Cork, Cork, Cork.

So, I was sitting here listening to my Irish Drinking Songs cd and thinking of what to post about.  I was also considering St. Paddy's Day coming right up and my shopping list for my traditional St. Paddy's meal. And this week I have gone ahead and plunked down the $$ for the ancestry.com software to be able to print up loads of different charts and such.  You may find it hard to believe that all these things are related, because I sure did!

I have distant ancestors from several different branches of my family tree from County Cork.  I didn't know a damn thing about County Cork so I looked online and found that it is, at least according to the County Cork's own website, the largest county in all of Ireland.

Here is Ireland:

County Cork is the highlighted county below:

Here's a close-up:

And below are some beautiful photos of County Cork:

This one is looking up at Castle Blarney

And this is up above looking down on same Castle Blarney, obviously at different times of year.

And we all know what the Blarney Castle is famous for, don't we?

The Blarney Stone!  And the kissing of the stone!

Now, who wouldn't want to go get hung over the side of the wall upside down to kiss a stone that millions of other lips have touched?

I am using the information I am finding on ancestry.com to plan a trip, possibly next summer, to Ireland and Scotland.  I don't know exactly what I hope to find, but the question of why on earth would anyone ever leave such a lovely place keeps springing to mind.

The Great Potato famine was in 1845 - 1852 and Ireland lost 25% of its population due to starvation and emigration.  Many of the ancestors I am looking up left Ireland 100 years before this.  So I researched a bit and found there was a previous famine in 1740-1741 due to some horrible weather and bad crop harvest.  If my 7th great-grandparents could stick it out through this, why would they leave approx. 10 years later?

Back to this coming St. Patrick's Day!  What will you be doing?  Will you be wearing the green?  Do you make Irish Soda Bread?  Drink green beer?

I wear loads of green and several Irish pins.  I will drink Irish Breakfast tea.  Then I will make a corned beef, cabbage, carrot and turnip dinner.  I will drink Irish beer.  Harp is my favorite.

I will either make some Soda Bread or some gingerbread.

Have a great time celebrating your Irish heritage if you have it!