In the September of 2006, I rendered a small service to an elderly US Citizen. I was leaning on the farm-gate with a straw in my mouth when a people-carrier containing a family of USCs came up the lane a little hesitantly. They, six adult sibs and their mother, were on an Irish roots tour and believed that their people might have been buried hereabouts before the family upstakes and left for America in ca. 1880. Their data was better than mine on the genealogy; but I knew where to park their bus and for good measure said that the matriarch, or any of the party, was welcome to use the 'bathroom' when they came down the hill after their historical explorations. And it was so. That Christmas I was included in her Holiday Round-Robin and the following Christmas the holiday RR included a bit of teasing (I paraphrase) . . . that Bob - he's been a better son to me than [not all of ] my sons. All good fun.
Over the next twenty (20!) years, each one of the adult children from the '06 people-carrier has come by for tea, or lunch, or both, or a pee, bringing their own children; and the younger generation have occasionally come visit on their own as they make their separate pilgrimages to The Ould Country. On one memorable occasion Jim was on a coming-of-age road trip with Jim Jnr. Their visit coincided with the unfortunate death of one of our ewes. We were chatting in the yard after their arrival when the truck from "the fallen animal service" backed into the yard. Oh maybe we can help? offered Jim because that's how the family was r'ared. As the back-gate of the truck clanged to earth, we were assailed by a wall of noisesome smell, a buZZZing cloud of flies & the enormously bloated carcass, legs pointing every which way, of a not too recently dead cow. The Jims retired as gracefully as two city-boys could when Mother Nature presents her more piquant parts. As so often, a cup of tea revived them a short while later.
Most unexpectedly, I encountered my neighbour below - much further up the hill than he is usually to be found. As we walked down together he confessed that, working from home behind a tight hedge on the county road he got to hear A Lot of quite indiscreet gossip. Why, just that afternoon a large blue Audi had stopped on the road and the driver had got out to have big chat with a pedestrian who was a) wearing a cowboy hat and b) pulling a small yappy-dog. You've been here longer than me, said Neighbour, do you know who the doggone wannabee cowboy might be? I ran though some incorrect suggestions and we left it there. But I did admit to knowing who was driving a rented blue Audi that afternoon.
Thursday noontime, after a cup of tea in the morning with a possible 5th cousin, Dan rocked up ready to roll up some heathery miles to become the first of his generation to pass St Fursey's Altar to the Summit >!taRAAA!< of our Cnoc. And it was so; && we detoured South to visit the Holy Year Cross; && we descended on a different route to make a satisfying 3 ↩ mile x ↗1,000↘ ft circular yomp of it . . . with plenty of time to pause <puf> <puf> <puf> to admire the view; natter with another couple of walkers at the summit; natter to each other about this and that.
On the way down Dan threw out: Oh I almost forgot: as I left you after lunch on Tuesday, I had to go slow because of a fellow walking a dog and, as we do, I rolled down the window to say excuse me and how d'ye do. And (of course) I introduced myself and it turns out we share a surname. Wait. Stop, I said, curtly interrupting him, did your new relative have a cowboy hat and a yappy dog? Of course he did. Because Ireland and its entire diaspora have only 4 degrees of separation it is An Domhan Beag [small world] as The Boy found out in Poland two weeks ago. Dan's new Rellie also shared cell phone numbers for some other potential family members across three counties. Doubtless there will be some comparing of DNA bases at ancestry.com. The Cousins and The Summit:
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