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Published: September 5th 2006
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Average view in Ireland
In Ireland the prime real estate seems to go to the animals Okay, first things first. We're sorry for dropping our last blog entry after we got back. However, when we returned from Ireland to our new home in Boston first things were also first, and those first things were things like moving and weddings and unfortunately not wrapping up our last blog entry. Anyway, when last you heard, we were about to leave Germany for Ireland...
We loved Ireland. Loved, loved, loved it. It may have been the friendliest, most beautiful place we visited. The fact that the Irish speak English helped, but the green, sheep-studded landscapes, thousand foot sea cliffs, delicious Guiness, and world's greatest bed-and-breakfasts made us want to overstay our visas.
It was almost not-that-great, however. Our plan, formulated in an Istanbul Internet cafe, was to land in Dublin at night, rent a car and drive across the island the next morning to Donegal County. The car almost didn't happen, however, when at the car rental agent informed us that Brian's credit card car insurance did not cover rentals in Ireland. In fact, none of their credit cards would. In the rental agent's words, “you see, you don't need a driver's license to drive in Ireland, and
Looking for Rooney roots
At least they're alphabetical. the credit card companies have a bit of trouble with that.” Faced with the choice of paying an additional 200% of the rental fee for insurance or finding ourselves personally liable for a wrecked Ford Focus, we decided to eat on the cheap and swallow the extra Euros.
We were glad that we did. It took a bit of practice for Brian to learn to drive and shift on the left-hand side, and a bit of luck to navigate Dublin's unmarked city streets, but after a small detour we found our way to the first of our three Irish B&Bs. According to our congenial hostess, it was “grand” that we'd arrived, that it was “grand” that we'd like to pay by credit card, and that it was “grand” that we planned to go find evidence of Alissa's grandparents down at the Irish birth, death, and marriage records office the next morning. We thought it was grand to be in a place that spoke English with such an endearing accent.
The next morning we jumped in the Focus and headed down to the records office with the names, birthdates, and birthplaces of Alissa's paternal grandparents in hand—the first step
Ummm...
Perhaps this is why AmEx wouldn't insure our rental car. in her quest for Irish citizenship. Unfortunately, Alissa's father and his eight siblings seem to have never been born, as after sorting through twenty years' worth of Irish birth records we found no evidence of a John J Rooney born during January in Belfast, nor of a Catherine Vaughan born in Leitrim during December. A bit frustrating, but interesting research nonetheless. After two hours we grabbed some sandwiches and drove across Ireland on the left hand side of the road.
County Donegal is the large northwest chunk of Ireland, part of the non-UK section of Ulster. We knew that driving there from Dublin, which is about halfway down the east coast of the Island, would take us close to Northern Ireland (the UK), but as we couldn't figure out whether we could take our rental car out of the country and we didn't have any Pounds on us we figured that if we found ourselves at the border we'd just turn around and go another way. Our flawed assumption, however, was that we could actually tell where the border was. With the nation's troubled history we expected soldiers and guard dogs, passport checks and money changers, or at least
a sign announcing that our Euros were now useless. No such luck—we didn't realize that we'd crossed out of Ireland and into the United Kingdom until Brian stopped at pay phone that for some reason was demanding “pence” instead of Euro cents. We resolved to plead ignorance if the car rental company gave us a hard time.
Our driving adventure took us to Donegal Town where the tourist information bureau set us up with our first real Irish bed and breakfast. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of staying in an Irish B&B, just imagine spending the night in the guest room of some distant but very hospitable family friends. Then add cholesterol, and you have an Irish B&B. Our B&B in Donegal contained three guest rooms, one sitting room occupied by a teenage son and the family television, and a dining room in which guests are served a mandatory “full Irish breakfast”. 2 types of sausage, bacon, ham, a fried egg, and half of a small tomato for humor value.
We spent the next day driving on narrow country roads, up to the top of 600 meter sea cliffs, through friendly country towns
Some cliffs
Ireland's full of them. and around barren alpine landscapes. As we expected the day was overcast, but surprisingly not gloomy. The bright green fields and comical clusters of spray-painted sheep kept us from noticing the gray sky. Following a delicious lunch in a local restaurant (beneath what was clearly a traditional Irish dance studio), we headed back towards Dublin and stayed in a small industrial town about one hour outside the city. The next day it was back to Dublin in time to see the main tourist sites, sit down for our final traveling dinner, and catch some sleep for what was an uneventful flight back to Boston.
So that's the end of our trip. We're going to do one more wrap up entry with the stats of how many planes, trains, automobiles, etc once we find the notebook in which we tabulated that information. All in all, though, this is it. Thanks for following along with us, and let us know if you need some travelling company sometime!
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Tania Rooney
non-member comment
Welcome back guys !
Hey Alissa and Brian ~ Just loved readin' this last entry all about Ireland ... I can't believe you found nothing in the Irish birth records of Grampa and Gramma Rooney ??? Huh, very frustrating and strange all at the same time. Anyway, welcome back and we are really looking forward to seeing you guys this Sunday! Love, Tania and Kevin and da boyzzzzzzz