When we started planning this trip I knew I wanted Ireland on the itinerary. My grandfather was Irish and even though I am part of the third generation born in the United States, my family has kept in touch with our relatives back in Ireland.  I got to meet some of them when I visited Ireland for the first time five years ago.  I couldn’t wait to get back and explore more of this beautiful country, this time with Dan and my aunt Nora along for the adventure.

Greystones

We started out with a visit to my grandfather’s cousin’s family in the lovely little town of Greystones.  Greystones is located on the coast about 40 minutes south of Dublin by train.  It is apparently one of Ireland’s hottest real estate markets and I can see why.  It’s an easy commute to Dublin on public transit but it has a beautiful coastline dotted with little beaches and a charming, small-town feel.

One of the highlights of our few days in the area was doing the cliff walk from Bray (the next town to the north) to Greystones.

We had taken the train into Dublin that morning to do a little museum hopping and on our way home we got off a stop early so that we could walk the rest of the way along the coast.

It’s a decently long walk but there is a good trail the whole way and it’s mostly flat after the initial up-hill portion.  The coastline is dramatic and beautiful with little coves tucked between jagged cliffs.  It was definitely a good first taste of Ireland’s incredible natural beauty.

Finding My Roots

After a nice weekend in Greystones Dan, Nora and I set off on a road trip to the medieval town of Kilkenny.  Kilkenny seemed like a cool place to visit but we also chose it because its pretty close to where some of my ancestors lived.  We figured it could serve as a base for Nora and I to explore our family history.

Before coming on this trip Nora went through our family records and pulled out old letters and newspaper clippings with the names and addresses of my great-grandfather’s immediate family who stayed behind in Ireland when he immigrated to the states.  We used these as a starting point in our search for sites connected to our family.

A funny side note about Ireland: outside of major cities many buildings and homes have names, not street addresses.  For example, a great-great aunt’s obituary just says that she lived at ‘Ard Cregg’.  This quaint holdover from a simpler time makes it really hard to look up specific places in Google Maps.  They’ve recently assigned ‘postal codes’ to buildings to make them more easily searchable but this new system seems complicated and confusing and hasn’t fully caught on.

When we pulled into my great-grandfather’s hometown of Carrick-on- Suir we immediately saw a familiar looking building – it was my great-great-grandfather’s store! We recognized it from photos from my grandfather’s trip to Ireland 20 years ago.

Despite the lack of modern addresses we were also able to find the office of the solicitors who sold the store after my great-great-grandfather’s death and the home of one of my great-grandfather’s sisters who lived in the area until her death.

The whole day felt like a treasure hunt. The best part was talking to all the helpful locals along the way.  From the woman working at the clothing store that now occupies the store building, to the man running the cafe where we had lunch to the woman at the front desk of the solicitor’s office: every person we talked to was friendly and eager to point us towards someone else who might have interesting information for us.

Exploring Kilkenny

When making our plans we made sure to leave a full day to explore the town of Kilkenny itself.  We started with the most famous attraction: the medieval castle.

The tour of the interior of the castle was interesting and we lucked out and happened to show up on a free day.  However, my favorite part was the grounds surrounding the castle which are now a huge public park.  It made a perfect spot for a picnic lunch.

We started the afternoon with a ride on Kilkenny’s tourist train.  We usually avoid such typically ‘touristy’ activities but this 30 minute tour came highly recommended by our guesthouse.  It turned out to be a good overview of the town’s history and main sites without having to walk everywhere.  It also gave us a first glimpse of a couple of churches that we decided to go back and check out afterwards.

I particularly loved the Dominican Black Abbey church.  It is home to the largest stained glass window in Ireland and it was simply breathtaking.

The Abbey also contained gorgeous examples of more modern, abstract stained glass windows.

We had a nice time exploring this charming town. Our time in Ireland started out with a great mix of beautiful scenery,  reconnecting with family (both living and not) and fascinating medieval history.  I couldn’t wait to see more of the country as we continued our journey west.