These are my cousins! They are both sisters, Orla is on the left and Grainne is on the right. They are wonderful. I will have another photo of all of us; their parents Ann and Jim, and Orla's husband Nini and her three boys Aiden, Osheen, and Oscar. The reason they are a part of my blog is because I just visited them again this past weekend and had a lovely time! They know so much about our families history and just the history of Ireland in general. Ann, Orla and Grainne's mother is who told me about my great, great, great grandfather. It is her great, great grandfather I believe (if I have it all correctly) and she told me some very special stories. Martin (whom survived the famine) lived until he was one-hundred and eight years old! Delia, who was seventeen when she came to the states was also living throughout this time period (she and Martin were in the same family). She came over at a very young age and was responsible for sending the money she made back to the family so they could continually move one at a time to the States. A sad story Ann told me of Martin though, that he himself had told and said he wanted this to be passed on and told so we knew what life was like, was: during the time of the famine, as he would look across to his pile of turf to burn, he would witness people as they tried to move up or down the street. Each person practically would lean against his pile due to their weakness and inability to move much. Often times they wouldn't be able to continue, many of them would simple fall and sit against it. There were others who simply sat there until they passed. Martin tried to pick the one's who had some bit of strength in them to keep going up off the pile but it was only if he was able to do it himself. I know this was a very short summary of the story but for the sake of the blog I wanted to simply get the point across. It sounded horrendous. Ann, on the way from the bus station quickly took me near the river where there is a memorial set up for the famine.
Anyway, of course my family and I spent a lot of time just together enjoying each others company but they too are so knowledgeable and very interested in the classes I'm taking and what we've been reading. They took me to James Joyce's tower they have right on the bay and showed me many places that took part in Ulysses. Another thing that was just so interesting was how they took me down to many of the little ports (and the big ones where all of the yacht clubs are!) and old marinas and we discussed how some of the small, old fishing boats around were similar to those that were used years and years ago. I know that it was not the same part of the country, but like we discussed in Synge's play "Riders to the Sea" today I couldn't imagine going out in whatever conditions to fish like they had to do; not to mention do this to survive. The more I get to see and learn the landscape and see more of the country, the more the works we've been reading come alive. It is really a neat thing.