Mountains of Ireland and the Lovely Cheese

In the year 1986, ages sixteen and twelve, my daughter and son were privileged to cross the seas to visit the Old Country and the Irish grandparents in Dublin.

Two weeks before their bon voyage, my former husband's brother, Brian, sat at my dinner table one evening here in Georgia, and we discussed the upcoming trip--two American kids in Ireland for the first time.

"I'll take them around to see the sights," he promised, "I'll take care of them and see that they have a good time."

The trip went well--airports were easier then--and touch down at Shannon was a breeze. They were soon whisked off in finest fettle to the Grandparents' house, with "lovely cheese" awaiting them for dinner (and for every meal while there! Every meal, Maya says. One month. Every meal. Lovely.)

Named after said Uncle Brian, my son had his hopes built up to see the "mountains" of Ireland which the amusing Uncle B. promised to show my children as they set out for a day of sightseeing.

"They're quite lovely," he assured them.

Expecting them to be at least as lovely as Irish cheese, and being accustomed from their puppy days to the Great Smokies and to the beautiful Appalachian ranges, Maya and Brian kept waiting for the lovely mountains of Ireland to appear with much splendor as they tootled along in Uncle Brian's sedan (pic shows son Brian as red speck on top.)

Well eventually, jovial Uncle Brian had a good belly laugh as he explained that the hills were the "mountains" and alas, were the only mountains they'd be seeing while upon the merry Green Isle.

You'd have thought the Blarney Stone itself had been hoisted upon my two mountain-loving children, so it was with some misgivings that they set their sights on the next interesting adventure-of-the-day. Plus, they were in his clutches--what else could they do?

"We'll go shopping in the city," Uncle Brian said. Oh yeah.

It was six months after they returned to me that they told me about their shopping spree that day--not in Dublin, as I had been led by one and all to assume--but in sniper-protected, wall-and-barbed-wire-surrounded Belfast.

Somehow the bubble bath they'd brought me as a souvenir never smelled as sweet again after I learned where it had been purchased while soldiered guns followed my children's suspicious looking noggins down the merchantile streets of armed Belfast.

(You've got to keep close watch on those sixteen-year-old girls, and as for twelve-year-old boys--don't even go there.)

"WHY did you have to go THERE?" I had to ask, knowing that my father's ancestors haled from County Antrim, Ulster and thereabouts, so who was I to talk?

"But Mom, nothing happened," they reminded me during Mom's now-fabled Belfast Meltdown. Belfast may be in my DNA, but lovely kids don't grow on trees. 

And so I could do nothing but hug them and make a mental note to never completely trust  Blarney Stone Brian again. 

Fortunately the situation in Belfast has improved last I heard, and much bubble bath is safely purchased each day with no guns involved.

The worldwide web has brought a lot of business to Eire, as have new industries, and things have been looking up for some time.

Trinity College still stands as you may see in pic 1 or 5 (please pardon my several edits--Gather keeps changing their order!), and the Blarney Stone is yet available for all your tall tale needs (no pic, sorry...it's really a state of mind anyway!)

2006: Tomorrow is my granddaughter Violet's first birthday party, as some of you are aware, and the 1986 Irish grandmother is visiting Georgia so she'll be in attendance and in party mode for little Miss Violet. It's twenty years later, and GranDad has been gone a while now.

But Ireland and America continue their longstanding exchange program as with so many other families' ancestries--and tomorrow we will embrace our roots with love and appreciation, for we are all "in this" together--and you've never really needed St. Patrick's Day to be Irish at heart, in spite of what they tell you.

Sure, and you know we'll be kissin' the birthday baby but please--not the Blarney Stone!