And a Corking good time was had by all

One of the old-timey cliche's of British children's literature was, "And a corking good time was had by all at the seaside, and home in time for iced buns and hot cocoa" Despite being decades out of fashion this is not a bad description of our expedition to Cork, Ireland--except of course we spent five nights away, not just a summer afternoon. So it wasn't buns, but multiple meals and treats, Oh, yes and it wasn't cocoa, it was very much 21st century hot chocolate, rich, thick and creamy--much better than the cocoa of my youth.

There was bags of children's English literature before the modern Harry Potter craze, and both of us were brought up on it. It was our duty to read Afrikaans novels from time to time growing up ("Trompie" wasn't bad), but the English schoolboy and schoolgirl tales we thrived on were sheer joy.

A few weeks ago the Mission President and Richard decided together that it would be a good idea for the Helps' to attend the next All-Ireland Zone Conference. We started our preparations early, and went into the office early and stayed late each day, trying to get a little "ahead" (ho, ho, ho) so that we could take three days "off".  We got through a mountain of work, but are very much aware that the mountain has renewed itself, and patiently awaits us when we return to the office (early, of course) on Monday morning. Enough of the quotes and parentheses already. We shall endeavor to punctuate the rest of this post with simple commas, unless it is "absolutely! necessary!!" to use something else..

We left the office an hour early on Tuesday afternoon, and drove down to Stranraer, where we slept prior to taking the early morning ferry across the Irish Sea to Belfast. From the Belfast ferry terminal we drove more or less straight to the hotel we had booked in Dublin, where we met up with the Williams', another senior couple, early in the afternoon. The hotel greeted us joyfully with the news that our friends had already arrived and they had put us into adjacent rooms, which made us feel very relaxed about Irish privacy laws. We all went out together into the city of Dublin for the afternoon and had a mid-afternoon meal together as soon as we realized that the Williams had skipped lunch. Our own lunch had been somewhat scrappy, so we were delighted to have something to eat. We went to a pub they recommended and were lucky enough to get there in time to order from their lunch menu. i.e. before 4 pm. As far as we can tell the lunch menu is identical to the dinner-time menu. Only the prices have been changed to encourage people to come in early.

Thursday morning we headed off to Zone Conference, which ran from 9:30 am to 4:30 p.m. Our intent was to bounce out of there and head off to Cork. It's a three hour drive from Dublin to the accommodation we had booked there. We would then spend Friday wandering around Cork, absorbing scenery and hopefully some information about long-lost ancestors, Saturday returning to Belfast in time to hop onto the 7:30 pm ferry, sleep over again in Stranraer, and head home to Edinburgh on Sunday, stopping for church on the way.

Okay. You've made it through the introduction/exposition of this blog post. Now let the fun begin.

STRANRAER.  We have become regulars at the hotel where we stay in this little seaside town. We generally get the same room--not a room really, but a flat with a bedroom, a bathroom, a good-sized living room, and an adequately equipped kitchen with a fridge, stove, oven, microwave, toaster and enough eating and cooking utensils that one could prepare and eat a simple meal. We are not sure exactly what had gone wrong this time, but the delightful and friendly woman who usually greets us when we arrive was not there. Instead, the outer door was open and the inner door was locked with a phone number posted on it.  We phoned the number and the owner/manager greeted us in a most friendly fashion. Did we perchance remember the door code from last time? No? Okay, he would give it to us again. We would find our room key on the counter, would we let ourselves in? Oh, and while we were about it, would we mind just taking the key to Ireland with us so we could let ourselves in again when we returned? Don't lose it, mind! On second thoughts, if we preferred we could just leave the key on the counter when we left and pick it up again on Saturday.  We were quite relieved when we returned on Saturday to discover the flat had been serviced in the meantime!

THE FERRY
Travelling on Stena-line is a pleasure. They have these two large, "super-fast" ferries and the facilities are clean and shiny and wonderful. We pay an extra few pounds for the privilege of being one of the first cars to board and to leave. This also gives us access to the "plus" lounge, with snacks and beverages on tap. Even without paying a premium the ferry is pretty first class, with comfortable seats and free movies. Of course, this week one of the ferries is out for servicing, so they brought in an older, smaller, shabbier vessel, which happened to get tossed about somewhat by the wind and choppy seas during the trip to Ireland. It was still fun to be on the water, but one had to cling to railings or whatever if one wished to move about on board. Staying seated felt pretty safe though. Both of our trips were on this older vessel. It was fine and did have a premium lounge area but was a little disappointing after having traveled on the new ferries. One of the privileges of the premium lounge is computer working areas so Richard was able to log onto the free but slow wifi and deal with a few urgent office emails. The early morning snacks were pleasant and provided a nice breakfast. It was way too early to eat when we left our hotel but by about 8am on the ocean it was much more appealing. On the other hand, the hot chocolate from the hot drink dispenser in the plus lounge was simply superb.

THISTLING
We did some "thistling" on the way down to Dublin. It may need a different name in Ireland, but we think of it as thistling, so when we spotted a brown tourist sign to Brontë Homelands we swerved off the motorway and went rambling through the glorious green fields of the Emerald Isle. We finally arrived at the Brontë homelands site, only to discover that all they were offering was a tour through the neighbourhood where the Brontë sisters' father had lived, which tour we had already done and enjoyed thoroughly on our way to the starting point. So we turned around and enjoyed the scenery again all the way back to the main road. We have seen and loved the patchwork fields of these islands and have tried to photograph them in a way that captures the spirit of the British and Irish countryside.

Patchwork fields

Brontë:  Heathcliff and Cathy

We find it generally requires the interpretation of the imagination to fill in the sense of home and green happiness in the rolling fields and hedgerows with sheep and cows grazing peacefully and a people busy with their pleasant lives; we did our best with the photograph but it falls short of what the eye achieves.

We followed our Sat-Nav (aka GPS) back to the main road and she took us through scenic single-track roads and eventually back onto the motorway. I (Richard) used to be intimidated by single-track roads but we have realized that if a car does come the other way towards you, there is usually a farm gateway or something that one of you can pull into while the other vehicle skims past. I have become more comfortable with the width of the car down to a couple of inches and also now know how to make the mirrors fold in when desired, which can provide a valuable four inches extra on each side of the car.

Dublin spire

DUBLIN
Dublin is a big city with lots of people and some interesting sights. One of the most striking is the modernist spire in O'Connell Street. The streets are filled with vendors and things to look at--and tourists, of course. We bought some fruit and veg at very cheap prices and were heading for lunch when Richard spotted Boojums when he glanced  down a long narrow alley to the next street. This was a required destination. One serious issue in the mission (from an American perspective) is the lack of Mexican food. Boojums in Ireland is known to be the one chain that fills that need. So, having spotted a Boojums it was obligatory that we should investigate, dragging along the Williams, who were a little puzzled by this since their heritage is English and Australian, not American. Boojums does indeed sell Mexican food, but standing in line and seeing, smelling and generally checking out the place we realized that they would not survive a week if they had the competition that exists in, say, Provo. So we quietly left and went with the Williams to a ghoul-themed pub for an excellent lunch of good pub-grub. We are very glad we have been to Boojums and also glad we didn't eat there.

ZONE CONFERENCE
It is always a delight to mingle with the senior and young missionaries, and to hear President Macdonald talk. It is quite evident how much he loves the mission work, the gospel, all the missionaries and especially the Savior. Zone Conference always becomes a busy episode of catching up with young missionaries, checking on their health, solving financial, or housing, or transport issues, delivering packages to them and picking up a few things to carry back to Edinburgh, and just generally feeling their enthusiasm and their love for sharing their testimonies with all they meet. As we wrapped up conference we ended up giving some missionaries a ride across town to meet with some other missionaries and then giving those missionaries a ride to a different part of town for an appointment. As a result it was quite late when we set out on our three-hour drive to our hotel in Cork, which painfully became a four-hour drive, thanks to an horrendous traffic jam on the motorway out of Dublin. As a result our drive down to Cork was a tunnel of darkness pierced by the car headlights. However the roads were excellent and dry and we travelled at the speed limit almost all the way, once we got beyond Dublin. And we made up for the dark drive with a lovely daylight, sightseeing trip on the way back, so all was well.

A DIFFERENT ACCENT
We have just about mastered the art of deciphering what the Scottish people may be saying to us, so now we go off to Ireland, where we find ourselves smiling politely while streams of gibberish assail (I cannot say assault - it is a beautiful accent, even while we fail to understand at least half of what is being said.) our willing ears. In the midst of all this, I (Louise) had a humbling experience. After all, I speak clearly and anyone in the world can understand me, right? So the host of our B&B in Cork asked us about the surnames of the family we were searching for.
"Dunn" I said, clearly and forthrightly.
"What?" quoth he.
"Dunn" I repeated.
He shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said, "try again."
"Dunn. D-U-N-N."
"Oh, Din," he responded.
This conversation will continue under another heading.

THE IRISH AND THEIR CURIOUS PARKING HABITS
You are not going to believe this, but it's true, anyway.

Busy petrol station? No! Everyone is inside eating and shopping

Along the Irish motorways there are fuel stops, with multiple petrol/diesel/gasoline pumps, right next to either a convenience store or food court, with rest rooms and an adjacent parking lot. The closest parking to the store, however, is at the fuel pumps, and so people choose to park there. Seriously! They will drive their cars up to the pump, as if to refuel, then leave their car there while they go inside and have lunch or whatever. The fact that other people might want to use that spot so that they can refuel their cars seems to be totally irrelevant. The next nearest parking spot may be as much as fifty yards away and that is much too far to walk. It is quite maddening, as lines form for the remaining pumps, and you just have to hope that one of the people in line ahead of you does not choose to go shopping instead of refueling. All too often you are disappointed. We saw a particularly egregious case yesterday. A man was in line for a fuel pump. The person ahead of him "parked" so he tried to wiggle over to the next pump over. While he was doing this, two women in an Audi swooped into the place he was trying to maneuver into, hopped out of their car without a glance behind them, and went inside to buy themselves some coffee.

THE IRISH AND THEIR CURIOUS KINDNESS TO STRANGERS
With a little time to spare we followed our GPS unit to an interesting looking park in Cork. We got to the gate and a man dashed out of a sort of a guard post to intercept us. We explained that we wanted to visit the park and he explained to us that the park had been closed some time before (and turned into a developmental center for children with various psychological and other problems), and his job was to guard the gate. He then chatted to us about everything under the sun, especially all the places he had visited and hoped to visit in the US, and then invited us to drive through and look at the place.

We said we would drive down and come right back again. "No rush" he said, inviting us to take all the time we wanted to explore a little. So we dawdled through the park, admired the fields, the statue of a Celtic knot, did a U-turn around the Virgin Mary in the parking lot and dawdled out again, stopping to briefly say goodbye to the gate-guard.

Talking of the Virgin Mary, the Irish, or at least Irish Catholics, have their religion and its history and artifacts as much a part of their environment as we do in Utah. People hurrying to catch the bus in downtown Salt Lake don't even see the Temple spires rising above the buildings and I don't think the Irish pay any more attention to their many statues, cathedrals and artifacts. However, tourists notice them. Here are two statues we saw, one in the park in Cork, and one on the Cobh seafront.

Both of these statues were well maintained and cared for, just as our LDS heritage statues are well maintained.

DRIVING IN IRELAND
is just like driving in the US, only on the other side of the road. People speed and honk and tailgate and cut you off, and generally made us feel quite homesick. We leave you to guess whether we were homesick for Scotland or Utah.

COBH
We felt we needed to add to our collection of seaside villages so we semi-randomly picked Cobh on the map. and set off joyously. It was a great choice. A cheerful, bustling holiday spot, with a seafront promenade. Please note the flowers in February; we did not mind a bit!

Local sports hero

The Titanic museum

Promenade

This fellow in his bathtub with a paper boat is called the Navigator

Gaily decorated pole with Cathedral in the background

The town used to be called Cove, but then it was changed to Queenstown in honour of Queen Victoria. With independence the Irish switched back to Cove but changed the spelling to the Irish "Cobh", just to show them! (still pronounced Cove though). We wandered along the promenade, found some Irish Cheese, Irish butter and Irish soda-bread and had an informal picnic at a beach a couple of miles away.

Cobh is on Great Island and guarding the bridge to the island is this tower with an Irish flag and a golden tree on top of it. There just had to be a story to go with something so iconic, so we took a picture. Some Internet research revealed the story and it turned out to be a vanity project. A wealthy couple bought the tower and renovated it into a luxury home. They commissioned an artist to create a memorable piece symbolizing something abstract and so they have a gold plated tree on the roof of their tower. Very striking!


FAMILY HISTORY AND CORK
Cork is a big city. Both of us have ancestors who were born there, and we wanted to go there, hoping to find some trace of these two girls and their forebears, one born in 1798 and one between 1823 and 1827. Frankly, we were not especially hopeful about the latter, Rosanna Dunn, as there were lots of Rosanna or Rosina Dunn's born in Cork during that time period, and her parents, Thomas Dunn and Mary Lane, do not have uncommon names. And records of the period are sparse.

The other one, Eliza Morton, married William Henry Peddie in Stirling in 1818. Her father is listed as Col. David Morton on her marriage record and Capt George Mellefont Morton of the 4th Dragoon Guards on her death record. She is listed as Eliza Morton on her marriage record, but Eliza Mellefont Morton on subsequent records and Eliza Mellefont Peddie on her gravestone.  We found a possible explanation for all this, but no proof. What we needed was a reason for George Waters Mellefont to be using the name Morton. Now we were actually in Cork - and we had put some effort into being in Cork on a weekday, when public records offices would be open - but we felt pretty lost. We had no idea where to start looking, so we prayed most earnestly that if the information were out there, the Lord would help us to find it. Then we decided to start at the Cork Public Library. Once in the library we found our way to a tiny section on the top floor, the local history section, where a worker listened to us, then grabbed two books out of a bookcase. One of them, "The Malenfants", held the information that George Waters Mellenfont (the son of Col. David Mellefont) had been married but had then had a liaison with another woman. He used the name "Morton" for his extra-marital relationship and had two daughters with her, one named Eliza. The dates for that Eliza don't work, but we are convinced we have the right family and will now be able to push the genealogy back a couple of generations, at least on that line. So genealogically the trip was a success. Finding reliable information about children born out of wedlock in the 1700's is nearly impossible, so finding a well-researched book was a minor miracle.

StenaLine Terminal

JOURNEYING HOME
After days on the road we were pleased to amble home on a 5 hour drive back to Belfast. The weather was lovely, the scenery was great and we waved to the Cabhan/Cavan road-sign near Dublin as we passed, but did not take that off-ramp. We did follow the scenic coastal route up north, enjoying the seafronts and admiring dry-stone rock walls. We were pleased to be greeted by the seahorse at the entrance to the StenaLine terminal complex.
Our ferry was on time, the food in the lounge was good and we were happy to roll into our beds at about 11pm in Stranraer. The next day was another pleasant drive, interrupted by a stopover for church in Pollok, and finally back to our own flat in Edinburgh, where we quickly unpacked and then took a nap!