Roots

[Guest guest]

Back in 1984, as a retirement gift to my mother, we all went on a trip to

Ireland.

 

She wanted to see where her grandparents had grown up, and I wanted to find oul

what it was like (never having been there).

 

We spent two weeks there, staying in first a Celtic cottage, run by the Bord

Failte (bord falche) outside of a little town

called Broadford near Ennis. It was litterly a "wide spot in the road" with a

general store cum saloon, a clothing store, a church,

a vichualer (a vittler, a butcher) and not much more. It was, at the fording of

a river, appropriately. Thatched, with a stone roof, and

a huge hearth for burning peat [pre-coal] we spent my birthday there smelling

clean air, seeing the countryside which is so green

you cannot believe it, and having a wee touch of the black Irish Stout about a

potbelly stove in the saloon with the locals.

 

>From there we bummed about the countryside in a big loop, going to Galway,

Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Cachel, Limrick, and back

eventually, to "An Tis Annon" Shannon and home. During the time we walked in

places that were 10 times older than my country

of birth. Found that all my ancestors on my mother's side were from the area of

Loch Derghe, in the west counties, about Ennis and

Quinn. Found all 4 lines that formed my grand sires. I stood on the Magdh

Adahre, the traditional crowning point for the Dalcacian Kings,

my ancestors and those of all the Ceanadi's (Kennedy). Walked the keep, and the

monk's walk of the Keep at Cachel.

 

There are places on the planet, that, though you have never been there before,

you are home when you get there. This was Ireland for me.

 

Cead Mille Falte [kead mille falche] Ten Thousand Blessings - A traditional

Irish Greeting / Blessing.

 

-- John

 

 

Strange but stupid:

"One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero,

they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs"

(Weren't Roman C programs always 500 lines long?)

John F (Jack) Melka