Our Ireland Tour; Galway, Cliffs of Moher, Limerick

When we arrived in Galway, the thing that amazed us most was how fast the Corrib River was flowing! 

We only had a short stay here but walked around some of the streets.

The Spanish Gate is a remnant of the old city wall built to protect the docks from invaders...

And of course I had to stop and admire a potted garden in my favourite colour! 😀


By the time we got to the famous Cliffs of Moher, the not so good weather had arrived. The 680 ft high Cliffs  were a bit shrouded in mist. But nonetheless, very impressive! 

Luckily I had a folding umbrella in my handbag! 


I admitted defeat and walked back to the visitor centre to wait for DH who was determined to get more photos. After about 20 mins he arrived at the visitor centre thus...

By then it was almost time to get back on the bus...and wouldn’t you know it? The weather actually cleared didn’t it? So DH dashed up to the lookout to get some photos...

So there you go, some more of the Cliffs of Moher showing! 👍

And our overnight stop that night was Limerick, a lovely city on the Shannon River. 

The views from our hotel window. 

As you can see the rainy weather followed us from the Cliffs of Moher. 

That night was very special as I met a distant cousin whom I’d found about 12 months ago via an Ancestry.com.au DNA test. He and his wife drove from their home 1 1/2 hours away from Limerick to meet us. It was a wonderful meeting and we chatted away for quite a while. Jeremiah’s great great grandmother and my great great grandfather were brother and sister. The plan for the future research is that I will use Australian records to find out more details about my Murphy ancestor for Jeremiah. The Irish family have very little about my gg grandfather except that he went to Australia with an O’Herlihy cousin. 

A bit about our Sydney Trip...

We crammed a fair bit into our week, which suggests a series of posts doesn't it? But not in chronological order as I'm just 'itching' to write a post about what was the highlight of our trip...the day I met my 'new' cousins and their respective spouses. My cousin Lucy hosted a lunch at her home.

So, with the introductions over we all sat down. 

I had a little jewellery pouch in my handbag containing some special items that I brought with me from Brisbane. My plan was that I would show the contents to my cousins after we had had lunch. But I was so eager to show them these items that within half an hour I had taken them out of the pouch and unwrapped the tissue paper parcel...

Here are some close up photos of the items. I'd taken the photos at home.

Nothing special perhaps at first glance, except these had  belonged to my Sicilian grandmother. She had died in the early 1900s when my father was very young, and my mother had found these items in my father's belongings after he died. 

The rings show that my grandmother ( my cousins' great grandmother) was a woman with large hands/fingers. The rings are also very thin...from wear.

The ring resting on my right thumb has always been my favourite piece of Nonna's jewellery.

I wore it at my first wedding as my 'something old' ( probably over 100 years old in the 1970s) as did both my daughters. It's that ring on my middle finger, right hand in the next photo. ( even on my middle finger it was still too big and kept slipping around my finger! Lol)

Ann, my cousin's wife, also took photos of Lucy and I checking out the earrings and rings...

Last month I had made the decision that I would keep that one ring and give the other items to my cousins...I just knew it was the right thing to do and I know the items will be treasured. 

After that we all sat down to a delicious lunch...my cousin Lucy and her husband put on quite a spread! 

During the afternoon we checked out our Ancestry.com.au family trees...Frank and Lucy on a laptop and me with my well travelled iPad. 

We also looked at family photos...I had missed out on seeing my cousins and their siblings grow up so it was wonderful to see all those photos.

No longer strangers...we all felt so comfortable in each other's company; as though we'd known each other all our lives.

And my wonderful and generous cousins also gave me some ID documents that had belonged to their uncle...another nephew of my father's. I 'see my father' when he was a young man in these photos...very special.

What a wonderful day! .