Ireland : Travel Blog #21
- grace novak
- Apr 15, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 16, 2024
People joke about the "travel bug," but it's no laughing matter. Once you've caught it, you're stuck for life! It's been three years of traveling during the school year for my family, and I can confidently say that we've been getting more and more excited about traveling as the time goes by, NOT less. Trying international travel for the first time last winter in and around the Iberian Peninsula multiplied it to a whole new level! (New to the blog? Read all about last years travels in Italy and France, Switzerland, Paris, Beynac, other French towns, Portugal, Madrid, Barcelona, and Granada.)
We’ve talked for many years about exploring Ireland with our family. A couple of weeks ago, we finally got to do it! Ireland was cool by itself, but most of what I’ll remember about it is definitely the family connections! Between the 15 members of the family that we traveled with, we had 5 different Irish family names and lineages to trace back! So on top of doing the typical Irish attractions, we hunted out little pieces of our own family histories to explore off the beaten path!
FAMILY CONNECTIONS
MURPHY: My Great Grandma Jo’s maiden name was Murphy. We went to Murphy’s Ice Cream to celebrate our Murphy heritage in downtown Dublin. They had lots of unique and delicious flavors of ice cream like Irish Brown Bread and Sea Salt.
KEHOE: My cousins are Kehoe’s, a traditional Irish name. We went to Kehoe’s pub where we were treated to a backstage picture behind the bar and lots of Kehoe matchboxes for souvenirs. The pub was our first experience of a crowded Irish pub in Downtown Dublin!
CASEY: My Grandpa’s mother was a Casey. We went to Casey’s pub in Cork to honor his lineage. There, the manager came out, so excited to meet my grandpa and see pictures of the woman whose name was the same as his bar. My grandpa even got an authentic Casey’s bar employee shirt while we listened to the fun live music!
LINEHAN: My Grandma’s maiden name is Linehan. We found Linehan pub in Killarney. We were greeted like family, and my Grandma was showered with attention and kind generosity from the people who shared her name! Linehan’s was pretty memorable because it was full of loud, rowdy, fun, and drunk Irish folks. It was definitely an authentic experience!
BARRY: My cousins’ Grandmother was a Barry before she married. The Barry family owned Barryscourt estate in Ireland for centuries, and then it was taken into the care of the Irish government. Now the building has stood unvisitable for years and years as they work hard to restore it to its former incredible glory.
My amazing mother reached out to a member of the Irish Parliament to ask if our party could be given special access to see the castle since we wouldn’t be back in Ireland in the foreseeable future and our “Barry” wanted to get a chance to tour “her” castle. We weren’t really expecting even a response, but we were mightily overwhelmed by the kindness of their answer!
The head of the Irish historical and architectural projects and his boss came out with the construction site leaders to give us a personal guided tour of the Castle on Good Friday. Taking the tour with us was the very member of Parliament himself and several members of his staff who also had Barry backgrounds (it’s a fairly common Irish name).
We got to wear special construction gear, climb up the scaffolding, enter through the third story window, and tour the castle! Since it isn’t actively being used for tours, all of the information we learned was from the experts in the field, walking us through both the history and the architecture. They even climbed into the hole in centuries old cellar in the floor to demonstrate where the Barry’s used to hide their priests! This tour was a strong highlight of the trip. Even though the name Barry is the farthest removed from me out of all of the names we visited, I was absolutely blown away and impressed with how awesome this experience was!
We were truly treated like family at each of these places we went! They are experiences that I will look back on as some of the best of my entire life!
EVERYTHING ELSE
So what about the rest of Ireland? It was just as I expected! The hills are rolling and green, there are sheep in every direction you looked, every other building on the streets is another pub full of lively Guinness drinkers, and every meal is always Irish stew (it really never gets old.) The shops string the Irish flag on pennants everywhere you go. The people sing Edmund Fitzgerald and ask “Where’s the craic?” Yep, Ireland was perfectly Irish in the best possible ways.
I loved the lively culture and the beautiful scenery! The Cliffs of Moher were absolutely breathtaking; I could’ve stayed for hours and hours! It was fun to see the film locations for Princess Bride and Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince. We also saw Grafton Street (like from Ed Sheeran’s Galway Girl) and lottttttts of castles on hills.
I could talk about the pros of Ireland forever, but at the end of the day it comes to this: I got to experience Ireland, the land of my ancestors, with all of my fellow descendants. Being in Ireland with our huge group of 15 (+1 on the way!:)) was the true highlight. I only hope we will all look back on this incredible time together with as much fondness, laughter, and joy as I will! I love them all, and I love Ireland!
It was an incredible trip thru our family’s heritage and I will cherish the memories forever. The places we went and the lovely Irish people we met was beyond belief. God bless the Irish and all the others that were not fortunate enough to be Irish
Wow, what an awesome trip! Everything was incredible, and shoutout to Cam and Teddy for rolling and screaming “As you wish” at the Cliffs of Moher! You’ve captured the fun and excitement so well in this blog! Another wonderful job!
Wow that’s incredible about all your family history!! 🩷 it looks like you had so much fun!
So fun! It looks like you had the best time all together!