Mom's Birthplace at Kilkerrin Point

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Here's an understatement: secondary roads in small town Ireland are insane. It takes nerves of steel to navigate the crazy tight windy roads lined with high hedgerows, blind hills and not the slightest hint of a shoulder. And all this with a speed limit of 80 km! More often, we crawled along at a snail's pace in mortal fear of the inevitable tractor that would suddenly rear its ugly trowel around the next bend. There just wasn't enough room to accommodate both so one would have to back up to a field entrance to allow the other through. We also suddenly found our car swarmed by a herd of stampeding cows brushing so close as to tempt us to grab their udders for a quick round of milking.

Following Mom's memorial at Killofin, we continued along the high road to the very end where the road pours into the Shannon River. There lies the small house where Mom and her 9 siblings were born and raised by their parents. Quarters were extremely tight with only 2 bedrooms. Without the benefit of a stove, a large cast iron cauldron enjoyed daily workouts in the hearth for making stews, boiling the vegetables they grew on the farm and even making soda bread. The house is now a vacant holiday home but nothing much has changed since I last laid eyes on the interior a dozen years ago. The kids were completely up for the hunt for their roots, lovely to see everyone in such high spirits despite a gentle little rain.