Dublin Redux

It's coming up on the two-year anniversary of my trip to Ireland and the UK with my older daughter.

In honor of St. Patrick's day, here are links to the Dublin posts from that trip.

Dublin Travelogue
Pick a Cathedral, Any Cathedral

Turns out my mother's family, the Forsythes, spent several millenia in Ireland, in Cashel, before immigrating to England in the 1840s to work in the mills in Oldham. I imagine the potato famine sent them packing. My grandmother, Edith, immigrated to Canada in 1920 to work in a mill the company opened in Montreal--she was 18 and left with just a girlfriend and a small suitcase. Her stepmother didn't want her to leave, but she wanted a new life for herself.

I never met my grandmother--she died a three years before I was born at age 52 of a brain tumor, but I wish I had. It sounds like she was quite a woman--little formal education but smart as a whip. According to my mother, she did the weekly crossword puzzle and usually won the cash prize for the first correct puzzle turned into the newspaper. She taught herself plumbing and could fix anything. She went to work as a riveter during WWII, and earned nothing but praise for her work.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the Rock of Cashel...

The Rock of Cashel was the traditional seat of the kings of Munster for several hundred years prior to the Norman invasion. Few remnants of the early structures survive; the majority of buildings on the current site date from the 12th and 13th centuries. Cashel is reputed to be the site of the conversion of the King of Munster by St. Patrick in the 5th century. The picturesque complex has a character of its own and is one of the most remarkable collections of Celtic art and medieval architecture to be found anywhere in Europe.

Works for me...with my imagination I can easily place my ancestors in the crowd when Patrick came calling.