Since today is Good Friday, and knowing that a lot of places (and pubs) would be closed, we had planned to head north to County Louth, at least to say we'd been to the native county of my great, great grandfather, Peter Casey, who was born in Dunleer, in County Lough in 1807. So after catching a nice little breakfast at a nearby cafe, we checked out of our hotel and caught a city bus to the airport, north of Dublin. All the advice that we'd read and heard told us to avoid driving in Dublin City, so our plan all along was to do just that, and then pick up a rental car when we were leaving Dublin.
We got our little Nissan from Dan Dooley Car Rental, and pulled out of the Dan Dooley lot, driving on the left side of the road. This annoying beeping sound started up immediately, and I could not figure out where it was coming from. All I knew was that it wasn't supposed to do that, and that I would be postal if I had to listen to it very long. So I decided to pull off to the left (passenger's side) and into a parking lot to figure out what was causing the obnoxious beeping noise. Just then Bev yelled, "Watch out!" I immediately hit the brakes, avoiding being broad-sided by a car in the lane to the left of me! Honest to God, I'm not sure you could have fit a credit card between that car and ours! But we got pulled into the lot, and I checked around and within five seconds figured out that the emergency brake was on. Why it was on is anyone's guess. There wasn't a hill within 50 km from us, but the brake was on. So I turned it off, we got back out on the road, and headed north for our hotel, the Carrickdale Hotel about an hour or less north of Dublin. The highway was a divided highway, so it was straight and the traffic moved fast, unlike many of the windy, slow roads for which Ireland is famous. We'd understood the guy at the airport who rented us our car to say that no toll was required on the road we'd be traveling, so when we saw signs of a toll road we thought they didn't pertain to us. Next thing we knew, they DID pertain to us, and we had no coins for the machine in the line we ended up in. So as the cars started to line up behind ours, we had to push the help button, and got directed to the booth to the left of ours for change. The booth to the left was unattended, so Bev had to go to the second booth to the left of us to get change. She ran back, threw the correct change in the toll booth basket and jumped back into the car. By this time, I'm feeling as threatened as a Catholic in Belfast, with probably a dozen cars lined up behind the idiot from South Dakota who obviously didn't know what the hell a toll road is!
Actually, unlike in the US, there was not a single honking of a single horn while the INCOMPETENTS finally got cleared of the toll gate. I was impressed, as I always am, of the friendliness of the Irish!
We made it to our hotel, even though our incompetence made it ugly. The Carrickdale is very spacious and very nice. This is a big tourist weekend in Ireland, because it's Easter, and Easter Monday is a national holiday. The Hotel has a very nice restaurant and a bar, as well as a health club. We found it online, and it will be suiting us just fine!
After getting settled into our hotel, we drove to Dunleer to see the town where Peter Casey was born. The drive was pretty, complete with your typical narrow, winding rural paths in the lush, green countryside that is Ireland. We found the Catholic Church, St. Brigid's Catholic Church, which was very old, but beautifully restored. This is presumably the church where Peter was baptized and raised. I doubt if he was ever a big contributor, though, since he and his wife Margaret, and their five children, had to leave there during the famine between 1842-1849 for the United States. One of those five children was William Casey, who ended up having a son, Joseph Franklin Casey, who had four daughters and four sons, including my dad, Delos William Casey.
Bev and I took some photos of St. Brigid's Catholic Church, inside and out, as well as of downtown Dunleer, such as it is. The town is very small, but there is some activity. I'd compare it to maybe Colton, South Dakota. Let's put it this way: I'm pretty sure that Peter Casey, who is buried in Iowa County, Iowa, was rolling over in his grave, wondering why we would leave the warmth and beauty of Winter Park, Florida, to travel to Dunleer, Ireland.
After a little more driving in the countryside, we returned north to our hotel, which is north of Dundalk. We'd gotten in a promotion at the hotel that included three nights for the price of two, AND a free dinner in their very nice restaurant. Knowing that it would be hard to find a place to eat on Good Friday, I'd opted for the "free" dinner on Friday night. It was really, really good. We both had the complimentary 4-course Cajun salmon dinners and topped them off with desserts to die for. Hardly a Good Friday sacrifice! This will truly be Good Friday that we won't soon forget!
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