{Hello,
It has fallen to me to start the letter this week.  It has fallen thus because we are in a hotel room in Sligo which is in the northwestern of Ireland.  Mary has a book to read and I, being sadly illiterate, have none.  I tried to play Star Wars Pod Racer on the laptop but we forgot to bring the CD-ROM.

As I said, we are in Sligo, in the Tower Hotel.  Mary, Melinda and I are in room 107.  Garth and Emm are on their own in room 109, free from the noxious influence of parents and loving it, though in a somewhat nervous and tentative way.  They call us every few minutes to ask whether we have discovered things like the TV.  The little soaps.  The heated towel bar (!).  The electric carafe for making tea.  Can they have some in the morning?  We have begun our Great Northern Tour and this is our first gig.

The day started out as a typical Friday in Limerick.  Emm had squid for breakfast.  Garth played Persian Rugby.  Melinda reverted to Calvinism and Mer returned from the sea.  I walked to school, read my e-mail and then taught a session dealing with the seven sorrowful mysteries of teaching.  I was done with that at 2pm (or 14 hundred hours as we like to say here near the continent).  Mer and Melinda picked me up and drove me, not unlike the way in which she would drive a herd of cattle down the Goodnight Trail, home.  We rounded up the big kids, loaded up the Punto, and hit the dusty trail for Sligo.  About three hours later we pulled into Knock.  Now Knock is a little lonesome village, just a wide spot in the cart track, really, between Galway and Sligo.  Or it was anyway until 1879.  Then, a miracle happened.  Literally!  Two local women were walking through town when they beheld an apparition of the Virgin, St. Joseph, and St. John the Evangelist by the gable of the church of St John the Baptist.  This was witnessed by 13 additional people and declared a bona fide miracle by the Catholic church.  The site is visited each year by about a million and a half people and has seen the likes of Mother Teresa in 1993, and Pope John Paul II in 1979.  (Faithful readers will remember John Paul II as the mall pope of Ireland but that is neither here nor there.)  So it was in Knock that we decided to stop and have dinner.

We ate in a little Irish fast food place on the main drag.  Irish fast food is different from American fast food in that it is not always McDonalds, Burger King, or Taco Weinerschnitzel.  This one was called Crazy Callaghan’s and served things like garlic chips and cod crullers.  Look for it the next time you are in Knock.  But look for it in July.  Tonight, near the end of October, it was Cold.  Honestly, it was quite chilly in there.  It was alright for the workers behind the counter who could huddle around a cauldron of boiling fat but for us out at the tables, we could see our breath!  Still they kept the double glass front doors wide open.  Irish guys with Wellingtons and beepers would stroll in, order a mountain of fries (They call them chips here.) which were handed over still spitting from the cauldron.  They would reach over and scoop them up from the counter in one deft and clearly well practiced move and then stuff them into their pockets, gloves and trousers.  Warmed, well oiled, and potentially nourished they strode back out through the wide open doors, ready for whatever and an Irish Friday evening in Knock might heave into their path.  We ate up and left.

An hour later we arrived in Sligo and, after a bit of the obligatory wending and weaving through winding small streets, we found the hotel.  The good folks at the desk were kind enough to have us haul our luggage around to four rooms that would not work for a family of five before settling us in our current situation which is quite nice thankyouverymuch.  There is a bar associated with the hotel and they are playing bad covers of bad music from a bad decade.  But we are veterans of The Royal George and faithful readers (FRs) will realize that with that fiery baptism behind us, and with a goodly supply of heated towels on hand, we are prepared to face anything this hotel can dish up.

28th of October, 2000
That was then.  This is Coleraine.  We are well and truly in the north now.  We crossed over into the separate country of Northern Ireland this afternoon.  We are now far from the wailing bar at the Tower.  The distance is great in a psychological as well as a geographical sense.  We are spending the night in a bed and breakfast inn located on a working farm.  Right now there is a fierce storm blowing outside.  I would not normally worry about the fate of cattle and sheep on a night like this but we are now on speaking terms with some of them.  We are getting up tomorrow morning at 7:30 to go out and help feed them and some of the rest of the stock.  They mooed at us when we went out the barn this afternoon.  They trotted across the field to beg for food when we walked up to the fence this evening.  Would they know how to use the little thermostat on the electric blanket if I brought it out to them?

The journey from Sligo to Tulllan’s Farm was a long, wet, and windy drive over roads that, if they were paved a little more consistently and widened out a bit, would make good bicycle lanes.  Still, they were all but empty and they lead us through some very rugged, wet, desolate but quite beautiful country.   The highlight of the day for me was the little side trip we took from Carrick to Bunglas and the Slieve League cliffs, the highest cliffs in all of Europe.  These are out on a sort of peninsula near the northwest corner of Ireland in County Donegal.  The drive from Carrick to Bunglas is not for the faint of heart.  It includes casual brushes with unfenced cliffs that drop hundreds of feet to the crashing surf.   The road is a series of switchbacks over rises and dips.  On more than a few occasions we ascended a rise and, due to the angle of the car, were blind as to whether the road ahead turned to the left, to the right, or continued straight ahead.  This kind of uncertainty, particularly when the rise is taken at high speeds, leads to great excitement and much gnashing of teeth on the part of the co-pilot.  We parked the car where the road stopped and then hiked on a ways until we were literally hiking up into the clouds.  The view of the cliffs and the wild Atlantic pounding on the rocks about 1000 feet below was quite spectacular.  It was wet, windy, slippery, and cold.  We all got a bit muddy.  I would like to go back, though, and get a good deal muddier and colder if I get the chance some day.  It was a fine place.}

 A note from Mary here.  I was struck by the similarity of these cliffs to the Marin Headlands.  I think when I was growing up their proximity to home perhaps lent an (undeserved) ordinariness in my mind.  It apparently has required me to travel halfway around the world to recognize what stunning beauty was in my very own back yard. (Directors note: cue "Somewhere Over the Rainbow")

1 November 2000

Hi,  It’s Mary here.  We’re home so I will update you on our wee trip.  It seems when you are in the north, everything is wee.  {I know that we certainly are.} Would you like a wee cup of tea?  Here is your wee bed (Mark loved that one!).    Saturday night we had wild and wooly weather.  It was sooo windy and quite rainy.  It did not sound promising for Sunday’s planned activities.  We arrived at Tullan’s Farm (another recommendation from Amy’s book) and settled in a bit before heading out to Saturday evening Mass.  Mass in Coleraine had a more usual complement of standing, sitting and kneeling than in Limerick which is predominantly kneeling and sitting with very little standing.  But it was quite crowded.  I didn’t know what to expect from "The North."

As to going to "The North."  We had more people, really just about everyone we talked to before we left, as well as some we met on the way, wanting to know  "Aren’t you worried about going up to the north?"  The biggest reservation people here seem to have, I think, is taking a Republic registered vehicle up there, worried somehow that it would make one a target, presumably more for political reasons than theft, but it appears there is some worry over that, as well.  However, we looked at the risk/reward and felt that there were some things we really wanted to see, and as one of them was my Bradley ancestors’ hometown, I felt sure they would send some angels to protect us.  So we went.

We awoke Sunday to find the day remarkably clear and sunny, although the winds were still stiff.  Tullan’s Farm is a working farm and the kids were anxious to help work it, so they went out with the farmer to feed the calves.  I stayed inside so I will leave a blank spot here for Mark to chime in with the agricultural details.  {So, here is a detail:  There were some wee baby calves and farmer Norman took us out to the calf holding area where we interfaced with them.  There were three of them and they really were quite new to the world being only 5-8 days old.  The eldest one had learned to drink milk from a bucket but the other two were still struggling with this psychomotor skill.  Norman’s lesson plan had a good anticipatory set (He rattled the milk bucket handle when approaching their pens.) and the learning activity was well planned.  He would stick his fingers into the milk, tickle their cow lips with the milky fingers until they tried to suck on his fingers and then move his fingers down into the bucket.  The assessment was pretty straight forward and criterion referenced; either they drank the milk or they did not.   His closure, though, was weak; after about 10 minutes he just left them to it.  I came back half an hour later and the 5 five day old still had not got it so some remediation is called for, I think.  We also learned about sheep dip but that is another story.}

After a nice breakfast of rashers and sausage and eggs and such {Such includes fried tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, loads of toast, bread and butter, fry bread, orange juice, and pots and pots of tea}, we set off.  We drove along the Antrim Coast.  We saw the spectacular Dunluce Castle, perched on a cliff above the sea.  Many years ago a storm blew the kitchen of the castle into the sea.  And as windy as it was on this relatively clear Sunday morning, it’s not hard to imagine how it might have happened.  We were blessed with an off-shore wind which kept it dry, however, the windchill temperature was down to the 20’s.  But there were wonderful breakers coming in.  It was truly spectacular.  And my hands have finally thawed enough in the last 83 hours that I am able to type this!  I told Mark not to put Melinda down on the ground, as I was worried about here being blown down the hill.

But we all survived and got back in the car to continue on to The Giant’s Causeway.  It is one of the most interesting geological features I have ever seen.  It is a huge mass of hexagonal columns, each roughly the size of a garden stepping stone, interlocked, all at differing levels.  The wind was blowing and the waves were crashing and the spray was spraying and we could see a rainbow out among the puffy clouds.  With the wind, I’m afraid, it was not a place to linger but we really were taken with the beauty of the scenery.  As we drove eastward along the northern coast, off in the distance we were able to see Scotland!  {Garth and Emm liked it too!}

Then we headed down to Strabane, the aforementioned home of the Bradley family.  Peter Bradley was born in Strabane in 1807 and sometime in the 1820’s or 30’s (more on that later) he sailed for Pennsylvania with his siblings, mother and grandmother (maybe not all together, but they all wound up in Blair County, PA).  He married a local girl and had several children, one of whom moved to Sonoma County, California where he worked as a farm laborer and married the girl next door.  They in turn had many children, including my father’s mother, Mary Agnes Bradley.

So we went to Strabane.  The tourist office is closed for the winter, I tried several phone booths looking for a yellow pages listing of the local churches to try to find some cemeteries but no luck.  Granted it was Sunday and many things shut down on Sundays in Ireland, but this place was beyond merely closed.  The doors and windows of the vast majority of the shops in the downtown, including even the public library, were entirely  enclosed behind metal garage-door type coverings.  The place appeared to be fully defended against an imminent attack of violence.  It was not exactly the type of place to invite a leisurely walk down memory lane.  And as I had no idea what parish my family came from, indeed whether it was even in the town or somewhere in the surrounding countryside, we moved on.

We found a wonderful bed and breakfast near Omagh.  Kathleen, our hostess was so sweet.  We stayed Sunday and Monday nights and were treated to countless wee cups of tea and wee cookies.   On this trip, I also had my first opportunity to view the UK version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.  And I fear I would be hard pressed to reach the £1000 level.  I had little problem getting past that  level, however (questions like who was the first president of the United States and what city is served by LaGuardia airport helped me there) but I am entirely clueless when it comes to European Rugby players and locations of fictional British soap operas (Pine Valley is not it.)  Saturday and Monday I got Chris Tarrant hosting the UK version, and Tuesday I got Gay Byrne hosting the Irish version.  What a treat!

Now, let me give you a compare/contrast kind of thing between Reg and his counterparts this side of the pond.  I can already see some of your eyes glaze over, but those who truly know me will realize I was made for such a task.  In fact, I think part of the reason the Fulbright Commission awarded Mark this prestigious honor, is just so I could come here to conduct this bit of cultural research.  So, on to the analysis.  Music is the same.  Set’s identical.  Reg and Chris have the same wardrobe assistant.  Chris has got that monochrome thing down, too.  But Gay wears patterned ties!  Can you believe it?!  Chris and Gay spill all the contestant’s personal details up front as soon as they hit the hot seat.  They miss out on Reg’s get-to-know-you-bit-by-bit-after-each-commercial-break tactic.  And neither is the least bit chummy with the tag-along in the "relationship seat."  They totally neglect those important sources of information as to why the contestant’s nickname is "Squirt."  Chris also has this little habit of awarding a kiss on the cheek to those lucky females who reach the £32,000 level (lucky for the cash, not the kiss, I’m afraid).  But the biggest difference is that while Reg lets the contestant know right away that she has just lost $93,000, Chris and Gay make her, and the entire country!!!! wait til after the commercial break.  OK, wake up.  Analysis over.

Monday we went to a great museum.  It is the Ulster-American Folk Park.  There is an interpretive center which details the reasons for the emigration of the Irish to North America in the 18th and 19th centuries and talks about the living conditions here, there, and en route.  Beyond the interpretive center there are several acres of grounds.   You go outside and see various Irish dwellings from the period, including the boyhood homes of Judge Thomas Mellon {Beware of Large graphics.} and John Joseph Hughes who became the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York.  You then walk through a main street of an Irish port town in the mid 19th century and then board a "coffin ship."  Thankfully they spared the detail of the smells you might have encountered after 6 weeks on such a vessel.  When you exit the ship, you disembark into a North American port and continue your journey to an increasingly improving financial condition in your new home.  It really gave me a sense of the emigrant experience.

While I was at the park, I checked out the library in the Center for Emigration Studies which occupies a portion of the grounds.  They have a database of emigration records, but unfortunately I couldn’t find my Bradleys, not knowing exactly when they sailed, whether they were all together, where they sailed from and where to.  The librarian did, however, track down a park employee, John Bradley, who has written a history of Newtonstewart, his hometown, which lies between Strabane and Omagh.  John gave me a bit of history on the Bradleys (originally oBrollaghan) and although he didn’t recognize any connections between my family and his, he asked for copies of my notes in case he could come up with something.  Maybe….

The park runs some special events throughout the year, including a 3 night Halloween celebration.  We also attended that Monday evening.  We heard a ghost story,  some halloween songs and got to sample some American harvest dishes (shoo fly pie and pumpkin bread, among others) and some Irish favorites (Colcannon,  a potato and cabbage dish, and Pruttie Pudding, also a potato based dish but with apple and lots of wonderful sweet spices).  {More details from me: The Halloween celebration began at 4:30pm and ended a couple of hours later so there was lots to do.  Some of it was quite scary for a certain four-year old.  There were people running around the park wearing robes and masks.  I think that these people were mostly around 14 years old and took their jobs quite seriously.  They would burst out of bushes and run past the celebrants making scary noises.  The four-year-old’s father ended up carrying her most of the evening.}

Yesterday we left the wonderful wee Kathleen after what could hardly be described as a "wee" breakfast of rashers and sausage and eggs and made our way back across into the Republic.  So now I am not only prepared to provide the above analysis of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (WWTBAM) but I can also tell you all about the differences between Northern Ireland and the Republic.  First, in the North, the roads are better.  They are well paved and sport virtually no potholes, unlike the southland where at times the roads resemble that reservoir near Moses Lake Washington (get out your maps you non-Washingtonians ? it may come up on the next episode of WWTBAM).  The roads are also wider and have shoulders, not stone walls for edging.  The police stations in the North are serious, oppressive grey structures whose outer walls are topped with some major use of coiled barbed wire.  The NI towns do not appear as colorful as those in the Republic.  Down here we see buildings of bright orange, pink, lavender and goldenrod often trimmed in striking black or teal.  It perhaps sounds a bit gaudy but it is such a cheerful look.  Admittedly, many of the brightest ones are pubs, which also seem to be in far shorter supply north of the border.  Down here you only need a wide-spot in the road to find a pub or two (and as narrow as the roads are, it doesn’t take much for them to look wide) but in the North you need some city limit signs, it would seem, before you find a place to wet your whistle.

And then’s there’s that little problem of trying to figure out what people are saying.  Now, the Limerick accent is generally pretty understandable.  But we hit some waitresses in Coleraine and Strabane… And Kathleen, lovely woman that she is, speaks so quickly I found I needed a fair amount of time to mentally translate her words before I could respond.  In fact, Monday evening her son Sean and daughter Ann and Ann’s husband, Declan, stopped by for a visit.  We chatted a bit and as they were getting ready to leave Declan asked how we were doing understanding the accent.  I think we got maybe 85%.

After we left Kathleen’s we drove to Monasterboice in County Louth and saw some beautiful high crosses.  There is a very famous high cross there with panels of carved biblical scenes.  (One of our guidebooks described them as bible comics to educate the medieval masses.)  We were the only ones there.  It was so peaceful.  {The West Cross} {Melinda and Luke at Monasterboice}Then we went on to Newgrange.  You go into the visitor center and get your white sticker for the 1:15 tour to Knowth and your orange sticker for your 2:45 tour to Newgrange and then you walk across the bridge to the boarding area for the shuttle buses to the sites of these passage tombs and you feel just like one of the sheep you see along the way.  Complete with your colored markings so the bus driver/farmer knows if you belong to him or that other bus driver/farmer.  But when you get into the tomb at Newgrange and they turn the main lights out and then bring up the lights to simulate the rising sun of the winter solstice it’s not so baaaaad to be a sheep.  It really is amazing to realize what kind of astronomers and engineers existed 5000 years ago who could build such structures.

Last night we stayed at Whitehorse Farm near Drogheda.  Ursula and Paddy.  Parents of  8!  More rashers and sausage and eggs and all the rest this morning along with homebaked scones (boy, am I glad I’m home so my cholesteral count can think about returning to normal levels, hopefully by Christmas!)  Paddy grew up in that very house, which is probably about 200 years old, he guessed.  I asked Ursula if she was from around there and she said, "No, I’m from Slane."   Slane, by the way, is 10 km away from Whitehorse Farm.  It’s a whole ‘nother definition of "around here."

And Slane is just where we headed as we left Paddy and Ursula. St. Patrick lit a paschal fire on the Hill of Slane in direct defiance of the High King of Ireland who decreed that no one should light a fire that would be visible from his perch on the Hill of Tara.  But the King spared Patrick and left him to his work, and Patrick even managed to convert one of the King’s noblemen.  {The noble’s name, by the way, was Erk.  Whatever happened to those good old names?}  Now on the Hill of Slane is an abbey ruin and a tower, also a bit crumbling but still climbable.  But it’s one, dark circular staircase to take you 50 feet up to the windy view!  Really gets your heart working!   {It got my head working as well.  As I emerged from the last bit of the spiral staircase, I looked up and interfaced with a slab of rock.}  As I climb around these ruins, which maybe have something of an outer wall, but not much to protect one from a drop to the inside of the tower, I remember back to my childhood.  On so many of our family outings I can remember my mother sitting in the car while my Dad would take Di and I up a tram, or to the edge of a cliff.  When I explore around here, I’m sure Mom is watching from heaven but I don’t know if she’s saying "You go girl" or "Would you get down from there!!!!! You’re going to kill yourself!"  Oh well.

After Slane we went to the Hill of Tara.  The interpretive center closed for the season, yesterday, so we were left to figure it out for ourselves.  My interpretation: it was a windy mound with a killer view.

Trim Castle, where some of Braveheart was filmed was the next stop.  It is a beautiful, huge castle. But it, too, is closed for the season so we were able to walk only around a portion of the outside.  There were some signs around the outside to show what it might have looked like in the 1200’s and you really get the sense that if the guys inside didn’t want you inside, you weren’t getting inside.  And unfortunately for us wanna-be tourists, the devices still work.  Guess I gotta come back next year.

Our final stop on the Great Northern Tour was Clonmacnoise, on the River Shannon.  There are some old church ruins as well as 2 round towers (again, Garth is happy, nobody got to go up!) and 2 1/2 of the highest high crosses in Ireland.  The carvings on these crosses are so beautiful.  Some were of biblical scenes and some were just Celtic knot designs.  The site along the river was so peaceful.  Had we more time, we could perhaps have floated down the Shannon, but darkness and rain were beginning to fall so we zipped on home.

Talk to you later,

Slan,

Mary