my brother, sister-in-law and the family as Margaret's mom passed away yesterday.

Yesterday we drove out to Newgrange.  It is a site similar to but older than StoneHenge.  The large mound you see was built 5,000 years ago.  Inside there is narrow passage ways that lead to a central room with 4 smaller areas off that room.  The passageway is aligned with the rising of the sun on the winter solstice and the inner chamber is lit by the sun for 17 minutes only on that day.  The requirement would be that is was not raining.  From what we have seen while we have been here the chamber was not lit on very many winter solstices.  There are a number of large stones that were quarried, moved by boat, brought up the hill and erected similar to Stonehenge.  Not bad for 3000 BC.

This is the carved rock in front of the entrance way to the passage.

From North Beach, Rush we have moved to Roscrea.  This is the closest campground to the Eglish Castle which is the ancestral home of Kathie's family.  Before we left Kathie contacted the current owners (the Alexander's) and we were given permission to go onto the land and take pictures.  When we got here we got a tour by one of the brothers (Norman) who currently own the property.  He first took us to the grave yard where we spent some time cleaning off the old headstones and taking pictures so we can try to document who is buried there.  We had a great time as he was able to tell us about growing up the house and area.  He also helped us clean off the old tombstones so we get better pictures of them.

I am hoping when I get home I can enhance the pictures so that they are easier to read.

The headstones are in an area that is enclosed by the rock wall.  There are several other families buried in the grave yard but the Berry's are the only one with a rock wall surrounding the tombs.

This is the old church on the property.

This is the old Berry manor house.  Part of what is left of castle wall is on the right side of the house. Norman and his brothers lived in the house until the 1990's.  The house is 4 levels including the basement.  The house had 32 rooms and had been built in 3 stages.  There was the original house, that was added onto the back, that was added onto the front and that was added onto the side.

This picture was taken from behind the white bales in the picture above.  This is what is left of the kitchen.  You can see the top a basement door underneath the green door, and there is another door just above the brown door.

On the north side of the house you can see more of what is left of the old castle.  Unfortunately, help is needed to identify what is former castle and what is rock wall.  On both sides of the farm equipment (the big white and blue thing) are part of the castle wall.  On the right side it is over grown with ivy and blackberries and on the left side it is behind the plough.  It looks like the wall was cut at some point to let farm equipment through.

This is the south side of the house with the castle wall on the left.  The windows were bricked up some time in the past when part of the house taxes were based on the number of windows in the house.

Front steps

The front of the house has been taken over by trees but you can see the that the roof has fallen in.

This is where Norman's dad blew out the wall in the house so he could park farm equipment.

Ireland - North Beach, Rush

Yesterday we picked up the motorhome / camper van and drove a short distance to a place north of Dublin on the coast.  The first part of the journey was on the motorway which is a freeway, but as we got closer to the campground the roads got very narrow and driving on the wrong side of the road is quite an experience.

We spent the afternoon hanging around the campsite, taking pictures and trying to get internet connections going.  We got things straighten out about 11:30 pm.

We met a couple from Germany who had an Entlebucher Mountain Dog and we spent some time talking with them.

Here are some pictures from the campsite.  The first 4 are the view from right in front of the motorhome, looking west toward England.  If you have panorama software you can piece them together to get the complete picture.  This reminds me of the place my family used to stay at Qualicum Beach when I was growing up.

This is our motorhome.  You can see the Entlebucher Mountain Dog by the other camper.

Here are the campers lined up on the bank above the beach.  We are the third camper from the left.

We got some sad news late yesterday, our dog Kody passed away.  Thanks to our friend Don who has been looking after him while we have been away.

Moving on, we are in Dublin now, churches, churches, a castle and a university

We flew to Dublin this morning so we were up early and took the Metro to the airport.  We are staying in downtown Dublin tonight and tomorrow we pick up the motorhome to start our tour.  Today was for touring around Dublin.

The first picture is part of St Patrick's Cathedral.  I have more pictures but I need to work on them before I will post them.

As we were walking around we went pass Ross Road so I got a picture of James.

One of the problems with the churches around here is they are huge.  This is the Christ Church Cathedral below needed three pictures to get the whole thing in and I missed a part on the right end.

We did a tour of the Dublin Castle.  Part of the castle was built on the Viking castle that was built here around 900 ad.  The cement they used was made from of egg shells, horse hair ox blood.  The cement is still holding together.

This is were a lake was when it was a castle, it now has a Celtic knot maze.

This is the Viking part of the castle.

This is the chapel inside the castle.

This is the throne they built for King George IV's visit, the stool underneath they had to make when Queen Victoria came to visit so she could get into the throne unassisted.

We then wondered through Dublin University which was established in the 1500's.

Durham and Angels

On Thursday Kathie was working so James and I popped down to Durham to see the castle and cathedral there.  We took the train down and the ride was all of 12 minutes.  We walked into town and then along the river walk.

This is the castle from across the river.

Further down the river I got this shot of the cathedral.  It is right beside the castle.

There were a couple of rowing sculls being rowed down the river.  They had to stop just after this because there were a number of weirs downstream.

This is the view downstream from the bridge.  You can see the cathedral on the right.  The walk along the rivers edge was one of James's favourite things we have done since we got here.  It was quiet and there were very few people and only a couple of smokers.

This is the other end of the cathedral (from the river).

We tried to go through one of the museums but it was Thursday and not a bank holiday and not in June.

This is the side of the cathedral from the entrance to the castle.  The river is to the right and the other picture is of the left side.

This is the castle keep - the strongest part of the castle.  The castle was given to the University of Durham in the 1830's and most of the castle is now used for student housing.

In Gateshead just outside of Newcastle there is a huge sculpture call The Angle of the North.  It is on a hill top and can be seen for miles.

To give you some idea of the size, Kathie is comparing her 5 foot wingspan to that of the Angel.  That is Kathie at the bottom right of the sculpture.

I stood underneath the Angle and got this shot looking straight up to show the structure of the sculpture.

Glasgow

If it's Tuesday James and I must be on a train going somewhere.  This Tuesday it was Glasgow.

On the way we passed through Edinburgh and I got this shot from the train as we were leaving the station.  The rest of the pictures I got from the train are too blurry to post.

When we got to Glasgow we went straight to the KelvinGrove Museum and Art Gallery.  (OK folks - who recognizes the name Kelvin?) When we first got there I didn't think it was that big and thought we would be through in an hour or less and then find other things to do for the day.  3 hours later we left without seeing all of the exhibits because we had other commitments.  We could have spent all day there.  The picture below is the organ.  There was an organ recital while we were there.  The art gallery was cool as it explained the pictures and why certain colours were used and the symbolism of certain things in the images. 

We walked back to the Necropolis and had a quick look around before James went to meet Toben.

It was the nicest day we have had so far, a sprinkle of rain but mostly sunny and around 15.

Nottingham and Edinburgh

Here are the latest pictures.

Tunnels under the Nottingham Castle, used to bring supplies from the river up stairs.

Robin Hood

The oldest known pub.

Edinburgh Castle - It may look warm because of the May sunshine but looks can be deceiving.

View from the Battery over the city.  As you can see, it was raining.  All day it was very windy, and at times very wet.  At points it felt cold enough to snow.

Saw this across the valley.

This is the Queen's house.  This is where she stays when she is ruling Scotland.

We saw these but they didn't have any small enough for Nissa.