Cobh (formerly Queenstown) Cobh was originally inhabited ~ 1,000 BC. This major sea port on the southern coast of Ireland is the point from which 2.5 of the six million Irish migrated to the United States from 1848 to 1950. The first immigrants processed through Ellis Island, in NY harbor, were from Cobh in 1892. The Titanic’s last…
Newcastle West The last of our heritage tour for Barb’s family. This is the church in the small town of Newcastle West. We chatted with the retired priest who was celebrating Mass this morning (Saturday) and had grown up in the diocese. He was familiar with the family names and pointed us to the Catholic…
Limerick: The maternal side of Barb’s family is 100% Irish (Daly and Hollohan) hailing mostly in and around County Limerick and Galway. We enjoyed running and walking around Limerick to get the feel of the old town around the Shannon River that runs through it. It was so nice and relaxing that we took an…
Belmullet was a bust! We woke up to heavy rain. The forecast for the next two days promised more of the same, so we decided to move on without hiking the cliffs we’ve heard so much about. Bummer. Ballintubber Abbey. What a wonderful place. So much history! Crough Patrick Pilgrimage, pagan sun worship, St. Patrick…
We were going to go north into Northern Ireland (England), but, sadly, some of the places (St Patrick’s Purgatory) were not open for visits, so we jumped ahead on our schedule. On our way to Roscommon, we saw this old church in Granard. St Mary’s was simple but elegant allowing the stained glass and ceiling…
We flew from Porto to Dublin on Saturday, Aug 5. We hung around Dublin Saturday and Sunday and enjoying familiar food and hearing Mass in English again. On Monday, fully refreshed and with a backpack of clean clothes, we rented a car to begin our Irish wanderings. Driving on the wrong side of the road…
Nazaré produces some of the biggest waves in the world due to a 16,000 foot deep underwater canyon that focuses swells into massive waves. The current world record wave surfed is from Nazaré at 86 feet. The big swells come during the winter months. (Pic from the web) A cold front came through so we…
We didn’t do much once we got to Quiaios!
In 1917 three peasant children (ages 6, 8 and 9) were tending sheep when they had a vision of a woman surrounded by light who identified herself as the “Lady of the Rosary”. Appearing to them five more times over the coming months, she told the children three secrets along with the need to pray…
Gerês is a small town in Portugal’s only national park. It is ~8 miles from the Spanish border. On the way to Geres we spied this beauty from the highway and exited to the town of Guihofrei. Most of the churches we’ve seen are flying the green, yellow, and red ribbons for World Youth Day….