Photos on this page are courtesy of Kepguru, EnchantingIreland, FreeIrishPhotos, BBCNews, WomensTravelNetworkBlog, busterbecblog, MaugiArt, WhiteOMornCottage, SpeediesBlog, ActiveRain, outlawmom, SpaguShroom, TrekEarth, GemmaGuscott |
Home to Dear Old Erin |
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Music: Ashokan Farewell Whispers - Home Old New Orleans Friday's Journal |
I've found it easier to trace the history of all of my Scottish and English ancestors combined (as well as my one lone Swiss ancestor) than my paternal grandmother's Irish family. The only thing I know beyond doubt about my Cain 2-g-grandparents is that they immigrated from Ireland to America before the birth of my g-grandfather, John. |
The Cain family's history in Ireland remains a mystery to me. I think that's one of the reasons I treasure the memory of the things my grandmother told me about her father, who had shared some of his parents' stories about their homeland. |
He always wanted so badly to visit Ireland one day, but he never made it. During his final illness, he told my grandmother that he was about to see "dear old Erin" at last. She thought he was delirious until he smiled - the twinkle still in his eye - and said that his mother had assured him that Heaven would closely resemble Ireland. |
My grandmother never spoke of her father's "death," instead she talked about the day he "went home to Erin." Whenever she said it, her soft blue eyes would always hold a twinkle...much, I suspect, like the Irish twinkle in her father's eye. |
And, when you think of it, couldn't you say that a thatched-roof cottage on the Irish coast - with sheep grazing in the pasture, dogs resting by the hearth and leprechauns playing in the garden - might just qualify as a little bit of Heaven? -- Nancy |
~ The photos on this page are all from Ireland. ~ |
Simple pleasures are the last healthy refuge in a complex world. -- Oscar Wilde |
In an exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain; Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again! The birds singing gaily, that came at my call... And the peace of mind that's the dearest of all. -- Henry Bishop |
Above, a famine cottage in County Kerry, Ireland, once home to victims of the great famine of the 1840's. There are many such cottages to be found across Ireland. Some have been restored, some have been turned into museums and some sit empty, lonely keepers of the sad and haunting secrets of the past. |
The photo of the famine cottage reminds me of a poem by J. R. R. Tolkein: |
"The air was neither night nor day, but faintly dark with softest light, When first there glimmered into sight the Cottage of Lost Play; Those old shores and gardens fair, where all things are that ever were, We know not, you and me. We know not, you and me." |
More than a million people in Ireland died as a result of the famine; more than 500,000 families were evicted from their cottages because they were unable to pay rent; and, between 1845-1855, two million people were forced to leave their home- land and immigrate to other countries. I wonder if my Cains were among them? |
You who walk with troubled thoughts, Come, enter here, and rest; May the sweet serenity of growing things, And the heavenly peace they bring, Be mirrored in your soul. -- Doxis Palmer |
All the loveliest things there be come simply, or so it seems to me. -- Edna St. Vincent Millay |
A man is rich in direct proportion to the number of things he can do without. -- Henry David Thoreau |
I never said I actually saw a leprechaun. But, then, again, I never said I didn't. -- Quinn O'Connor |