Firstly let me apologize for the tardiness of this blog post. The excitement of finally being able to explore Ireland and the few weeks we have left on this beautiful island has strongly messed with my concept of time. In keeping with the aforementioned, I will spend this blog telling the stories of the adventures my Wexford fellows and I have had in the past month or so!
I am ever grateful to apple photos geotags and date and time stamps on pictures, as without these I would find it difficult to keep track of all the adventures I have gone on over the past month! Our journey begins with the culmination of many prayers and wishes to what we had all begun to feel a bit forlorn and hopeless to ever actually happening, finally meeting the HoB Dublin members! My fellows and I hopped on a bus almost the very second we could and our first destination outside of county Wexford was Dublin where after months of zoom game nights and dinners we finally got to meet Maddie, Matt, Katie, and Katy in person. To say that we were over the moon with excitement would in fact be an understatement! We spent the day in Dublin exploring the city and finally getting to sit down to a pint with our friends in Dublin!
And our excitement continued when HoB came down to Wexford and spend a few days with us!
I’m sad that since that visit our time left in Ireland is short and seemingly is flying by, but I cannot express with words how wonderful and how much of a prayer come true to see everyone in person!
My next little adventure took me directly on a cow path to finally visit my relations living in Ireland! I have cousins living in Limerick and Cork and have longed to visit with them since arriving in Ireland. I had spoken with them on the phone on occasion and we talked about how we would all love to see one another, but up until last month, it was not safe to do so. I’d say one of the first calls I received when the Taoiseach announced travel was opening within Ireland was from my relations making plans to finally visit.
First I spend a couple of days with my cousin Anne Marie Ryan and her family in Limerick! My HoB Wexford fellow and friend, Joseph, joined me for this trip! Anne Marie, much to our surprise, had baby calves living in her back yard along with a horse and 5 dogs. Again to say that we were over the moon is a complete understatement! Anne Marie was such a gracious host and took us all around Limerick to explore and it was so wonderful to visit with her, her family, and all their wonderful animals! We even got to experience a cow farm up close and watch as my cousin, Donal, interacted with his cows. It was a magical experience for us who, even though we see cows on a daily basis living in Ireland, are always wonderfully and awfully excited every time we see cows!
Anne Marie feeding the calves on their farm!
Up close and personal on an Irish Cow Farm
Next on the tour of the family, I was finally able to visit my cousins Kathleen and Nuala in Cork! Kathleen and Nuala had visited my family in the States about 10 or so years ago and they recall how I wanted to come back to Ireland with them. And after all those years, there I was fulfilling a lifelong wish of visiting them in Ireland!
On my extended visit to Cork, I was able to see so many wonderful relics from my family and learn so much! I saw Hennessy Homsted where my great-grandfather, Thomas Hennessy, would have been born and raised before emigrating to the States. I also saw the Church which Thomas Hennessy would have attended! And even generations earlier saw Hogans gate, which is an original gate from the house where my great-great grandmother’s family once resided!
The Church my great-grandfather would have attended
The Hennesy Homestead
Kathleen, Nuala, and me at Hogan’s gate where my great-great-grandmother’s family lived
Kathleen and Nuala also took me on a tour of so many beautiful Religious sites in Cork! We attended as many Masses at as many Churches as we could find, visited Glenstal Abbey and Mount Mellery Abbey, and most exciting of all Knock!
On my first day visiting Kathleen and Nuala they asked if I had ever heard of the story of Our Lady of Knock, and I couldn’t believe my ears to hear that they wanted to visit! All year we have all been longing for and praying to make it to Knock and I so do hope that all of my HoB fellows are able to visit one day in the near future as it was one of the most memorable experiences for me and I know in past years the whole community would have visited and said Mass together at the Cathedral. Kathleen and Nuala also said that they would visit every year and were not able to last year on account of the pandemic and so our visit to Knock was Blessed for so many reasons. It was awe-inspiring to visit and be able to go to Mass with Kathleen and Nuala in the Cathedral at Knock. The reading at Mass on that day was John 21:20-25, which refers to the disciple St. John the Evangelist as he is the only one of the 12 who is not martyred. This reading had me near tears as what felt like the most fitting and beautiful reading to hear in the Cathedral at Knock, as the apparition seen at Knock in 1879 was of Mary on the gable wall of the parish church with St Joseph, St John the Evangelist, a lamb, and a cross.
I could write so much more about my time with my relatives and all the wonderful and amazing conversations we had in our time spent together, but as I realize that there are still a few more Cow paths to talk about which the whole HoB Wexford community traveled, I best move on so this blog post doesn’t turn into a novel, but first I must say a truly heartfelt and gracious thank you to my family for hosting me and showing me all around where I come from. I will never forget my time in Limerick and Cork and I hope to visit once again in the very near future!
The next cow path we traveled down was on an incredible trip to Gelnlough where we took the most amazing hike up the mountain! The views were drop-dead gorgeous, as one of our favorite tea ladies would say. We also saw St. Kevin’s cell and tried our very best to refrain from reciting St. Kevin and the Blackbird, which at this point we all have close to memorized! Our hike was steep and challenging, but the views from the top made every moment of the hike worth it!
Finally, we spent the last week in Kerry with Fr. Denis and Fr. Barry. Since the reopening of counties, we have been asking around where we should visit and the most popular response was Kerry! Everyone said that it would feel like we were in a different place and they were so right! Everywhere you looked was another beautiful example of a beautiful Irish landscape. From the patchwork green pastures to the rolling green mountains filled with the most glorious mountain sheep you’ll ever lay your eyes on. We explored every part of Kerry our time permitted hitting sites including, the Ring of Kerry, the Ring of Skellig, Muckross, Sneem (the resting place of St. Gobnait who is the patron saint of bees and my new personal hero), Killarney, Ross Castle, and many other wonderful places. We were surrounded by Irish beauty in our rental in Kenmare and will never forget the memories made on our first and last little holiday this year with our Priests. We had a lovely celebration of Mass together in our living room and delicious meals with intriguing conversations. On our second night, we tried best as we could to solve as many of the world’s problems as our combined philosophy, writing, teaching, and math degrees would allow us over dinner if we were successful or not in making any headway remains to be determined, but it was lovely conversation nevertheless. We were introduced to Irish television culture in the form of movies and tv shows. All around we had the most amazing holiday.
I truly cannot believe that the time here in Ireland is coming to an end, but to end on as beautiful of a note as to spend every last second soaking in the beauty of Ireland’s nature, seeing family after years, and wonderful conversations with fellows turned friends is the happiest close to a year as I can imagine.
Raise a glass to the beauty of Ireland, the joy of lifelong friendships, and the cows who paved our way to explore it all! Sláinte!
