Ireland Part III: Family Time

Most of our time in Ireland was spent seeing as many family members as possible. Many of the family lives nearby the farm, so it was easy to see a bunch of families. Others were farther and met us at the airport or drove in for a visit. I already mentioned our first visit at the Shannon Airport hotel when our cousin Regina and her husband came to visit.

Last time I was in Ireland (2003), one of the most fun memories is attending a "hen party" (aka Bachelorette party in USA) for my cousin Mary (daughter of Jimmy from the family farm post) who was soon-to-be-wed. Well, 9 years have since passed and Mary and her husband now have 6 children!! She calls them the "duckeens" and they are so adorable :) The youngest is right around Nolan's age, but both were acting shy so they didn't interact much. Nolan warmed up pretty fast to the older kids though since they pulled out their toys to play with Nolan and happened to have lots of "Thomas the Tank" toys, which is a surefire way to Nolan's heart!

The Duckeens (minus the youngest) at Mary's House

Me, and unhappy Nolan to be taken away from the Thomas Toys for photos, and the Duckeens.

We loved all the little kids socks warming in the fireplace.

Mary holding her youngest with Nolan, me, and the duckeens

Silly faces photo!

My parents with Mary and her dad, Jimmy, at Mary's house

 We, of course, needed to visit the neighborhood pub near the farm! The family is well known there and we basically had the place to ourselves!

Evelyn (who has 12 children), my dad, the pub owner (standing), another Mary (Evelyn's daughter), Carmel (another daughter of Evelyn), Nolan and I around the table at the pub.

Carmel, mom, Nolan and I

Mama's boy. Happy with his new helicopter toy

Nolan with Thomas, James, and his helicopter. He happily played with toys for the entire pub get together!

 Every house we went to would put out an amazing spread of sandwiches, "biscuits" (cookies), chips, tea/etc. The hospitality was pretty overwhelming!

Just some of the spread at my mom's cousin Chris's house. This house is where my mom and dad stayed when she was pregnant with me over 30 years ago!

My mom, my cousin Cathal (one of Chris's children), and Joe

Chris and Dad

Me, Chris's daughter Sinead, Chris, and my dad

my mom looking cute :)

 Same day, another get together ;) This time after Nolan's bedtime down the farm road from where we were staying at Anne's mom Evelyn's house.

Me, Dad, Michael, Evelyn, Mom, Mary

Evelyn showed us all the family photos around her house. It was amazing to hear her experiences in raising 12 children (including 3 sets of twins!) and to see photos of them all growing up. So amazing to think about growing up on a farm with 11 siblings (or being the mother to all of them!) Her family is one of the warmest, most accommodating people we've ever encountered - Joe specifically was blown away and declared them "his favorite" people of our family :)

Anne (who we stayed with) and one of her 11 siblings, Padraig, were the two Irish family members that made the trip over to the US in 2007 for Joe and I's wedding. Joe and I met up with Padraig again a few years later in NC during a trip he was making to visit his wife's family. It was great to meet up with him again in Ireland - he manages a Supermac's/Papa John's in Galway City, which is Ireland's biggest fast food chain. He treated us to a royal lunch of "a little bit of everything" and Nolan got every "happy meal" toy available :) His favorite was the yellow Supermac's balloons though!

Me, Nolan, Dad, Padriag, Padraig's son, and my mom at his restaurant in Galway

While technically not family, I had to include the photo we took after we met up with my Duke colleague from graduate school, Aiden, in downtown Galway City. Aiden was dumbfounded when I identified his Galway Irish Football jersey in lab one day at Duke. We connected after that when I told him my family was from Galway, and I made sure to keep in touch when he moved back to Ireland. Even though the weather was awful with hard downpours during out trip to Galway, Aiden gave us an abridged tour and showed us some good gift shops to pick up some souvenirs. Nolan scored a full Galway Irish Football outfit including jersey, shorts, and socks and we picked up a nice print to add to our travel art around our home.

Catching up with Aiden at a pub in Galway City

 The highlight of all the family visits for Nolan was probably when his two year old cousin, Oren, came to Anne's house one of our last nights on the farm. The supermac's balloons were a hit for the two year old crowd!

Nolan and his prized possession 

The two curly haired boys - Oren and Nolan

Daddy playing balloons with Nolan

They definitely look related!

Anne's house - Dad, Gemma (Oren's mom), and Oren

The hit it off right away! Nolan asked for Oren to come back for days after

Everyone in the room kept encouraging them to give hugs :)

Nolan testing the balloon as a seat

Another hug!

Oren modeling the (children's size) Philadelphia Union soccer shirt we brought as a gift :) He'll need to grow into it!

Happy kid!

Micheal (another of Evelyn's kids) with Oren and me with Nolan

On the way to Dublin, we made one more quick family stop to my mom's cousin John's house. Again, an impressive food spread, warm hospitality, and a beautiful back yard view of farmland.

Dad, Mom, Deirdre, John, Nolan and I

My last post to cover this trip will focus on our time at Dublin and the Penn State game, but to wrap up the family pictures, we'll jump to the last day back at the Shannon Airport when we had one last visit with our family from Waterford.

Mom, her cousin Mary, her husband Sandy, her daughter Marisa, Dad, Nolan and I

Marisa has 3 boys and we've been commenting on each other's photos on facebook for years, but this was the first time we ever got to meet! Social media is great to be able to keep in touch with long distance friends and family, and I'm glad lots of my Irish cousins are on Facebook to be able to keep in touch for the future. Who knows, maybe I'll finally get my dual citizenship and claim some of that Irish farmland someday... ;)