Donnybrook

On our last night in Ireland, it was decided that we would have a special dinner, one that gave us a chance to spend time together without any real rush. This event took place in the community of Donnybrook.

Donnybrook is a district of Dublin which is in the south side. It has an interesting history that goes back to the 12^h century. At the beginning of the 13^th century, King John signed a charter for the Donnybrook Fair which existed until 1866. It started off as an agricultural fair, but degraded into a fair that promoted “fun” and drunkenness. Things got to be so bad that the local people raised money and prominent citizens and clergy purchased the rights to the fair. The fair had been held on the property that is now used as the Donnybrook Rugby Ground and the Ever Ready Garage. The name, Donnybrook, came to describe a rowdy brawl.

Donnybrook is a civil parish that consists of sixteen townlands. Twelve of the townlands belong to the Barony of Dublin. Three of the remaining townlands belong to the Barony of Rathdown. The final townland, Sallymount, is in the Barony of Uppercross.

On Morehampton Road, you will find a small establishment that looks like a pub from the outside. I’m not sure what the main floor of the restaurant looks like as we were ushered upstairs to the Belmont Room which is designed to host parties up to 90 participants. It has its own bar and washrooms, as well as a lounge area and fireplace. The dining area is split into two areas, upper and lower. There is also a fairly large reception area as you enter from the stairwell. Entertainment had also been arranged for us, we were treated to a final night of Irish music.

When we arrived, we were presented with a demonstration of how to make Irish soda bread. We were even given a copy of the recipe and told about possible pitfalls. After this, we then sat down to a very good meal. I believe that there were either three or four choices which were made before we even arrived in Ireland. The food was delicious and plentiful. I cannot for the life of me what I had as we have been back for three months now and a great deal has happened since then.

Once the food was out of the way, we had a bit of an appreciation party, giving thanks to Lesley Anderson for all of the work that she had done for us both before and during the tour. We also showed our appreciation to our bus driver and guide, Austin, from CIE Tours in Ireland.

The time came that we had to vacate the restaurant and travel back to our hotel for our last night in Ireland. We had a long day ahead of us with our travel back to Canada and to our various homes, mostly in Ottawa, but a couple from Alberta, three or four from the States, and myself currently living in Newfoundland.

It was a good trip. I plan to go back to Ireland to visit the places that I want to get to know better and to do some research that I can’t do in Canada. Who knows, this might happen sooner than later. We will see.

I am sure that Lesley Anderson will appreciate the following picture. My brother and I had gone for a walk on our last night in Belfast so that I could get some pictures. I came across this one during that time. Lesley, if you are reading this, please enjoy:

Final Entry – Field Trip, April 2016

Well, I am home again. I arrived about mid afternoon, this afternoon. I really didn’t have enough time to write a blog post yesterday. I thought that I might have enough time as I was supposed to have about six hours between arriving in Toronto and leaving Toronto for St John’s. However, the plane that we travelled back to Toronto from Ireland was very late in arriving in Dublin. We were supposed to leave shortly after 12:00 pm Dublin time but it was well after 2:00 pm before we were able to.

Once we arrived in Toronto, we had to go through Customs and Immigration. Customs has installed scanners to scan our declaration paperwork as soon as we disembark and it gets checked right after we go through Immigration. Before we can pick up our baggage, it gets checked again. Then we have to collect our baggage, then go through Customs where it gets turned in. If we have a connecting flight, we then have to go to the check-in counter for the airline that you are flying with and check your luggage in again. You then have to go through the security check point again.

You know, it would be nice if Customs got their act in gear and allow the baggage that has to be transferred to go directly over to the connecting flight. This system that they have set up has your paperwork being checked about three times with the luggage being there only once. If there is a possible problem, they could easily contact the traveller before the flight leaves and pull that suitcase or let the next airport know that the suitcase has to be checked. It would save a lot of grief and frustration on the part of travellers.

I mentioned earlier that I should have had about six hours between flights yesterday. I ended up with much less time as the flight travelling from Toronto to Dublin was delayed as I mentioned. When we finally were able to board the plane, we were advised that the tail winds were quite good and that we should be able to arrive in St John’s ahead of schedule. Then we were delayed because the plane was waiting for two travellers.

I was hoping to get some sleep on the flight from Dublin to Toronto, but that did not happen. I knew that we would have an opportunity to have something to eat not too long after take-off, so I forced myself to stay awake. I did not want to be woken up or miss the meal as I was beginning to be hungry. After eating, I waited a bit of time, and then tried to go to sleep, but couldn’t. However, I was able to sleep for about a half hour on the flight to St John’s. We arrived in St John’s about 1:40 am this morning. Because I was in a window seat, I had to wait until my seat mate was able to leave. I still had to get my carry ons down and I let everyone that I would have held up go before I tried to get them down. Because I was the last on the plane, the steward lifted my carry on down. As I headed to the exit, I passed the pilot on the way and the three of us walked together to the luggage retrieval area together. There, my husband was waiting for me. I was so happy that he was there when the plane landed instead of me having to wait for him.

Once I retrieved my large suitcase, we headed for the car and drove to the Comfort Inn, Airport, in St John’s where my husband had already checked in. I had made the reservation before going to Ireland. I was very glad that I had thought about this. I was asleep about three minutes after my head hit the pillow and wasn’t up for the day until about 8:45 this morning.

We missed the continental breakfast, but I was okay with that as I knew that I needed the sleep more. After checking out, we went to Tim Horton’s for breakfast, then headed for home. I was able to stay away for about half of the travel time and then fell asleep again.

Once we were home, the cats insisted on a very thorough greeting. Even Angel insisted that I make a fuss of her and she usually just tolerates me. After all, I do feed her and clean the litter, and apparently, my head scratches are totally acceptable.

After the greetings from the two cats, I headed upstairs and proceeded to fill up my laundry hamper. It’s laundry day tomorrow and I will have a full load. After all, I was gone for more than two weeks and I only wore two shirts twice. The rest were only worn once while away. On the other hand, I did wash the underwear halfway through the trip.

I spent the rest of the day trying to finish the unpacking and going through the mail. It was mostly household bills. I was able to pretty much stay within my budget. I knew that I would have to use a credit card for some of it, but I was able to keep it at the minimum.

Well, my trip to Ireland is completed and I am back to look for a job, fill my church responsibilities, and work on my family history and blog until the next trip which will be for five days in Ontario for a wedding. I have already booked the flights for that trip. But more of that at a later date. Please watch for future posts where I fill in more details about each of the visits that we made in Ireland.

Day One Of Field Trip April 2016

Today was my first day of travel. Before I could travel, I had to do a number of things that took me most of the day.

In order to pack for my trip, I wanted to do my laundry today so that I would have the maximum amount of clothing to choose from. Because of the time of year, I chose to bring both some lighter winter clothing and some spring/summer clothing. I had completed my laundry, folded my clothing, and took out what was not going. I had been thinking about taking my medium-sized suitcase. I even got it out and started to put a couple of things in. I looked at what I was bring and decided that there was no way that I would be able to put everything into my suitcase that I needed/wanted. So…. I pulled out the big suitcase. I will be gone for just over two weeks and I am bringing enough clothing that if I can’t get a load of laundry done, I have enough clothing except for underwear. I can wash out some underwear in the bathroom sink if need be.

I also didn’t get a chance to print some business cards yesterday. I set that up to print while I was trying to complete something else.

Before I was able to have the time to pack, I had a couple of medical appointments this morning. So, I was able to manage to get the laundry into the wash machine early enough that I was able to put the clothes into the dryer before I left for my appointments. A couple of months ago, my doctor had a blood test done for cholesterol and put me on some medication. Today, we were reviewing the results of a blood test that was done earlier this week. He was very happy with the results and is letting me go without the medication until I come home again. I just have to watch what I eat.

Every time I tried to complete a task so that I could get everything completed by the time my husband came home, something else came up. I almost forgot the books that I make annotations in regarding records that I find. I don’t know how many times I reopened my suitcase to add something more. I had to print off some flyers and invitations to a family history fireside chat in May.

Finally, I was able to pack my laptop and remembered that I should take a spare pair of glasses. I found about three pair that I can use as a spare pair. I almost forgot where the suitcase locks were. Finally, I was packed and I didn’t think that I had anything more that had to go in. I can just lift my suitcase to put it into the back of our vehicle. Fortunately, there will be a few things that won’t be coming back.

As most family historians know, when you visit an archive, you can get excellent service if you give them a little gift, preferably something from your part of the world. As most people that are going on this trip are from the Ottawa area, they are bringing souvenirs of Canada. I decided that I had to be different. I am the only person from Newfoundland going on this trip that I am aware of. So, about a month ago, I went looking. Do you realize how hard it is to find souvenirs when it is not tourist season? Well, I managed to find six shot glasses, three of each of two different designs, small Newfoundland flags, some large chocolate bars, and, we just happen to have a number of pins representation of the Canadian Army. I can only hope that these will work their magic for me and get me the help I need to find certain records.

By 5 pm, I had everything into the vehicle, my husband had changed and we opted to stop along the way at a Timmies for some supper. I just happen to have some gift cards for Timmies that we hadn’t used yet and we didn’t have to pay any money.

So, now, I am ready to crash to get some sleep before getting on a plane tomorrow morning to travel from St John’s, Newfoundland to Toronto, to meet my brother and most of the other members of our group going on our expedition.

The Drive Home

Earlier today, I drove into Grand Falls-Windsor from Gander. It usually takes approximately an hour to do so. I had a number of things that I needed to attend to, the last of which was to watch a recording of the women’s session of General Conference for church which took place last Saturday. If there is a broadcast slated for anything after 6 pm Central Time, we make arrangements to get together within a few days to watch the video. Since today was the day that we planned to do this, I decided to go into Grand Falls-Windsor to do the other things that I had to do. A couple of them did not take very long, but another visit that I wanted to do would take perhaps an hour, maybe more. I was able to complete the smaller tasks, but, unfortunately, I was not able to do the last task. Someone else was to be involved with it and, because I had a problem contacting this person, I was not able have a meeting with her.

In the meantime, Samantha called me to see if I could give her a ride to the Chapel on my way in. She did not realize that I was already there and we made arrangements for me to meet her at her house.

Because we have a member that lives in Gander but spends part of her workweek in Grand Falls-Windsor, the decision was made to have a potluck supper before watching the video so that Evelyn would not have to go all the way to Gander and back. Evelyn was looking forward to this activity. However, something came up so that she was unable to attend.

Samantha and I had a good visit while we were waiting for others to arrive. We had five women ready to sit down when we received confirmation of Cathy coming. We felt that we would not have enough for all of us, so the decision was made to order in a pizza. Cathy arrived just as we were ready to eat, so we started with what we had and the pizza arrived about 15 minutes later. We finished our meal with banana bread, maple mini cupcakes, and apple pie.

Within 15 to 20 minutes, we had everything cleaned so that we wouldn’t have to do it late and started the video. It was agreed that all of us enjoyed it. It was worth the effort that we made.

We walked out of the door about 8:30 pm and were greeted with about a half inch of snow on the ground. The car had to be cleaned off. I took Cathy and Samantha home, which was easy as they live on the same street. Then Henriette and I started the drive back to Gander. That’s when the “fun” started. It was dark. The snow was blowing. The road was potentially slippery. Most of the trip was done at less than 80 kilometers per hour with a good chunk of time at just under 70 kilometers per hour. There was a couple of spots that I could go as high as 95 to 100 kilometers per hour. What should have taken approximately an hour took at least 90 minutes to do. We finally reached Gander and both gave a sigh of relief. We were blessed.

The next time this happens, I am going to a motel and calling my husband to tell him not expect us back until the next day.