Our activities today and yesterday have converged around ancestors and history.  Yesterday we set  out for the Kennedy Homestead in New Ross.  Definitely off the beaten path and not filled with tourists.  It is the location of the home Patrick Kennedy left as a famine emigrant only to have his great-grandson, John F. Kennedy return in 1963 as President.  During that visit his cousin, Mary Ryan, hosted a tea for him, gave him a kiss on the cheek and said, “Welcome home, Jack.”  The two sat on an old car seat together and had tea.  It is the story of so many emigrants, forced to leave their countries and turning their backs on the past to face the future.    Families splintered by those who stayed and those who left.  The homestead is quaint, simple, and a Kennedy family member still resides there.

as always, click to enlarge

This morning we ate a delicious breakfast and packed out of Killiane Castle but not before spending some time with the main innkeepers, Paul and Patricia.  I say main because it is a family affair and next year they will celebrate 100 years of family ownership, a sort of Ireland “century” farm.  You can see in their faces it is a labor of love.

Before we left, Paul took us to meet their two “rescue” donkeys, Kobe and Flagon.  Wexford has a donkey rescue service and they adopted these two.  Evidently, donkeys grow emotionally attached to each other and these two move as a pair.

Then we were off on our longest drive of the trip, 3.5 hours to Bandon, County Cork.

Graham was the surname of Wayne’s maternal side of the family and he was told they emigrated to Canada from Bandon during the famine, eventually settling in the midwest.  He went on a search that started in a pub where we were told to go to the library next door.  There, a helpful librarian whose maternal surname was Graham was eager to help.  She leaned toward us and in sotti voce inquired, “Protestant or Catholic?”  “Catholic, very Catholic”, replied Wayne.  The librarian hemmed and hawed a little and confessed that Graham was a Protestant surname.  She checked some references and found nothing but gave us directions to the Bandon Heritage Center across the foot bridge.

It was previously the Protestant church but was abandoned and lay dormant for decades.  The community put together a committee and turned it into the Heritage Center.  While nosing around we were told that Bandon was populated by Protestants sent over by Liz I, thus becoming a Protestant stronghold in Ireland.  It was a walled city and Catholics were banished outside the walls.  On market days, the pigs would be allowed inside the walls but not the Catholics.  There is still a saying, “Bandon, the town where the pigs are Protestant.”

Inside it’s filled with birth, baptism and burial records dating back centuries.  Plus very helpful personnel.

We checked the Catholic record books, nothing.  Then checked the Protestant books – Glory! Grahams baptized and buried in Bandon.

Achieving a possible reclamation of abandoned Graham history we sputtered away,  our Nissan Micra purring like a sewing machine.

Now we are safely ensconced for the evening at the Dunmore House Hotel looking out our window.