We enjoyed a pleasant chat sitting out in the sunshine about places we had all been.
Brothers:
We went for a drive in the afternoon to Roscommon, the place I had heard about from my mother as the ancestral home. We have discovered that the Beirne family came from County Roscommon, not the town but it was still a good feeling to visit.
The parking is free in Roscommon, a pleasant surprise.
We had dinner in the Wineport Lodge Restaurant. A most enjoyable evening.
This morning, we had breakfast in our room, a free service here. It was very relaxing for our last full day in Ireland.
After breakfast we went ancestor hunting. Our visit to the Roscommon Heritage Centre in the morning was premature; they only open in the afternoon. A pleasant lady helped us however so we headed for Boyle to begin. Not much success though. We had a brief look at the Abbey later in the day.
We initially drove through Boyle, picking up a district map to show us Ardcarne and Cootehall, two towns from my ancestry.
We found the church in Ardcarne, high on a hill and it had a map of the graveyard, indicating which graves had headstones.
We found some with my family names but they were too late. Who knows? Long, lost cousins?
We left and drove to Carrick-on-Shannon for lunch. Sandwich, sausage rolls an rhubarb pie with cream. Yum!
Time to visit Cootehall.
There were houses, a couple of pubs, a corner shop and a church, not much else.
The lady here suggested a nearby graveyard as a possible place to visit so off we went in the rain.
Family name but too late. More distant relations?
We drove back to Cootehall for a final visit and I found my black face sheep.
We then drove to Tibohine which barely exists now.
Time to have dinner at Roscommon in a pleasant little restaurant and then home to pack up in preparation for the long flight home.
No comments:
Post a Comment