Greetings From The Emerald Isle

It is early Saturday morning in Athlone (Friday night PDT) and we are up (some of us) for another busy day. We arrived on Thursday morning sans sleep :) and have been going full tilt since. Below is a picture of the Hodson Bay Hotel. It is a 4 star which, I have discovered, must be a different rating system from what I am used to. They were unable to accomodate us when we arrived at noon. But they did take our luggage off our hands. When we came back at half three (3:30 for you Yanks), it took a half hour to check us in. The room is nice, we have discovered how to plug in and recharge US electronics, but at least two of us wish the bathrooms had a vent :) :) Too much steam, etc. :) :) Thumbs up on the "full Irish breakfast" which comes with the room. Thumbs wiggle waggle on the Irish dinner. I liked the sound of "fresh burger" which turned out to be a black deposit that tasted like meat loaf cooked at 400 and left in an hour too long. Once you got through the crust (no small feat) the center was ok. The Irish still haven't given up on potatoes. For dinner, both mashed (3 scoops) and roasted (6 medium sized) come standard.

We met with the folks who operate the Westmeath Genealogical Society. They are located in Moate and control all genealogy records for the county of Westmeath. They were very helpful (for a tidy sum) and gave us great information on the John Keena and Ellen Doyle families. John and Ellen and their children immigrated to Boston in the early part of the last century. Their daugher Helen was Rusty's mother (she died of a ruptured appendix when Rusty was an infant). The Doyles lived on Blackberry Lane in College Lands (a neighborhood in Athlone). A very helpful (brilliant, really) librarian at the Athlone public library directed us to the area, and a portion of Blackberry Lane still exists as a path. It was quite the adventure looking for an unmarked path off a busy street with traffic coming at you on the wrong side of the road!! Mom had to sit in the back seat :) Below is a picture of the genealogists. As you can tell from the picture, we had just paid them. Below that is St. Mary's Church, where John and Ellen were married in 1879. It is beautiful. The pictures speak for themselves