Tory Island - Oileán Thoraí

After leaving the town of Donegal we drove north through the county of Donegal.  It is beautiful, rugged and wild.  There is something about it that has the same feel as Wyoming although it doesn't really look the same.

 

We were heading to Magheroarty and the Tory Island Ferry.  When we were looking for places to stay we didn't have anywhere in particular in mind.  We were looking for places outside of town (self-isolation) and near the coast where we could go on nice walks.  We found a lovely cottage on Tory Island.  At first I wasn't sure about going out to the island, but I'm so glad we did.  

View of the Magheroarty beach

The ferry wasn't a big car ferry like the ones we have ridden in Puget Sound.  It was quite a bit smaller which made for a much more bumpy ride.  A storm was predicted for that night so a few fishermen were pulling their boats out of the water.  The wind was picking up on the afternoon we left but we enjoyed the crossing.  My Girl thought the ride through the 6-8 foot seas was almost as good as a roller coaster.  Our host's brother picked us up from the ferry landing and took us to the house.  He is a man of few words and a master of understatement.  In response to the incoming gale he said, "Yup.  It's freshening up a bit."  Technically, a "fresh" breeze are winds 20-24 miles per hour.  A gale is 40+ mph.  That night it rained and blew so hard that it drove water under the front door.  When John asked him if his family had been on the island long he said that people with his family name had been there for at least 500 years.  Yup.  He's a local.

Our towels drying in the fresh breeze.

The neighbors house

Toraigh - Tory

Tory island is off the north east corner of Donegal, the northernmost county of Ireland.  It is as far north as the Aleutian islands of Alaska.  It was late enough in the summer that we didn't get the full effect of the short summer nights.  The island is small, about three miles by 1/2 mile.  In the center of the island is West Town where you can find the main harbor, a small hotel, the shop/post office, and the remains of a 6th century monastery.  The ruined round tower is about all that is left.  The monastery was the center of life for the island for about 1000 years until it was plundered by the English in 1595.  I was surprised to learn that the island had been inhabited for so long.  It is an isolated place where it would be difficult to survive.  There are no trees because of the constant wind.  The rocky soil would make farming extremely difficult.  You could have a few sheep, but I can't imagine growing enough staple food.  People would have lived off the sea, fishing and collecting sea weed.  It is within site of the mainland, so if you are handy with a boat it might not seem that far.

There is also an East town, where we stayed, but calling it a town is a bit of a stretch.  It is about a 20 minute walk from the harbor.  Nice enough when it isn't raining.  East town has fewer than 20 houses widely spread out along two lanes.  There are a surprising number of cars for an island so small.  Cars and other large items are brought over on a barge.  I can understand not wanting to carry all of your good up from the harbor or walk at all in the middle of a winter gale.

It is funny to read tourist reviews of their experience on the island.  I don't know what they were expecting.  There are complaints about the lack of hospitality and the rugged and rustic nature of the island.  Whining that the local "king" didn't greet them at the harbor.  This is a remote place where a few people go about living their lives and a few make a living off the tourists who come during the pleasant summer months.  It isn't Disneyland where every experience is manufactured for your comfort and convenience.

West town

Near the harbor and the round tower is the Tau Cross.  This T-shaped cross dates from about the 12th century.  Following a long tradition, sailors pray before this cross before setting out to sea.  The cross is made of a single piece of mica.  This type of stone is not found on the island so it must have been brought here from somewhere else.  Tau crosses are rare in Ireland.  Only two exist in the country.  This symbol is more common elsewhere including among early Coptic Christians in Egypt.  Some speculate that the seafaring Irish had contact with the Egyptians and adopted this style of cross from them.  

Tau Cross

On our first full day we walked over to the An Club for lunch, but got caught in the rain on the way back.  Fortunately the club owner saw us walking and gave us a ride.  We just said we were staying at Liam's and he knew just where to take us.  At the club we had a nice chat with the club owner.  It is pretty quiet there now.  The club is a restaurant, bar, and community center of sorts.  Typically during the summer there are a lot of tourists and the club books bands from the mainland, but not this year.  On our way home we shared the ferry with the Humble Earthworms, a rock band from Letterkenny that had come over to play Hughie's 30th birthday party.  It must have been quite a party.  They are prepared for all situations.  The club had the now usual health and safety notices, but also had this sign on what to do in the "unlikely even of a musical emergency".  It involves a melodion.

One of the unique things about Tory Island is that it is in the part of Ireland called the Gaeltact, the part of Ireland where Irish is still the primary language.  The Irish language is dwindling, but there are still people who use it daily.  Here on Tory Island we heard it being spoken by a group of young people having lunch at the club.  They switched between English and Irish during their conversation.  We also heard moms were talking to their kids in Irish.  Our host, about our age, told us that he learned Irish as his first language and didn't learn English until he was in school at age 10.  Today Irish is taught in schools, but few people speak it outside of the classroom.  Keeping Irish alive is a point of national pride, but keeping a minority language going is a hard thing to do.  

What we consider modern life was late coming to Tory Island because it is so remote.  Our host told us a bit about his Grandmother's way of life.  She wore shoes that were bits of leather laced around her feet.  His stories reminded me of the exhibits we had seen at the museum of country life.  It wasn't until the 1950s and 60s that electricity came to homes in much of rural Ireland.

Many tourists come to Tory Island to see the sea birds, especially the puffins.  Puffins are an adorable cross between an toucan and a penguin.  They spend most of their life at sea and come to the cliffs of Tory Island and  western Ireland to mate and raise their young during the spring and summer months.  Baby puffins are called pufflings.  Too cute.  Unfortunately, we were too late in the year to see any puffins or pufflings.  Perhaps we will need to make a return trip another year.

On our second day the weather was spectacular.  By the end of the day I had walked nearly 9 miles.  That's a lot of walking on an island that is only 3 miles long.

We started by heading East to the cliffs the island is famous for.  There was a second little cove where boats could have docked.  At the top of the hill was a large old winch that we guessed would have been used to pull boats out of the water.

The easternmost bit of land is a narrow spit of cliffs called the An Eochair Mhór, The Big Key.  The spires are called Balor's soldiers.  Balor is a cyclops-type figure who was chief of the Fomorians in Celtic mythology.  One look from his monstrous eye could turn you to stone.  That's probably where the pillars came from.  Balor's fort is a hill above the cliffs near the Big Key and the highest point on the island. (More about Balor and his heroic murderous grandson here, here, and here.)

Another well known spot on the island is the wishing stone, a stone pillar in the cliffs.  You get a wish granted if you stand on top of the rock.  No thank you.  It's a long way down.  Or if you can toss three rocks onto the top of the stone pillar.

After our second lunch at the Club the kids went home and John and I explored the Western part of the island.  The western point is home to the light house and a small foreigner's cemetery where sailors from wrecked and sunken ships have been buried, including the HMS Wasp wreck in 1884.  We came across a ruined building that didn't look very old.  We were told it was an old radio station from WWII.  Even though Ireland was officially neutral, the British, and through them the Americans, used Tory island as a radio base to contact their North Atlantic naval fleets.

I loved out stay on Tory island.  It was so amazingly beautiful.  Quiet except for the wind and birds.  And a lovely places to spend a few days.

Finding family

 I'm quite interested in family history.  My extended family has been working and researching my side of the family for generations, so I've been working on my husband's side of the family.  There is an uncle who has researched a bit, but I'm trying to document information and collect it online so that it is available for others.

Previously I had been able to find the Campbells back in Philadelphia and Harry Campbell who came from Ireland and died as a young man in Philadelphia in 1906.  Fortunately, he had an obituary that mentioned his hometown, Munterneese.  Tracing a family with such a common name can be tricky.  There are many many John and Harry and James Campbells.  You need multiple data points to have some confidence that this is your person.  Fortunately, Harry came from a very small place with only one Campbell family.  We were able to find the family in the Irish census and confirmed that Harry was once there with his parents James and Mary.  There are some records online now, but many records have been destroyed over the years so you have to piece it together the best you can.

Last year on the last day we were in Dublin I finally got the chance to go into the Genealogy center at the National Library.  Since I was at the end of my trip they sent me to the land records office.  Their records have not been digitized so you have to look everything up in person.  It was fantastic!  I was able to see find the family and their plot of land, number 21, in Munterneese.  You can see the land change hands in the records.  James (Jas) died and the land passed to his wife, Mary.  After Mary you can see the land pass to their oldest son Neil.  Neil was Harry's oldest brother.

Old map showing plot 21 from the land office.

With this information we went looking for the farm.  I'm not sure what we were expecting to find, but we had a great experience.  I knew we were in the right place because the land records show their neighbors are the Brogans.  The Brogans are still there and have a little shop with their name over the door.  It is a tiny little lane.  Mr Brogan saw us and looked at us a little funny until we told him who we were and why we were there.  It isn't an unusual thing for people from the US to come back to Ireland looking for information on grandparents or great grandparents.  Mr Brogan remembered Neil living in the house on the next hill.  He said that his Dad called him Neil McCoilin, not Neil Campbell.  That was a shocker.  I wonder how long the McCoilin/Campbells have been here.  Mr Brogan said that his family had been in the area for 500 years or so.  That's a long time.  According to Mr Brogan, Neil and his family moved to Philadelphia in the 1940s or so.  I'll have to look for them.  Harry would have died by then, but he would have had family there.

The Campbell farm

We also learned from Mr Brogan that the family would have gone to church in Frosses, a town nearby.  With that bit of news we went to look for the Frosses church and cemetary.  We struck genealogy gold again when we found the headstone of James and Mary.  There were a few more headstones with Campbell names, but I don't know how or if they are connected.  I'm assuming they are family.  It is a pretty small place.  It wasn't a lot of information, but at least I know where to look for more.

I looked back at the land record pictures from last year.  You can see that James inherited the land from Andrew Campbell.  I'm almost certain that Andrew is James' father.  I'll look for more documentation, but I'm pretty sure.

If you look carefully at this earlier record you can see Andrew Campbell, plot 21.  Above in pencil you can just make out A... McCoilin, Andrew Campbell's Irish name.  Before learning about the McCoilin/Campbell connection I never would have understood what that was.  I'm sorry I can't quite read the first name in the photo.

Across the street from the cemetery is a cute little cafe and guest house.  We thought of getting some dinner there, but they weren't open.  There were people there getting ready for the grand opening that weekend.  They had been working to fix it up and reopen it.  They said it had been years since there was a place to eat in Frosses.  John asked them about the McCoilin/Campbell thing and they confirmed it.  There is a building on the corner with the name Charles Campbell.  He was a McCoilin.  They brought out a book on local history.  They said it settled a lot of arguments in the pub at night.  I was able to photograph a couple of pages from the book.  The book said that there were four places the Campbell surname came from in the area.  One of them was from the "old name McCoilin".  I think that's us.  The McCoilin name has been mentioned in the Parish since 1607.  That's a long time ago.  It isn't unthinkable that our family had been on that land since that time.  I'm excited to follow my new leads.

Road tripping

For this road trip I'm glad I'm not the one driving.  In Ireland you drive on the left hand side of the road.  The cars are also right hand drive, with the driver on the right.  Standard transmissions are the norm here so that means that you are shifting with your left hand.  Opposite side of the road, opposite side of the car, with the other hand.  It can really throw you off since years of driving experience and intuition have to be overcome.  John is doing a great job with it.  After a few days you get used to it and get a sense of where the car corners and edges are.  Rear view back up cameras help.

County Donegal - Not all of the roads are tiny

The size of the roads also makes driving a bit tricky.  I am used to the big open spaces and straight smooth roads and freeways of the American West.  Even in California the roads and side roads are wide enough for our monstrously big American cars.  Here, not so much.  Many of the roads we followed turned into single lane roads, not one lane in each direction, but one lane with no markings and minimal to no shoulder and a decided rollercoaster effect.  If you see an oncoming car it is a bit of a game of chicken to see who will find a wide spot to move over.  There is often a stone wall or hedgerow close to the road so it isn't like you can just scoot off to the side a bit.  Not only are the roads small, but the speed limits feel fast for the size of the road.  It's all a bit dodgy.  It's not just the country lanes.  The roads in the little villages were built long before cars were invented to they can be narrow even for the small European cars.  It can be quite picturesque, but I'm glad it's not me driving.

On the way back from Deel Castle

One other thing that throws me off is the difference in the time and distance traveled.  Earlier this summer I drove nearly 800 miles in one very long 12+ hour day from California to Utah.  Add another 300 (in 6 hours thanks to dirt roads) to go up to Wyoming for camp then home again the long way through St George (an extra 180 miles) and you get a lot of hours and a lot of miles.  Here the distances are shorter, and it still takes awhile to get where you are going because overall speeds are slower than on American freeways, but you can still get from east coast to west coast in less than 4 hours.

Downpatrick head in the distance

Stopped for road construction just outside Killala

No road trip would be complete without a sound track.  We listened to My Boy's Spotify lists but also listened to the local radio.  We found Ocean FM out of Sligo.  We thoroughly enjoyed listening to the music and the local news.  It is a different mix of music than we are used to.  In the US each station has its very narrow niche of listeners.  This was much more of a mixed bag and we loved it.

One song that surprised us was the Show band cover of ABBA's Hasta Manana.  It's ABBA meets Lawrence Welk.  It's awseome in it's own way and it has become our theme song for the trip.  The showbands of the 50s-70s toured the country playing covers of popular music and their own songs in dance halls and little clubs around the country.

We listened through the country music hour.  You can definitely hear the connection between Country music in the US and Ireland.  In the US country and bluegrass evolved from the music of the Scottish and Irish people living in Appalachia.

This father daughter duo is American, but we heard it on the radio and had a good laugh.

We didn't get to drive through Omagh, but came close.

Another day on a different station we heard an interview with Andy Bell from Erasure.  It's a bit of everything.

It's been a great trip so far.  We spend time seeing and doing, but also take plenty of down time during the rain where the kids get their YouTube fix and work on finishing up their summer reading and school work.  I really like our slow pace of travel for this trip.

On the road again...

Summer is winding down.  I'm starting to see the back to school photos online, fewer this year with many schools online again this fall.  We are heading back to Italy through Ireland.  It isn't easy to keep up with all of the restrictions and border regulations for three different countries.  We have done our best and made our plans accordingly.  One of the things we need to do is self isolate for 14 days after we enter Ireland.  After that we will then be able to enter Italy.  We thought we would turn this requirement into something positive and spend our time in the less populated West.  Then we will be able to visit family and take care of some remaining business.

Before heading west we had a brief stop in Dublin.  On our first night we ended up at a hotel near the airport.  We discovered a beautiful park across the street.  Santry park is the former grounds of an elegant Georgian manor house.  The current park is a small fraction of the former land owned by the Barry family.  Over the years pieces were sold off and developed.  The house and grounds were turned over to the state after independence and the house was accidentally burned and then demolished in the late 1940s.  Only the front steps and foundations remain, but you can see what it might have been.

In 1912 King Victor Emanuel of Italy gave the Barry family a gift of exotic trees including Sequoia redwood trees.  These were planted along an avenue leading up to the house.  It makes for a very grand entrance.

After Dublin we headed west to Ballycastle in County Mayo.  We stayed in a little traditional style cottage built in the old style.  It isn't old.  It was built in the 1970s.  The house is small and rustic, but the views are spectacular.  From the back of the house you can see the beach and the headlands across the pastures.

One of the things I enjoyed so much while driving around were all of the wildflowers.  There is such a variety and they bloom everywhere.  It's amazing what can happen when you have water.  A few were familiar, but many I don't know.  One of my favorites is the bright orange flower with spiky leaves.  The electric orange is such a contrast to all of the vibrant greens.

Ballycastle itself is quite small.  We went into Ballina 25 minutes away for groceries and laundry.  

But there was enough in the area to keep us entertained for the week we were there.  

The headland we can see from our house is called Downpatrick head.  There is a lot of folklore about St Patrick here.  According to a sign at the site this is where St Patrick confronted Crom Dubh, a pagan chieftain, God, pirate, or robber depending on who is telling the story.  When Crom Dubh attempted to throw St Patrick into an eternal fire Patrick scratched a cross on a stone and threw it into the fire.  The fire collapsed into the sea and created a large blowhole you can see today.  When the chieftain tried to retreat to his fort, St Patrick hit the ground with his crozier. The ground broke and Dun Briste, the stone pillar, became isolated from the mainland.  What we do know is that this was a place for religious pilgrimage and ritual in pre-Christian and Christian times.

One of the interesting things about this place were the little mounds of mossy peat that covered the ground.  They are soft, but sturdy.  It gives it an otherworldly appearance.  You can imaging faeries dancing on the little mounds when no one is looking.

Downpatrick head is along what is called the Wild Atlantic Way.  You can think of it as the Pacific Coast Highway of Western Ireland.  We've spent a lot of time driving along here through County Mayo and Donegal.  It is absolutely beautiful.  We didn't make it to the Cliffs of Moher on this trip, but I don't feel like I missed anything.

Near Downpatrick head is Lacken strand.  It is a beautiful wide beach at low tide that almost completely disappears at high tide.  It's a great beach where people come to play in the sand and water.  It is shallow a long way out.  Coming from Northern California we are used to cold water and cool breezes.  It didn't feel too bad.  The water temp is actually slightly warmer even though we are a lot further north (62F vs 58F).  It all depends on what you are used to.

This has also long been a place for horse racing.  It used to be farm horses and ponies now it is more professional, but still takes place on a temporary track at low tide.  You can drive a car out onto the sand, but you have to watch out for the tides.  They come in high and fast.  We came back through a second day saw van that was nearly stuck in the softening sand.  People were able to push it out, but it was close.

Between Ballycastle and Ballina is the little town of Killala.  It's a tiny little place but has some interesting things.  It isn't the kind of place you would seek out, but it was so fun to see the little things in the area.  I was fascinated by Killala Quay.  You could how much the tides rise and fall.  The boats are designed to be able to rest on the sand at low tide without damage.

Killala is home to one of the few remaining intact round towers.  The towers may be bell towers or look out towers.  No one knows exactly how they were used.  It is interesting that the doors are about 10 feet off the ground.  This could have been for defense, but could also be to help with the structural integrity of the tower.  The tower in Killala is thought to date back to the 12th century and is associated with a 5th century monastery reportedly founded by St Patrick.

On a different day we went out to the Ceide fields, a neolithic/stone age site.  The site is a system of stone farm walls 5500 years old.  The visitor center was closed, but we could take the boardwalk loop through the bog to see the excavated walls.  It was quiet and a little spooky with all of the fog.  My Boy kept coming up with rather Gothic scenarios.  I envisioned Jane Eyre-like scenes.  It didn't help that the visitor's center is the shape of a pyramid on top of a hill.  We barely escaped the bog monsters.

I've read about heather in books, but this is what it really looks like.  It is a tough plant for a rough landscape.

The blue and white zig-zag sign indicates the Wild Atlantic Way.  There is even a N for North and an S for South so that you don't get very lost.  Because, you know, bog monsters.

We decided to take a drive out to Deel castle, named after the river Deel.  It was later called Castle Gore.  The original castle tower was built in the 16th century with additions over the next couple hundred years.  It was fairly intact until the 20th century, but is now a ruin and a very old place to store big black bags of silage to feed your cows.

Nearby is an old late 18th century country house, also called Castle Gore, built by the same family.  It was burned by the IRA in 1922 and now also a ruin.

We had a great time in Ballycastle and would love to come back again another time and continue our exploration of County Mayo.  It is a beautiful peaceful place with a lot of history.

The summer of shut down

What a summer it has been.  It feels like time has become a very mushy mixed up thing.  Days run together since they all seem the same.  It feels like that even though we have been out doing more than many people with a double dose of annual migration.

We had very different plans that involved Scout camp in Switzerland, a car trip from Rome through France, a ferry ride from Dunkirk, and on to the Irish countryside.  If this year has taught us anything it is that plans change.  It hasn't been what we planned, but overall it has been a great summer.

It was strange coming back from Italy to a California in shut down.  I felt like I had been freed, but some people in California were reacting like they were being imprisoned.  It wasn't nearly as severe as the lock down in Italy, but it still had an impact.  There were very odd shortages of things like toilet paper and flour and yeast for baking.  Fortunately John and I were both able to keep working.  John's business was declared "essential" since it helped people meet their legal obligations.  The switch to online teaching which caused so much trouble for so many was just a continuation of things for me since I have been teaching online for years.  I can understand the panic.  It can take months to build a good online course not weeks and certainly not days.  Teachers did the best they could in an impossible situation.

During the shut down there are many things that I missed.  Some of the things I missed about the US were closed.  That made me miss them even more.

I really missed the library.  During the summer we usually go the the library weekly to get new books, read magazines, and just go somewhere different.  We would often run into people we knew or friends from church or school.  And of course we could get books.  E-books were available, but it just isn't the same.  I often read to take a break from the screens.  The kids read during our analog afternoons.  It is harder to enforce the analog thing if the books are digital.  Part way through the summer the library opened up for curb-side pick up.  They even had carts by the check out table so you could sort of get some of the spontaneity of browsing the shelves for new things.  It just isn't the same.  We made up for some of that at our favorite used book store.  We ended up buying stacks of books.

I missed going to church and effortlessly understanding all of what is being said.  Very early on our church cancelled all meetings worldwide.  We are to hold church services as families at home.  I have enjoyed the less structured services and the times the kids have helped teach a lesson.  As the months wear on it is hard to keep up the momentum, but we keep going.  Some congregations are meeting again with restrictions on the number of people attending etc.

I missed swimming.  When we got back swimming pools were closed.  Eventually pools were allowed to open with a lot of restrictions, but the neighborhood pool we go to was closed for repairs.  It opened while we were at scout camp in July.  Once it opened, you had to sign up for a reservation with a limited number of people and households per time slot.  After that we swam every day.  It was so very nice.  We hadn't been swimming in Italy except for the kayaking trip in November and swimming at the beach is a completely different experience.

I missed being able to try on clothes in stores.  You could shop, but you couldn't try on clothes so you could buy them, take them home to try on and then return them.  So annoying.  We might have tried on clothes in the car after we bought them to save the potential trip back to the store.  My girl grew and all of a sudden needed a bunch of new clothes and shoes.  At least you could try on shoes if you could find them.

I missed eating in restaurants.  At first most restaurants were closed, then they could open up for take out only.  John likes to eat out so we would pick up food for lunch and eat in his office.  The rules are different county by county.  On my birthday restaurants in Santa Cruz had just opened for indoor dining with restrictions so we went for a lovely family dinner on the wharf.  It felt great to be out, but you could tell that some people were still trying to figure out how to make it all work.  A week later outdoor dining was allowed in our county.  Tables popped up on sidewalks and parking lots became outdoor dining patios.  The main street through our downtown area closed so that restaurants could have more room for tables outside.  There were such differences of opinion about that.  Some people said they would definitely stay away while others welcomed the openings.  I've heard that parks in San Jose may be opening for businesses to operate outdoors.  Interesting.  It may work for awhile, but winter will come eventually.

It wasn't all missed opportunities.  There were so many things I enjoyed about being back.  Some of them are pretty mundane.  I loved the convenience of life.  I could drive anywhere I wanted.  I could go to Target and buy almost anything I wanted.  For the rest there were other stores I already knew and mail order that was delivered right to the door without any hassle.  I could see friends and family.  I met with a few friends and spent a lot of time with family.  That was the best part.  I had missed everyone while I was gone.  Phone calls help and video calls are even better, but it isn't a substitute for real interaction and time just hanging out together.

I also enjoyed the time we spent outdoors on walks, camping, at the beach, and swimming at the pool.  In the city you can go outside, but it is all stone and pavement, a true concrete jungle.  You really appreciate the bits of green that show up here and there.

Sunrise view from the backyard.

Manzanita in the common spaces

Lake of the woods, Wyoming

Coming to the end of the summer, the lock down in Italy seems to have worked for now.  New cases are way down to a few hundred per day for the whole country.  That is excellent compared to the 5-6 thousand per day at the peak in March.  Rome is starting to open up again slowly and kids will be going to school.  No one wants to go back to the way things were in March.  One article I read mentioned that in a country known for chaos and corruption, everyone, including the Italians, was surprised that the lock down rules were followed as well as they were.  When it comes to their health, Italians don't mess around.  I hope things stay good.  I don't want another lock down like the spring.  

In the US at that time New York was the hot spot for the country.  Now they are doing better, but Florida, Texas, Arizona, and Southern California are having a hard time.  In the Bay Area we are doing better than some, worse than others.  In the last few weeks cases have spiked, but it is unclear what the real story is since the state reporting system is having troubles.

We are heading back to Italy soon.  We will enter Europe through Ireland and self quarantine there.  We loved Ireland last year and hope to have a great trip.  It will be different because we will be staying in the country, only a few days in Dublin this year.  Are we going home or leaving home?  I'm not sure, but I am glad to be going back.  It is always a bit sad to leave the family.  It was wonderful to have so much time to stay with them, but I'm not ready to be done with Europe quite yet.